The Representation of The Disney Princesses
You’d struggle to find someone who isn’t familiar with at least one of the Disney princess movies. Many children grow up watching the princesses sing, dance and live happily ever after.
But these movies often get a bad reputation, with one study suggesting watching the films could encourage young girls to conform to potentially harmful gender stereotypes.
The 21st-century princess films have been praised for breaking some stereotypes and platforming more realistic body types. But is the representation of the princesses in earlier Disney films as poor as we can be led to believe?
Measuring Female Representation in Films
One way to determine female representation in a film is to use the Bechdel test. To pass, a movie must:
Have at least two female characters;
That have a conversation;
About something that isn’t a man.
Considering these standards are so low, it’s surprising how many films fail.
However, the princess movies actually fare pretty well. Six out of eight movies released before 2000 pass, and so do all the five animated films released after 2000.
This would suggest nearly all the Disney princesses are represented positively. However, as we will see, the test is insufficient in fully analysing female representation.
Submissive Princesses
Although the Bechdel test is a good way to measure the number of female characters in a film, it’s limited as it fails to account for the women’s roles and personalities. This means films with weak female characters can pass the test, such as Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, the earliest Disney Princess films.
In these films, the princesses are “voiceless heroines” and relegated to the domestic sphere. They come across obstacles in the forms of poisoned apples, wicked stepsisters and curses, and a man swoops in to save them. They fall in love at first sight and live happily ever after.
Whether intentional or not, this promotes the message that beauty is the princess’s best characteristic. The princes choose to rescue the princesses because they are beautiful. The films frequently allude to their appearance: Snow White is “the fairest of them all”, and Aurora is given the gift of beauty at birth.
Arguably, this suggests that despite passing the test, the princesses aren’t portrayed positively.
Strong Heroines
Mulan and Aladdin are the only two princess films that definitely fail the Bechdel test. Jasmine is the only female character in Aladdin with a substantial role, and the other women in Mulan solely discuss marriage and love.
But the Bechdel test doesn’t take into account the strong female characters in the films. Jasmine and Mulan are expected to settle down and marry but they reject this: Jasmine declares she is “not a prize to be won”, and Mulan challenges gender roles by disguising herself as a man and enlisting to fight in the army. They are both outspoken and smart, unlike earlier princesses.
In fact, all the princesses in films released between 1989 and 2000 rebel from the typical tropes in earlier princess movies. They all subvert the “damsel in distress” trope favoured in early storylines. Instead of the princess needing to be rescued, she is the rescuer: Belle saves the beast from the curse, Mulan defeats the Huns and Ariel rescues Prince Eric from drowning. The only exception is Jasmine, who is saved by Aladdin twice.
The representation of the princesses in these films isn’t perfect, and there are still regressive storylines. For instance, Ariel trades her voice to attract a man and again he falls in love with her based on physical features. Each film still ends with the princess falling in love and more often than not they marry, which reinforces the typical gender stereotypes we see in the first films. But despite this, the representation of the princesses are clearly more positive.
A New Era?
These films paved the way for modern Disney princesses such as Merida, Elsa and Moana. In addition to possessing the positive characteristics the Renaissance princesses have, their storylines have been tweaked.
Most notably, these three princesses don’t fall in love but they are still happy at the end of the film, which is a welcome move away from the dated trope that women need a man to make them happy. And when the princesses do fall in love, such as Rapunzel and Anna do, it isn’t “love at first sight” as in earlier films.
Analysing the films individually rather than relying on the Bechdel test shows us the representation of the Disney princesses is improving, which is extremely encouraging.
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