Disney Princess!

Curriculum 550 Digital Media Literacy

June 27, 2018

Disney Princess!

What is your relationship to Disney and animated children’s culture? What role did these texts play in your life as a child, if any? In that of any children you share time with? How do your memories challenge or reflect Christensen’s claims? How does Frozen meat or challenge your memories of princess culture?





My relationship with Disney World began couple of years ago. Growing up in The Dominican Republic, my brother’s and I watched Chinese/Japanese cartoons. I do not remember watching animated films made in the USA. As a young child, as the only girl, I watched animated film where the girl lives in a happy place, surrounded by her dog or cat, her friends, a beautiful garden. She falls in love with a handsome young man. They live forever happy. I develop a strong desire to grow up and be just like one of the female protagonist. I had a strong desire to someday meet a Charming Prince, marry him and live happy forever. I do not recall dressing up in Princess gowns or watching certain movies over and over, because I was too busy being a student and a helper to my mother. I learned about Disney World, Disney movies, books after I arrived to the United States. My little cousins watched Disney movies all the time.

Their father bought them the dolls they fell in love with in that specific moment. Since I had no knowledge of Disney, I truly did not understand the obsession they had with some of these films and with the female characters. When I had the chance to watch a film with my cousins, I did not know that what I was looking at was a "damsel in distress". I learned in this class that Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, and Belle are all searching for their true love and waiting to be saved by a prince charming. Each of these Disney princesses are white, tall and thin, and of course have a small waist. Each princess is beautiful and unrealistically close to perfection. They are also well known for their beautiful singing voices. In fact, cleaning and singing are the only two skills we see in each of these princesses. Each of these princess movies portray an unrealistic sense of beauty and love to young girls.

Of course they all had to get marry because that is what society expects from them, to get marry and serve their husbands. I never realized the problem of gender stereotypes of women as I never really had to analyze a film through a critical lens. I have 5 nieces; therefore I had 5 Disney princesses in my immediate family. Luckily two of them exited the Princess hood. My oldest Princes Jasmine (that is her real name) is a College student. My second Princes Deeanys left Princess hood to become a busy preteen. She is now into fake long painted nails, friends, cellphones, etc… I still have 3 princess under the age of 12 (Marley, Abril and Melisis). 

As you can imagine the Disney princes fever is still pretty much alive. My poor brothers and sister-in-law fell into the trap of buying any product that had their favorite Disney character in (cups, notebooks, pencils, clothes, caps, key chains, etc… My cousins are now mothers themselves and they take their daughters to Disney World every year. I visited Disney World once when I used to live in Florida about 12 years ago with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew. We had fun, and honestly it is truly a magical place. I can understand why people would go there more than once a year or every few years, but I do not think I would spend money to keep on going back there. It is a very expensive trip and If you have a big family it gets even more expensive.

My nephews were obsessed with, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Toy Story, Cars, Power Rangers, but their Disney love affairs did not last as long as it has with their sisters. I actually watched peter pan as a young adult and I have to say I liked it. I liked the fact that Peter Pan promised to never grow up (succeeds practically). He also promised to protect Neverland. I also liked that he was the Leader/Guardian of the lost boys. I wanted to be like Peter Pan and stay young forever! Because he was a boy forever! They even have a bus company named after Peter Pan, how cool is that!

Sadly, I did not know that women’s independence was being suppressed in each movie. Disney did a great job as it continues its narrative to present an unrealistic expectations in relationships an unrealistic portrayal of life events. Sadly, Disney’s characterizations of females and femininity are undervalued. In all movies, Disney princess plots are driven by love and interests. Sadly many of the Princesses do not valued themselves as they see themselves as being lucky because they are the chosen to marry the Prince. I do not have time to watch a lot of movies and certainly Disney movies, but now after watching Frozen, I see how Disney movies often guide young women away from power by changing the treatment of magical powers that exist between male and female. I think Disney sends young girls a clear message that females should only earn power by the way of beauty. Social Injustice is clearly highlighted in these movies. Now that we were asked to analyze one of them it is clearly visible. 

in Unlearning the Myths That Blind Us, Linda Christensen criticized how women, the poor, overweight people, and people of color were treated on each movie/film. Linda encourages her students to imagine the world a better world, characterized by relationships of respect and equality.

Speaking of equality, diversity was not even considered in many of the Disney's films. All Princesses are white, tall, skinny, beautiful with a great singing voice. Surprisingly, today was the first time I watched Frozen, ever! I really enjoyed it the film. I even sang the song Let it go!, let it go!! My nieces watched the Movie at the Cinema. They went to see the Frozen the Musical and of course moms had to buy them memorabilia they all wanted to take home. Again, regarding social injustice, Frozen is bombarded with it. Every aspect of the film like songs, the radio, commercials/merchandise etc... 

After watching Frozen I connected with Elsa. Elsa is not your typical Disney Princess/character. The fact that Elsa was born with magical powers; which she was not quite able to control. Elsa was a good Princess who meant to do no harm to the people she loved. Unfortunately she ended up doing just that. She harmed her entire kingdom along with her sister as a result of a mistake she made. Elsa was not a perfect girl and because of her sudden weakness her mistakes brought negative consequences to her kingdom. 

Watching Frozen with a critical lens helped me figure out social injustice played a role in this film. For example, in the film I did not see people of color. There were simply no character of a minority. I was stoked by the beginning sound on the movie. It seemed like it was a native american song. The story does engage the audience because it undermines expected stereotypes throughout the movie. It fades away from your typical princess film/movie.

 

What about the male Prince? How is he presented in the film? Well, he is handsome, but evil. In the film the character that possess the magical powers is good person. One aspect of the film I liked is the fact that both female characters (the sisters) were both leads female characters. It was visible that both girls cared about other things, not just of men. I

n this film at the end of the day, the hero who saves the day and the kingdom was not your typical handsome man riding a horse, this time the lead role fell on Elsa and her sister Ana. This was a true act of love and sacrifice from the girls part. No kiss to wake the Princess up was involved in the film. The love for a loved one and for their home was the winner at the end of the day. Elsa and Anna were the true heroes in this film!