Old Disney Princess vs New Disney Princess
Within the past 20 years, new, more women empowering princess movies are being produced by Disney. The damsel in distress, in need of a man’s help has been a played-out theme in many past Disney princess movies, but a new trend in movies with a strong, self-reliant princesses are being made. As gender role norms break from their stereotypes, the old princess movie themes become less interesting- and sometimes offensive- to audiences. To spark the interest of audiences, making non-traditional movies with strong, independent princesses seemed like the most efficient way to make a profit. This brings up the question of whether Disney movies with a traditional princess would profit more or less than a non-traditional princess movie.
Let’s start by defining the difference between the traditional princess and the non-traditional princess. The older, more well-known princess movies- Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin- give the characteristics of the needy, confined to domestic duties, in search of a man to save them, and fall in love with a prince. Snow White and Cinderella are kept isolated until a man takes interest in them. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel’s actions are driven by her interest in the prince; same could be said about Jasmine in Aladdin. All of these movies share the same end goal- marriage. Treating marriage as an ultimate goal for princesses gives the idea that women should always seek for a man and be dependent on them. Princess movies that step away from this idea: Mulan, Frozen, Moana, Brave, and Tangled, portray girls/women as brave, strong, and capable of solving their own problems without the help of men. Mulan, Moana, and Brave show girls proving to have the same physical capability and warrior-like abilities as men and are able to compete with-or even be better than them. Tangled and Frozen show princesses coming to the rescue for the main male characters. Movies with an adventurous princess, who is able to defend herself, is becoming a topic more people are taking an interest to; it would be stupid of Disney to stop making movies like this.
Of the Disney movies previously stated, the average profit for movies with an empowering female lead is $172.4 million-after theater’s 50% cuts. Mulan made a profit of $82 million with a production budget of $70 million. Brave profited $85 million off a production budget of $185 million and a worldwide profit of $540 million. Tangled had the largest production cost of $260 million and a worldwide profit of $591 million; the movie took in a profit of $35.5 million. Moana and Frozen shared a production budget of $150 million, however Moana had a $643 million worldwide gross and profited $171.5 million while Frozen grossed a $1.276 billion world wide and profiting $488 million. The drastic difference in profit of these two movies with the same production budget is due to the popularity of the movie. The soundtrack to Frozen was more well liked by audiences and Moana was set in a place with less known culture which could have caused people to be hesitant to see the movie.
The traditional princess movies mentioned earlier averaged a profit of $105 million after theater’s take their half. Aladdin profited the most with $224 million and a production cost of $28 million and a $504 million worldwide gross. The largest production budget goes to The Little Mermaid which grossed $211 million worldwide and profited $65.5 million. Snow White made a profit of $90 million off a worldwide gross of $185 million and a production cost of $1.5 million. The lowest profit comes from Cinderella with only $43.6 million off a production budget of $2.9 million and a worldwide gross of $93 million.
Another way to compare the profit of these movies is to look at the return of investment -the percent made per dollar spent. Of the non-traditional princess movies, Mulan had a return investment of 117% , Moana had a 114% return, and Brave had a 45.9% return. Tangled had the lowest return investment of 13.7% and Frozen had the highest with 325% return. Of the traditional princess movies, The Little Mermaid had a return of investment 163.8%, Aladdin had 800%, and Cinderella had 1503%. Snow White had the largest return of 6004%. The increase of return on investment for traditional princess movies stems from the fact that non-traditional princess movies have a higher production budgets, causing there to be less of a profit and Disney seems to not be able to control this. In fact, of the movies mentioned, none of the movies produced before the year 2000 reached a production budget over $100 million. This pattern seems to also occur in other movies produced by Disney. For example, The Jungle Book (1967) and The Lion King (1994) both had production budgets under $100 million. The Jungle Book had a return investment of 412.5% and The Lion King had a return investment of 975%. Monsters Inc. and Inside Out -both made after the year 2000- had production over $100 million. Monsters Inc. had a 150% return and Inside Out had a 114% return of investment. Just these four films help show how Disney’s increase in production budget for newer movies causes less chance of a profit.
Since this topic focuses on strong female roles, I wondered if any women had lead roles in the making of these princess movies. Of the nine movies listed, only Frozen, Mulan, and Brave had female producers or directors. Jennifer Lee wrote and directed Frozen, Pam Coats produced Mulan, and Brenda Chapman wrote and directed Brave. Of the traditional movies, the directors, writers, and producers were all male. This brings up the idea again that as gender role norms become less popular or strict, more movies with empowering female leads are being produced and more women are taking on higher positioned roles in the making of these movies. By using a female director or producer, it makes the theme of an empowering female lead seem more realistic.
Even though the average profit of movies with a strong female lead is larger than the traditional princess movies, the return of investment for traditional movies is significantly larger than strong princess movies. The large production budgets of Disney’s new, empowering princess movies causes less of a profit than the traditional princess Disney movies, however, they provide a good message for women. If Disney could control the cost of production, these movies could have potential to be as profitable as the traditional princess movies.
