Disney’s Damsels; The Growth of the Women of Disney
Growing up, I was always fascinated with Disney and its magical methods of storytelling, from the crazy animation to the vibrant characters that captivated us with every line. And how can we not fall in love with the many, many songs? One of the things that makes Disney so great is the catchy music numbers, specifically designed to get stuck in our heads forever (muahahahaha). Not that I’m complaining. Even as I’m typing this, Hakuna Matata is playing in my head, on loop. Belting out the songs at the top of your lungs is always a great way to pass the time, and it never gets old, no matter how old you are. Yes, I still do it. And if you’re as crazy about Disney as I am, so do you.
All it took was a man and his mouse to get the ball rolling, to create this massive empire that has touched the lives of millions worldwide.
But let’s do a little more in-depth analysis. What are the stories being told? How would they impact the children growing up watching these movies? What messages are being spread, and how are the characters, particularly the female characters, being portrayed?
Media, in the form of film, has a substantial role in shaping and strengthening the opinions of those who follow it, and also mirrors the existing beliefs and social norms. Each era has its own views on gender norms, and those views inevitably get reflected in films. But as times change, these views evolve, and gender boundaries get pushed, opening up new worlds of possibilities to be explored. The social expectations and standards for female roles is something that is ever-changing, and is very much exhibited in the medium of film.
Keeping that in mind, let’s talk about a few Disney movies through the ages, and how the role of the female protagonist has changed, based on the world’s view of women.
Let’s start out with a few classics. What do Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora all have in common? What comes to mind? Yup. They’re all damsels in distress. Women who couldn’t stand up for themselves, and needed a man to save them, their only liberation being marriage. Not surprising, as these films were all released in the early to mid-twentieth century, at a time when a woman’s life was restricted to roles of servitude, living to raise children and take care of their husbands. Independence was out of the question.
In the case of Snow White, we see a young and timid girl, who, after almost being killed by her stepmother for being “the fairest of them all”, runs away into the forest. In the dead of the night, tree trunks look like twisted faces, and our young protagonist, frightened by everything around her, does what any brave heroine of the ages would do. She faints.
When she discovers the cottage of the Dwarfs, she wastes no time in cleaning it, and instantly takes on the role of a caretaker to these messy men, cooking for them, and tidying up after them. It doesn’t faze her in the slightest. While it’s completely respectable to be a homemaker, of course, society in the era of Snow White viewed women as just that, nothing more. The rest of the movie gets lost in cheerful songs and villain plots, and ends with your typical defeat of the bad guy (defeated by men, of course. Our heroine has conveniently bitten a poisonous apple. Don’t accept food from strangers, kids). It ends with the prince whisking away Snow White to her happily ever after (after finding her corpse in the woods and kissing it, of course. All in a day’s work). Having been released in the late thirties, this film accurately depicts the role a woman was expected to take on. She was meant to do the cooking and the cleaning. The thought of a woman working outside of the home was absurd, and her life revolved around taking care of the children and her husband. The men were meant to go out and be the bread-winners, and the women had to stay at home.
Similarly, Cinderella, released in the fifties, is the original rags-to-riches story. We could’ve seen the tale of a hardworking woman standing up to her tormentors, and going out and making a name for herself in an era where women were slowly starting to seek employment. Instead, we were shown the routine, domestic life of a protagonist whose only freedom comes from marriage. Sure, getting lost in a sea of singing mice was great, and they made for interesting side characters, but it doesn’t draw attention away from the fact that our Prince Charming fell in love after just one dance, and his foolproof plan to find her again was to have every maiden try on the shoe (also, is no one going to talk about the fact that she was the only one in the entire kingdom who had that specific shoe size?). Cinderella was made to be a servant in her own home, by her own family, and when she could’ve faced them, she didn’t. Instead, she took their crap, and she accepted it, not once questioning whether she deserved more. In the end, her happily ever after came from marrying a rich man who took her away from her life of misery. The message that this movie resonates throughout is “dreams do come true”. What about hard work? Why are we telling kids to blindly believe in something without working for it? And why the ever-loving koopa troopa is marriage seen as the ultimate goal for every woman? Just a few thoughts to jump into. Let’s move on.
As for Aurora, well, our Sleeping Beauty had a grand total of 18 lines. In her own movie. Need I say more? Aurora sure as hell didn’t.
Once again, we see a movie of a naïve young girl with the personality of a teaspoon, who falls victim to a curse, and must be awoken by “a true love’s kiss”. I really love the many eccentricities of the fairy godmothers, but could they not have thought of anything better to break the spell? It’s your classic hero-rushes-in-to-save-the-girl type situation, complete with fighting a dragon and everything.
It was a time when women were seen as helpless on their own, needing a man to do all the heavy lifting. A time when a woman couldn’t be independent, and was made to believe her job was in the house, and the house alone.
But, the times slowly began to change, and characters began to evolve, some more than others.
The late twentieth century brought with it a range of female characters who were so drastically different from anything seen before.
Even then, not all plots were utilized completely, and not all female characters were written to live up to their potential. A couple of examples I can think of are Ariel and Belle. Both are rebellious characters, who want to live life on their own terms, exploring the unknown. Both stand out in the sea of otherwise ordinary characters. We could’ve seen two stories about curious young women who go off into the world, in search of something new and exciting, making mistakes and learning from their experiences, growing into wonderful and strong role models. Instead, one gives up everything in her life, including her own goddamn voice, for a man she saw once, and the other, though shown to be brave and smart, is written to end up falling in love with her captor. Because what’s a woman without love, eh, Disney?
An example of a slightly newer classic featuring an all-round badass woman would be, you guessed it, Mulan (fellow lefty xD). At the age of just sixteen, she not only disguised herself as a man to fight the war in place of her father, she also took down the Huns using her wit, showing everyone that a woman is just as capable of kicking ass. The only thing I’m bitter about is how easily she forgave the misogynistic Li Shang. It makes you wonder whether this was Disney’s way of hinting that a woman still needed to fall in love with a man, no matter how successful or independent.
It can be seen again in Pocahontas, a film of the mid-nineties, where a strong woman, set in her beliefs, is shown to fall in love with the very vanilla John Smith. In fact, history tells a different tale, one with more gruesome facts, which involve little to no instances of John Smith. Bottom line is, she was a child, and he had over a decade on her. What could’ve been written as a beautiful friendship was turned into a soulless love story, which seems to be Disney’s special touch. Why did women need to find love to be worth anything? Why couldn’t there be a balance between love and independence?
They did get the balance right a couple of times, though. I’m talking about Tangled and The Princess and the Frog. In both cases, we see a bond strengthen over time, and it wasn’t just love at first sight.
Rapunzel is a naïve, yet badass, young woman who just wants to explore the world from which she was sheltered all her life. She does take the help of Flynn Rider, but it is never shown as her being weak and unable and having to depend on a man to set her free. Instead, it’s shown as a partnership between the sceptic and the guileless, and we come to love them and their bond. They do end up falling in love, but it was done so much better than previous counterparts.
Same goes for The Princess and the Frog. Tiana (another fellow lefty xD) is shown to be a super hardworking, no-nonsense, badass female, who’ll do anything to work towards achieving her dreams. Despite being set in a time when women were oppressed and racial tensions were high, the story was told from an entirely different perspective. They chose to go down the path of showing a strong African American female trying to work hard and make a name for herself, and I really respect them for that.
As more feminist movements began to pick up in the twenty-first century, we saw more free-spirited and independent female characters, not conforming to their given roles and instead, pushing all boundaries to stand out. Disney started to romanticize romance a little less, and focused more on the lives of our protagonists, and their missions and self-set purposes. A few examples I can think of are Moana, Merida and Elsa. All three are characters who weren’t happy with their destinies written out for them. They chose to forge their own path in the world, and live life according to their rules. They decided to rewrite their paths, standing up to those who tried to push them back in line.
What does this timeline tell us?
Disney has indeed come a long way in representing its female characters, from portraying them as docile beings who need men to save them, to rebellious entities who stop at nothing to be their own person. And as the times change further, I can’t wait to see how our progressive views get incorporated into these films. It’s a long road to get to all-round inclusion, but I’d like to believe that someday, Disney will make this happen.
Anyway, that’s all for now, folks.
Until next time.
~Sneha
