I am not ashamed to say that I love Disney princesses.
When I was growing up on the Internet in the mid-2010s, social media sites like Tumblr and Youtube saw a concentrated backlash toward everything feminine. It was a status symbol not to be like the “other girls,” and young women of my generation frequently felt the need to reject femininity to assure themselves of their value.
During this time, I also rejected my femininity. I decided that I hated the color pink and everything associated with it. I wore cargo shorts to class every day in 6th grade. I scoffed at anyone who loved boy bands. I internalized the idea that the culture of adolescent femininity was inherently shameful, and that I could be better than other women if I rejected it.
Disney princesses were branded anti-feminist. The Disney princess is a girl who talks to animals, has a terrible relationship with her stepmother, and waits for a man to save her. She is seen as having no agency, no ambition, and, most of all, she is unwaveringly feminine.
Part of growing up as a woman is learning to love the color pink. For me, it was learning to love the Disney princesses, despite the cultural shame associated with a young womanhood. Over the course of my life, I’ve identified with many different princesses, and as new princesses enter the Disney canon, I’ve come to appreciate them too. I love Disney princesses for what they represent: an expansive definition of femininity.
Femininity is the set of qualities and attributes associated with being a woman. It is not a stretch to say that we learn how to be part of society through the media that we consume. Since we learn femininity from the media, and the media is ever-changing, femininity is an expansive construct. Disney princesses showcase a diverse range of traits and ambitions through every generation of “Princess.” Disney princesses subvert the notion that there is one kind of strength, and that strength and femininity are mutually exclusive. Ultimately, Disney princesses taught me that there are many ways to become a woman.
Strong Female Characters
The best way to understand how Disney princesses showcase feminine diversity is to compare them with fictional role models for young boys. In his TED Talk “How Movies teach Manhood,” Colin Stokes describes movies directed at young men as “war movies,” in which young men are told that problems can be overcome by hitting them really hard.
“Hitting things really hard” is the ideal of masculine strength, and male characters are assumed to be strong. Media role models for young boys are almost always technically skilled and physically competent and good leaders. In contrast to masculine strength, each Disney princess demonstrates different kinds of strength beyond the physical or technical, including strengths like empathy, fortitude, perseverance, curiosity, creativity, flexibility, and kindness.
Disney princesses are most frequently critiqued for their supposed “passivity,” especially early princesses like Snow White and Cinderella. And yet, these princesses demonstrate strength, but their strengths are not traditionally masculine. Snow White is compassionate and caring, which draws others to help her. She may wait around for a prince to appear, but she also survives on her own, fleeing from an abusive stepmother. Cinderella, in contrast, does not actively break out of her situation because, like many victims of abuse, it’s not as simple for her as just leaving. Despite her step-family’s abuse, Cinderella maintains her kindness to those around her. It is easy to be angry in the face of adversity. It is difficult to be kind.
Even in a film like “Mulan” that takes place against the backdrop of war, in which its titular character quite literally punches her problems, the creativity and leadership that Mulan show subvert traditional ideas of masculine strength. At the end of the movie, she leads her male compatriots to defeat the villain of the story by dressing up as women and using the skills she’s learned to embrace her feminine strength within the context of the army.
Princess Tiana is hard working and ambitious. Ariel is explorative and curious. Belle isn’t afraid to be her true self. Princess Jasmine defies her objectification. Moana is insightful and chooses her own path. Raya is relentless and learns to lead. In contrast to the role models for young boys, the Disney princesses are unique and display different kinds of strengths and weaknesses, demonstrating through the media that there are many ways to be a woman.
Today’s Princesses
Disney still has so much work to do to accommodate different cultures, races, body types, sexualities, and abilities into their canon of femininity to demonstrate how many different types of people can be women. Disney princess films are also notorious for centralizing heterosexual relationships and avoiding queer representation.
We must condemn these failures on behalf of the Disney company and keep demanding new stories that reflect the individuals in society.
The new shift in Disney movies is to critique the previous princesses. Movies like Moana, Raya, and even Wreck-It Ralph get rid of the love interests and stereotype previous generations of princesses as women simply waiting around for a man to save them. This criticism, however, ignores the kinds of feminine strength that the early princesses possess and how many types of femininity can be strong. Love interests themselves are also not a bad thing, as long as they respect and support the women of their stories, which the Disney princes absolutely do.
At almost 20 years old, I’m now older than most of the Disney princesses. Watching the Disney princesses growing up became key in understanding myself as a young woman, since it was such an important part of my media diet growing up. Since almost all of the princesses are in their teens, which is when women are predominantly being socialized as women, it was particularly informative to have these role models. I haven’t unified a kingdom, napped for 100 years, or found my prince or princess charming, but I did become a woman, as Simone de Beauvoir might say. As a queer woman who rejected femininity for points in my life because I did not identify with traditional ideas of womanhood, I needed both Cinderella’s kindness and Mulan’s bravery to show me that I can be both strong and feminine.
Women deserve to have role models who can be many different things, because we are not meant to fit into boxes. We need to have a diversity of conceptions of femininity to look toward in the media. Although they have a long way to go before achieving true diversity, Disney princesses represent many varieties of femininity and make for outstanding role models.
The original artwork for this article was created by Harvard College student Duncan Glew for the exclusive use of the HPR.
