Today in our culture, pop culture rules. From sports to social media, people are constantly talking about the popular things going on. Each pop culture item is a sign of what our society values. For this project, we picked the topic of feminism in Disney movies, and, more importantly, the progression of feministic characters in the princesses as time has gone on. Not only are both of us absolutely obsessed with Disney, but we find that this is quite an applicable topic to arguments of feminism today. As time as progresses, the princesses and strong women characters grew more independent, just like women at those times in history. Disney characters have taught young girls to be brave, strong, independent, women. They learned that different is okay and to embrace that.
As time progressed, we can say that Disney improved the promotion of feminism. We start out with the very first couple Disney movies and princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. She, along with several other princesses, are considered to be very bland in their personality. They follow what the gender normality line, by being housemaids. They clean the house, the cook, and they do not go away to work. That was their job. They are all very kind, sweet, and can be considered as submissive. They do not state what they want, or really what their opinion is about anything. They just go along with their life. They believe that their life is the way it is, and there is nothing they can do about it.
Then Disney starts to introduce the first couple of movies that show the princess speaking up for themselves. We see a little bit of this with Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Megeara, and Pocahontas. Disney adds in how culture plays a part in these girl’s gender-normality expectations. Yes, they do fall in love, but we see more independence and speaking out.
The next set of movies go a step up. We see Tiana, Mulan, Rapunzel, and Merida. In each of these movies, with exception of Rapunzel, these girls run in the opposite direction of marriage, or wanting to find that “prince.” Tiana is working to save up, so that she can buy her own restaurant. Mulan disguises herself as a man, so that she can save her family and her country. Mulan was the biggest step of Disney presenting that gender-normality line. Merida works to save her family, and in a way, “rebels” so that her kingdom isn’t ruined. Lastly, Rapunzel kind of sticks out among this group. She starts out as naïve and uneducated, due to being kidnapped. She later takes a step of independence, and learns who she really is. At the end, she does fall in love, and we see her becoming the true leader of her kingdom, and standing up to Mother Gothel.
The last movie we talked about was Frozen. We talked about the relationship between Anna and Elsa. Disney fooled the audience by thinking Anna found her first true love. Instead, a plot twist occurred, and the true love that was represented was family love. Disney showed that family love can and will overpower just regular true love. They broke the mold with this story, a mold that will hopefully be able to stay broken in the future.
Disney has really turned the page when it comes to their progression of feminist characters. From the bland characters of the 1950’s to the most recent princesses that break to mold of the the traditional Disney story, the progression of feministic ideals is quite eye opening. It shows that our culture today doesn’t want girls to feel like the prince needs to rescue them. They can rescue themselves.
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