Disney princess movies market unrealistic body types and lifestyles to impressionable young girls. “The Little Mermaid” depicts a woman who has to win a man over without her words and only her body. “Sleeping Beauty” is based on a non-consensual kiss from a stranger. “Beauty and the Beast” is a disturbing movie about a young girl in an abusive relationship with a large animal. These movies aren’t something I’d want my children watching. I have watched every single princess movie and still love them today. However, when I re-watch them with my younger siblings, it makes me think of how problematic these movies actually are.
Disney gives each princess an unattainable body and tells young girls to worship them. At the age of six, my little sister refused to wear a two-piece swimsuit because she thought she wasn’t skinny enough. All little girls should think they are beautiful. They should see women of every size, shape and color on T.V. so they know every type of women is beautiful. Women with big breasts, tiny waists and long, skinny legs don’t often exist in everyday life. When a child sees her favorite Disney princess doesn’t look like her, she’s going to want to change herself to look like them.
Disney also insists on every princess, except Moana, having a romantic male counterpart. “Moana” is the only Disney movie with absolutely no implication of a romance. “Frozen” and “Mulan” do not have a plot focused on a man, but love is one of the central ideas in both. Excluding these three movies, the main character’s prerogative is to end up with a man. This is non-representational of other sexualities and tells young girls that their main goal in life should be to get married.
Not only are all the princesses straight, only five of the 14 are not white. Moana is a Pacific islander, Mulan is Chinese, Tiana is black, Pocahontas is Native American and Jasmine is Middle Eastern. Disney is slowly getting more diverse, but it is still not enough. Young girls of color only have one princess. There is only one princess for these five other races besides white. One out of 14 princesses compared to 10 out of 14 is a big difference.
The princesses are not inclusive of race and sexuality, which is bad for young girls. Disney is also ageist. They portray most of their villains as old, ugly women. This makes society look down upon the elderly and worsens beauty standards. Cruella de Vil, Ursula, Maleficent and the Queen of Hearts are shown as either too skinny or too large, and are all very mean. This plays on the stereotype of “ugly is bad” and “pretty is good.”
Little girls are like sponges. When you tell them only white, skinny and straight women are good and everyone else is bad, it leaves a lasting impression.
Ashlon Lusk is an 19-year-old mass communication freshman from Houston, Texas.
