Is Disney Selling Sexism?
If you walk into any Disney store, costume shop or even a high-street childrenswear department you will undoubtedly spot some familiar outfits. The light blue, pastel yellow, and pink princess gowns litter every one of them. Every little girl wants to be a princess, right?
With the growing popularity of Disney princess films, current reboots of their older features such as Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella as well plans for remakes of some of their most popular creations such as Mulan, it is fair to ask ourselves whether Disney is still selling sexism.
The majority of their most popular princess films were indeed written and filmed in different times. It is important to add that Disney has since progressed in some ways with their newer films, but their reboots may be casting a shadow over the developments they have made.
Not only are the older princesses promoting old-fashioned values and behaviours, what is perhaps more worrying is what they look like: slim waists, long limbs, flawless skin and perfectly symmetrical facial features are the most prominent components of every traditional Disney princess.
Over 80 years since the release of the first Disney princess Snow White, surely times have changed and the values these films promote are not the same in our society today?
Here are some examples of the sexism present in older Disney princess films:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Take the first ever Disney princess who graced our screens in 1937. Snow White was her name and she was a young woman whose sole purpose in life was to clean and serve 7 men hand on foot whilst avoiding being hunted for her exceptional beauty. Once faced with evil, she has no power to stop it and ends up having to be saved by a prince.
Cinderella (1950)
The next Disney princess creation was Cinderella who impossibly had an even smaller waist and was even thinner, her hair was blonde and beautiful and her face flawless. She was forced to be a servant to her evil stepmother up until another prince came and saved her. Do you see a theme here?
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Just 9 years later Disney came out with Aurora or Sleeping Beauty, or should I say Cinderella wearing a pink dress. She spends the majority of the film asleep, waiting for a man to rescue her… once again.
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Ariel or The Little Mermaid literally had no voice and somehow prince Eric still fell in love with her. Why? Surely for her amazing sense of humour and intelligence (I mean, did he see her brushing her hair with a fork?), nothing to do with her body which is a carbon copy of the other princesses or her perfectly symmetrical facial features.
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Moving on to Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Bearing a close resemblance to all the previous princesses when it comes to her figure, she is captured by an evil beast and does all his house work until she falls in love with him and they live happily, ever after. Her passion for reading may be her only redeeming quality.
Mulan (1998)
Mulan was being forced to wed and her only alternative was to disguise herself as a man as she did not have the option to follow the path she had chosen being a woman. Don’t even get me started on the songs. With lyrics such as “I couldn’t care less what she’ll wear or what she looks like, it all depends on what she cooks like” and “how ‘bout a girl who’s got a brain, who always speaks her mind? — nah!” you can’t help but to see how Disney’s influence could potentially do more harm than good.
Sure, the more recent princesses are undoubtedly different. Anna and Elsa don’t need no men, it is their sisterly love which saves them. Merida rejects her arranged marriage and decides to be an independent woman and to find herself first. Moana’s body is a more realistic shape, no impossibly long limbs and unnaturally tiny waist and the plot focuses solely on her journey in which she is actively involved and makes her own decisions.
But the older films still hang around along with their sexist standpoints. While watching them today you may scoff, roll your eyes and get enraged at how women were portrayed in the 1930s, but a young child watching will not have the same reactions as you. They are impressionable and with role models like the older princesses with little aspirations and no chance to lead their own lives, as well as their impossible bodies, perhaps Disney should not be promoting them so much and rebooting them, if at all.
If they want to dress like the princesses, they also want to look like them and be like them, which is not healthy for anyone. Research has shown that an increasing number of young women suffer with body image issues and eating disorders from a young age based on the images they see daily. Every newspaper, magazine, film and catwalk features the same body type which convinces women that an ideal body shape indeed exists and that we should aspire to look like this. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes and women should not be ashamed and we should not want to change based on what we think other people want us to look like.
Sexism is being sold all around us. It exists in advertising, in film and even in the world of work. Equal pay has not yet been achieved in most countries, so we should be teaching young girls about the realities of the world and showing them that they are equal, strong and able. The war against sexism is not over, the fight to improve society continues every day.
So young girls shouldn’t depend on princes saving them and other people making their decisions, they should not base their realities and aspirations on what Disney and its princesses tell them. They should be changing society for the better and not be changed by its sexist way.
