Disney Princesses
In this article, Averie defends the classic Disney princesses against the claims of them being bad influences.
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Disney Princesses are Not Weak; You are Just Sexist
Disney Princesses are Not Weak; You are Just Sexist
By Averie Black
Since Disney has started remaking all of their classics into live actions, more and more people are discussing the Disney princesses. Many are of the belief that the older princesses such as Cinderella and Ariel are bad influences on young women. However, others argue that their characteristics are just as important as the ones shown in Tiana and Moana. In this article, there will be an in-depth breakdown of their ongoing feud, and why the people who hate Cinderella are just misogynistic.
Image of Snow White and Aurora by Inside the Magic on Flickr
Princesses are usually split into two categories. The weak, who are a bad influence and the strong, independent ones. Of course, it would be hard to list every Disney female character that could pass as a princess, such as Esmeralda, though she is a queen in the hearts of many. According to the Disney Princess Official Site, the Disney princesses are: Raya, Tiana, Moana, Mulan, Belle, Pocahontas, Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Merida, Jasmine, Aurora, and Ariel. Technically, Elsa and Anna are not considered Disney princesses since they are their own franchise, but it feels wrong not to include them, so they will count, too. Besides, Disney is counting Merida and she is Pixar, so this list clearly has its faults. The princesses that face the most harassment seem to be Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, and Ariel. Occasionally, Anna and Belle also face scrutiny, but they are not nearly as hated on, so they will be set aside for now. There are clear links between these princesses. Snow White, the first Disney Princess movie, was released in 1937, and Ariel’s movie, the newest of the hated princesses, was released in 1989. The four princesses are some of the first princesses that were ever made, while the praised princesses like Tiana and Moana were both released around the 2010s.
Surely, there were different expectations for women between 1937 and 2010 but, throughout the years, Disney Princesses have always been about creating role models for children, specifically little girls. This raises the question of what makes a good quality. What might have been a great quality in a young woman in the 1950s, like quiet obedience, may be frowned upon in today's society. This is mostly the point of the people, mostly mothers, criticizing the old princesses for being bad role models due to the qualities of their characters. A lot of the live-action remakes have been revamping the heroines and their stories to make them more of a modern feminist tale. The popular quote going around right now from one Rachel Zegler regarding the new Snow White movie is: "[Snow White] is not going to be dreaming about true love, she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be." For the purpose of this article, assume it will always be about the original animated movie, unless written otherwise. So here is a one-by-one run-through of the Disney Princesses and their heroine stories.
Ariel
Ariel
A common argument against Ariel is that she left everything behind for a man. She gave up her voice, being able to see her family, her fins, and the only world she had ever known for Eric. However, this perception is blatantly false. Ariel intensely admired the human world long before she met Eric. When she goes to meet Ursula, Ariel does not talk much throughout the scene so, funnily enough, her body language will have to be analyzed instead. Ursula does talk a lot about how Ariel must choose specifically between Eric or her family, but then again, she is a sea witch; she does not really have the best perception. Just look at Ariel’s face while Ursula is describing the deal. When she mentions getting Eric's true love's kiss, Ariel looks terrified, as if she might not agree to the deal, but then the image shifts to Ariel running with legs, and her entire demeanor changes. Keep in mind, at this point Ursula has not yet mentioned taking her voice or the ramifications if she fails. All Ariel knows is that she has to kiss Eric within three days and she looks distraught about the situation. In The Little Mermaid, Ursula is using legs to hook Ariel into the deal and Eric falling in love with her is nothing but an obstacle in the path to get what she really wants. It is unfortunate that Ariel had to give up so much to get what she wanted, but she knew very well that this was the only possible way, so she made sacrifices. If anything, Eric is the one exhibiting a bad example. He got saved by a woman he could barely remember and spent time, effort, and materials from his country searching for her, and saying he would marry her when he did find her. Eric is the bad example here, not Ariel, but Eric is a man, so he is beyond critique.
Ariel Being Told That She Has To Kiss Eric Vs. Ariel Being Told She Will Get Legs If She Does
Aurora
Aurora
To be honest, Aurora is undefendable. She has no personality to defend. She is asleep the entire movie. The only thing to say about Aurora is something that a lot of people complain about regarding all of the princesses on the “bad” list, which is that all she wants is love. This is a strange thing to critique a character on, considering that this is a goal that many people in real life have. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy with a partner or settling down with a family. The stay-at-home mom cliche is often frowned upon these days, which may also be the source of this type of hate, but that is the exact opposite of feminism. Women have the right to make their own choices about their lives, including whether or not they want to be a housewife. To assume all women are career-focused and craving power within their position is just as misogynistic as assuming they all want to stay at home and take care of their children. Aurora wants to find love and dreams of dancing with her dream guy, and there is nothing wrong with her seeking out a relationship because that is her choice and that is what she wants out of her life. However, this is not Aurora-specific this argument is brought against all of the older Disney princesses.
cinderella
cinderella
Cinderella is probably the most popular Disney princess to hate on because she is iconic. The public truly hates to see a queen winning. Flavia_cj on IMDb rated the movie two stars and said, “Disney's Cinderella is not a good example of woman and heroin. She's a bland character, accepting mistreatment with passivity, and she always need others to get it out of their problems (mice, fairy godmother, the prince). Cinderella never changes the situation for herself.” Those are bold words for someone who does not have the grammar skills to write an IMDb review. Most of the scrutiny against Cinderella is that she is weak and needs saving, and, look, they are not wrong, but it is also not something to bash her for. Cinderella’s story is not about being strong or assertive; it is about remaining kind despite one’s shortcomings. People want her to have not taken her abuse with a passive nature, but is that really valid to say to someone who is being abused? Cinderella did not have any other family she was poor and had no support system. She had no choice but to get help or to be “saved” because there was no other way out of the situation for her. Cinderella is a wonderful role model for young girls because she is hard-working, compassionate, and preaches that it is okay to need help, and it is okay to not be “strong” in the way people typically think of the word. Resilience is strength and Cinderella has tons of it. It is hard to ignore the misogynistic undertones when it comes to people talking about Cinderella or, really, any of the Disney princesses, but this one shines through the most. Cinderella embodies all of the traditional feminine qualities such as kindness, compassion, loyalty, warmth and so on, which is why so many people discredit her.
Image of Cinderella's Transformation by Christopher Penn on Flickr
Snow White
Snow White
Lastly, Snow White has been a bit of a hot topic of late. Snow White was similar to Cinderella in the complaints against her character. Lun-lun on IMDb wrote, “Here's why. Even at the age of four I saw the blatant sexism. Snow White is constantly having to be saved by a MAN. From her evil mother, the hunter has to let her go, the dwarfs have to shelter her, and finally the Prince has to bring her back to life.” Once again, her stepmother was trying to murder her, it seems acceptable that she needed to get help from outsiders so she could escape, not just abuse, but attempted murder. The hunter let her go because he was not comfortable killing a young woman. That does not really seem like Snow White being saved by a man. If that were the case, anyone who is around anyone would constantly be saving each other just because they are deciding not to kill each other at that moment. It is also not like the dwarfs are taking her in out of the kindness of their hearts. They basically hired her as a maid in exchange for room and board. That is literally just a job. What was she supposed to do? Kill her stepmother? A girl cannot win. If they stay in their situation, like Cinderella, they are too weak, but if they leave their abusive situation then… they are also too weak because they are not fending for themselves in the woods like a bear? Literally, what do these people want from these poor abused girls?
Image of a Sketchy Apple by Aphrodite on Flickr
Yes, the prince saves Snow White in the end, which is super creepy. Please do not kiss people nonconsensually. He did not know that would wake her up. Accidentally saving someone does not seem that heroic. Snow White is a story of a girl who ran away from a murder attempt, took up a job that provided board and food, and taught seven men how to clean up their act and start behaving like polite human beings. Regarding the people complaining that she is stupid for accepting an apple from a stranger, first of all, she grew up as a princess. She probably was not taught about stranger danger or has ever had to worry about being poisoned. Second of all, people take food from strangers all of the time! During the holidays, people take cookies and other baked goods around their neighborhood, and that is not even mentioning Halloween. Plus, out of all of the potentially dangerous foods that could be poisoned, no one ever considers something natural and unbaked, such as an apple. Usually, foods that could have had something dangerous baked into them could be a cause for concern, but not an apple.
What Disney, and Zegler, seem to not understand is that being feminine is just as feminist as being masculine. There has been a wave of hate coming from Disney in the form of hating women who are not #girlbosses. The reality of being a woman is that not all of them are super independent, not all of them want leadership roles, and not all of them are indifferent to the idea of love. This is a very cookie-cutter way of thinking about feminism and frankly offensive. It is basically saying that the only way a woman can be seen as a strong person worthy of respect is if they are given traditionally masculine personality traits. So when Disney takes some of their old heroines and remakes their movies, scrubbing away their traditional personalities in favor of traditionally masculine traits and branding the remakes as a new feminist tale, people are going to be mad. Women are allowed to be sensitive, kind, and quiet, just as they are allowed to be assertive, independent, leaders. They are allowed to want love and a family just as they are allowed to want to be queen or open their own restaurant, and guess what? Sometimes a woman could even be kind and sensitive, along with being an independent leader. A great example of that point is Hiccup’s mom from How to Train Your Dragon. Both types, though there are an infinite number of ways women can be women, are strong, and both types should be shown to children as role models. If a quiet little girl is shown the only way to be strong is to be a leader, then she will grow up feeling discouraged, and if an assertive little girl is grown up only shown more passive women, then she will grow up feeling discouraged.
Zegler undoubtedly played a big part in sparking this debate, but to be clear, this does not give anyone the right to harass her. She is clearly a wonderful actress (that Golden Globe speaks for itself) and there is no doubt she would perform to the best of her ability for the role. Although a lot of public outrage came from her words, it is hard to believe that Disney was not already feeding those ideas to her and the rest of the cast. PR is very much a thing and Disney probably wanted to seem hip with the kids. There are undoubtedly aspects of the Snow White story that should be changed with a live-action version, such as the non-consensual kiss, but it feels like Zegler simply does not like the Snow White character or the original story at all. This leaves many fans questioning whether or not Zegler was the correct casting choice. After the interview incident, Zegler also posted a questionable apology that was clearly a PR stunt and the public continued to drag her name through the mud.
Everyone agrees that often the live-action Disney movies do not capture the nostalgic essence of the original animated ones. However, the new wave of fake feminism coming out of them is far more harmful than the bad movies themselves. Parents need to let The Little Mermaid and Cinderella out of the vault and allow their children to enjoy watching heroines of all different personalities and strengths.
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