Comments on: The Disney Princesses and Sexism

By: Sara

Sara — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:23:44 +0000

and of course Disney characters of anti-feminist, even Mulan. Underlying messages are very anti-feminist. These movies are created by the elite, white men (usually), brainwashing you basically. I loved Disney movies but its sad to see it as an adult and realize the messages that they were portraying.

By: Sara

Sara — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:18:17 +0000

Jasmine may have demanded who she wanted to marry, but he had to become a prince.. sooo..

By: Brigit

Brigit — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:57:30 +0000

I am studying Disneys representation of women for my film A level, and I was wondering if any of you held a point of view on his sexism/representation of gender in either of the films, The little mermaid, Mulan or Snow White? Also if you knew of any books or websites that could help me with my research?

By: leita

leita — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:14:47 +0000

Important things left out: snow white not only was valued for her beauty but for her housekeeping skills, which actually makes it worse…and belle HAD intellect, but the story turned this into something bad: she was only valued for her beauty. Also, her two options were a very blatantly sexist man (Gaston, who in the musical version not on the tv he is even more so) and an abusive one.

By: brittany S.

brittany S. — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:56:10 +0000

I definitely think Disney puts a lot of oppressive gender roles in their films. The Little Mermaid is easily the worst to me: to show a woman giving up her legs, voice, and basically dignity, to woo a man with her looks alone.. is insulting to women and offensive to show to small children. That being said, it is also bothersome how extreme people take “sexism” too. Yes some of the roles are archaic and stereotypical, but as you mentioned, Disney never claims they are “JUST” a or “JUST” b. THey do have other qualities, and usually choose love over other goals. My main problem is that to me this shows small children that this is the only purpose in a woman’s life. If Disney films had more variation, these gender roles would seem less harsh.

By: Heywait

Heywait — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:56:48 +0000

The Lion King was told through a male perspective; I rather enjoyed it over any princess movie as a little girl. Meanwhile my brother’s favorite Disney movie was Mulan.

SO HA!

By: Hope

Hope — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 08:15:25 +0000

Not one disney princess defeats a bad guy??? What about Mulan?! I recall she gets recognized by an emperor and a crowd of thousands for saving her country. On top of that, she protects her old father who would’ve died had he fought. Plus, she won the attention of a man through bravery and wit–not beauty. He was definitely going “ga-ga” over her while she was still dressed up in her warrior outfit without makeup or hair done.

The main reason Ariel lost her voice was because the story would’ve been cut way too short had she been able to say “By the way, I’m the mermaid that saved you!” Also, her body didn’t change for the prince, it was so she could explore the land like she wanted to do waaaaay before she saved prince charming from drowning.

It should also be noted that movies tend to reflect the time period—notice how snow white was made in the late 30s and mulan was created in the late 90s. MAJOR shift in values right there.

I don’t think disney princesses deserve an anti- feminist stamp on them…they’re actually progressing quite nicely with the times

By: Julie Perrault Wallbridge

Julie Perrault Wallbridge — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:49:22 +0000

I really appreciate your balanced approach here. It is easy to jump on the shortcomings, but at the end of the day these movies created a great deal of magic in the hearts of little girls for decades now. It is our job as parents to explain the differences between what we are seeing on the tv and real life – and to spend far more time showing them real life than watching tv. In the meantime, I love watching Disney movies with my daughter – my son also has a favourite princess and I love that!

By: Ruslan Amirkhanov

Ruslan Amirkhanov — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:32:27 +0000

I hate Disney with all of my heart(we have a history, Disney and I), but I have to say that the idea of women getting married for political reasons is one of the few historically accurate things you will find in a Disney cartoon. People need to understand that marriage, for most of its existence, was never about “love”, nor did marriage have the same form with which it is associated today. This is why I laugh when I see those anti-gay folks saying “MARRIAGE = 1 MAN + 1 WOMAN”. In reality through most of human societies it was something more like “MARRIAGE = 1 MAN + 1 WOMAN + SEVERAL MISTRESSES, PROSTITUTES, SLAVE GIRLS, OR WHATEVER HE COULD GET ON THE SIDE.

Of course the latter won’t be so visible on a bumper sticker.

By: Renee

Renee — Thu, 26 May 2011 02:10:43 +0000

while I loved the animal disney films more I’d like to point out that if you look at the princess timeline you do see that they are getting more and feminest snow white and tiana for example snow white only wanted a prince and she cooked and cleaned for seven mean…but tiana wants a restaurant and to make her and her fathers dream come true and she worked hard to get it for tiana the prince was just a bonus…but also it should be noted that the origin of these stories (i mean pre Grimm) was nowhere near for children…if they clean it up and make it all whitebread than I’m happy…