Disney Princesses Research Paper

Whether it was Ariel from The Little Mermaid brushing her hair with a fork, Jasmine from Aladdin flying on a magic carpet or Belle from Beauty and the Beast falling in love with her captor, as little girls we’ve watched and loved Disney princesses. We suffered when they suffered. Took their victories as ours. And always gave a sigh of relief when they finally found their prince. What we didn’t know at the time was that these caricatures could affect us girls so much. As young girls, we weren’t aware of the effect Disney princesses had on our self-image, view on love and our stance in society.

When we were younger, our models-to-be were always Disney princesses. To us, they represented physical beauty and what someday we hoped to look like.

Most princesses are passive characters, who don’t hold jobs or directly disobey orders and are always beautiful. Aurora, for example, is depicted as the perfect woman. As a baby, the first present given to her by the fairies is beauty. During Sleeping Beauty, never does Aurora stand up for herself, fight against her evil stepmother, or the curse that falls on her. Instead, she leaves it to her Prince Charming to kiss her on the lips and make all her problems go away. She, of course, falls in love with her prince immediately after waking up, without even talking to him first. On a different scenario, Ariel’s character, whose beauty is also emphasized as her most redeeming quality, does show signs of strength and rebellion by refusing to follow her father’s orders. But as a consequence of her disobedience, everyone else in the story falls in danger. The actions of both Aurora and Ariel show little girls that they should keep quiet and complacent, as evil is done around them, making their role in society passive at best. Sleeping Beauty, in particular, represents women as being helpless and in need of

Even though they affect little girl’s view of physical beauty, idealize a female’s search for her other half and promote passive behavior. They do encourage these same girls to believe and hope in a better life. The positive energy emitted from its characters is what makes these Disney movies so successful, despite all of its imperfections. According to Professor Sara Coyne, who researched whether Disney princesses have an influence on little girls, one of the solutions is to only allow girls to watch Disney princess shows in moderation.4 This means that a young girl could watch an average of one Disney princess movie per week. She also mentions how parents should discuss the contents with their daughters to mediate the negative effects of Disney