This document discusses the Disney Princess franchise and its portrayal of gender roles over time. It provides context on the commercial success of Disney and chronicles the early Disney princesses from Snow White to Mulan. The document then examines cultural criticism of Disney for enforcing gender stereotypes and unrealistic expectations of femininity. It analyzes the portrayal of passive, submissive princesses in films like Sleeping Beauty through the lenses of Simone de Beauvoir's work on gender roles and Kimberle Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality. More recent Disney films are shown to address issues of diversity and culture to some degree.
1. Gender and the Disney Princess Franchise By Alexandra Stern, Alexandra Magliarditi, Lauren Wilcox, Meredith Dominguez
2. Disney in American Culture Disneyland is the world's first permanent, commercially viable theme park The Disney Princess franchise is considered one of the biggest entertainment successes of all time 240 million people have seen a Disney movie, and 800 million people have read a Disney comic book or magazine.
3. The Princess Chronology Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) Cinderella (1950) Sleeping Beauty (1959) The Little Mermaid (1989) Beauty and the Beast (1991) Aladdin (1992) Pocahontas (1995) Mulan (1998) The Princess and the Frog (2009) Tangled (2010)
4. Cultural Criticism of Disney Enforcing Gender Stereotypes Struggle between personal desire and predetermined gender roles Disney gives young girls unrealistic expectations about love and feminine roles
10. Simone de Beauvoir Men also monopolize politics and industry. Beauvoir does believe that women receive some benefit form their “allegiance with the superior caste (i.e. men)” (35). For example, men provide women with “material protection and will undertake the moral justification of her existence” (35). Men, however, clearly benefit from the most current arrangement. Cinderella is forced into a lower caste system by her stepmother. She is only freed from this by the handsome prince. He fell in love with her, not for who she is as a person, but because of her beauty.
11. Simone de Beauvoir “Thus, woman may fail to lay claim to the status of subject because she lacks definite resources, because she feels the necessary bond that ties her to man regardless of reciprocity, and because she is often very well please with her role as the Other.” (35) “Now, what peculiarly signalizes the situation of woman is that she – a free and autonomous being like all human creatures – nevertheless finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other. They propose to stabilize her as object and to doom her to immanence since her transcendence is to be overshadowed and forever transcended by another ego.” (39).
12. Media Examples of Gender Roles in Disney Princess Films Mulan: “You’ll Bring Honor To Us All” Mulan is made into an object for men. She is dressed up, her face is painted, and she is made to no longer look like herself, so she can impress the matchmaker. She is supposed to bring honor to her family by marrying a man of prestige and high class, and she does this by turning herself into an object. Important Lyrics Men want girls with good taste Calm Obedient Who work fast-paced With good breeding And a tiny waist We all must serve our Emperor Who guards us from the Huns A man by bearing arms A girl by bearing sons A girl can bring her family great honor in one way By striking a good match
14. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality – Kimberle Crenshaw The problem with identity politics is that it… ignores intra group differences… many women[‘s experiences] are often shaped by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class” (1) Economic background not an emphasized issue in Disney movies, but the relationships between race, class, and gender are important Intersectionality = the ways in which, in this case, Disney princesses reside at the intersection of race, gender and culture Crenshaw uses her intersectionality concept to “articulate the interaction of racism and patriarchy generally”(12)
19. The Idealized Body Bordo Feminine Body Type Using the Body to Represent Good and Evil
20. Susan Bordo “Here we encounter another reason for anxiety over soft, protuberant body parts. They evoke helpless infancy and symbolize maternal femininity as it has been constructed over the past hundred years in the West. That femininity…is perceived as both frighteningly powerful and, as the child becomes increasingly to recognize the hierarchical nature of the sexual division of labor, utterly powerless.” (208) “Nineteenth-century hourglass figure, emphasizing breasts and hips – the markers of reproductive femaleness –” (208)
