As a five-year-old girl, I had an unhealthy obsession with Disney princesses. I spent countless hours watching and rewatching movies, from “Cinderella” to “Tangled” to “Mulan.” I owned multiple Disney princess dolls, and every Halloween, I looked forward to dressing up as my favorite Disney Princesses. However, at the time, I didn’t realize that these seemingly harmless movies would be such a large contributor to my identity and the way I perceive people and events around me. This goes for the larger world as well. Surely you’ve seen second and third-graders carrying “Frozen” backpacks or “Mulan”–themed lunch boxes. You might have seen yourself in these children, proudly smiling as they walk past personifying their favorite TV show. But I urge you to look deeper. While these actions have been normalized, the lack of early conversations about the diverse personalities, races and genders a Disney heroine can embody, leads to younger audiences feeling limited and sometimes, ostracized. It is then that the one-sided stories that Disney portrays about gender and race become harmful to a child’s image and their perception of the world around them.
A customary theme among the Disney princess movies is the role the woman embodies, and the similar storyline in all of their tales. Most of the popular princesses have this one-sided and common feminine trait of being delicate or a “damsel in distress.” For example, Ariel gives so much of herself up just to be with a man, including her voice and her body. After she gives this all up, Ariel’s prince seems to only fall in love with her for her looks and behavior. Even princesses such as Mulan, who rejects her femininity to fight, still adopt the gender roles of being reserved and quiet. This is evident when Mulan gives up her cover of being a man, becoming once again shy and silent. Along with these traits, most of the Disney princess’s main motive is to find true love, which also corresponds to happiness.
To clarify, these feminine traits aren’t necessarily flawed. Not every woman has to be outgoing and extroverted. Women can wish for true love and marriage. However, this recurring storyline of a dainty woman waiting for love conveys the idea that these so-called “feminine” traits are more desirable, and that every woman needs a man to save her. This can be engraved in the mindset of younger audiences, who are more impressionable. In a study published in 2016, it was found that four and five year old children who watched more movies or shows involving Disney princesses ended up showing more stereotypical feminine behavior one year later. This behavior includes focusing more on appearance and taking more interest in so-called ‘feminine’ domains such as cooking and cleaning. While there is nothing wrong with these behaviors, adhering to these gender roles may make younger audiences feel limited as to what they can do in the future.
Besides this, many children’s shows also label characters with common stereotypes, which are often said characters’ entire personalities. One show that I grew up with was Disney’s “Jessie,” which follows a family and their babysitter, Jessie. One of the children in the family is named Ravi Ross who is South Asian. Unfortunately, most Disney shows which feature Indian American characters are limited to stereotypes. In “Jessie” specifically, Ravi carries the Indian-nerd stereotype, with a typical Indian accent despite the actor having an American accent. He is often made fun of, becoming the butt of all jokes for the other characters in the show. His Indian culture, accent, and traditions are also teased relentlessly throughout the show. To further, Ravi isn’t the only character on the show who carries a racial stereotype.
Even as a fourth grader watching this show, I felt very impartial about Ravi as a character. Representation is important, and even though I didn’t exactly know what representation meant at the time, seeing a character on television that I could relate to was comforting. However, the way Ravi is depicted in relation to the characters around him has always been unsettling to me in a way, and as I grew up I started to understand why. I realized in “Jessie,” my race and culture was purely used for comic relief.
Now, I will admit that there have been improvements over the years. For example, Disney has started to create princesses who are strong independent role models, such as Merida from “Brave.” Even now, as Disney is beginning to film live-action remakes of the classic stories we’ve grown to love, they are trying their hardest to have proper representation in these remakes, which is a huge advancement. However, children do continue to watch old shows, even though we can’t make a change to these shows specifically, talking to kids about diversity can help provide them with more perspective prior to watching.
Another way this problem can be mitigated is by making the issue known to current children’s screenwriters and finding ways to measure whether there is enough diversity. For example, the Bechdel test is one way to measure the representation of women in film. To pass the Bechdel test, a film must feature two women who talk to each other about something other than men. While it may seem silly, countless movies, Disney and beyond, fail to pass the test. These stereotypes and standards will keep making their way onto television, and if we do not take these kinds of steps to correct them, they simply won’t disappear.
