Newsflash: Disney Demons

Po Bronson’s article in Newsweek entitled, “Do Disney Princesses Make Young Girls Obsessed with Thinness?” discusses just that: the messages that young girls get from the Disney movies we all grew up watching. It is no surprise that young girls would get a patriarchal outlook from Disney movies…each movie centers on a lovely princess that is in some way or another rescued by a prince. In Snow White, for example (one of my childhood favorites), the main character is a lowly housekeeper until she finally is “awakened by a kiss” from the Prince and finally rides off into the sunset, happy and fulfilled now that she has found a man. In addition to portrayals of men as saviors, however, are even more subtle issues that are influencing young girls.

Bronson discusses his daughter’s excitement about the new movie “The Princess and the Frog,” because the princess is African American like his daughter. Having already discussed the issue of race with her starting at a young age, the author states “Because our daughter is already well-versed in racial tolerance, I’ve been concerned about something else…” It is interesting to me how when discussing an essentially feminist issue, the author feels the need to separate so blatantly the issue of race and his next concern (which is body image). Having recently read Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” I am more concerned with difference as a whole. Lorde says about a conference where she is only asked to discuss black feminists and lesbians that “what this says about the vision of this conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism, and homophobia are inseparable” (Lorde 1). Now, I don’t want to read too much into the author’s intent, but I simply want to bring to attention the lack of difference that is present in Disney movies in aspects more than just body image. There is hardly ever (until the Princess and the Frog), any characters other than Caucasians, NEVER homosexuals and hardly ever women who are considered true heroines without a male counterpart.

On to Bronson’s main issue with Disney Princesses: the obvious thinness and unrealistic body types of the princesses in the movies. After hearing his young daughter discuss vanity issues, he began to wonder if her obsession with Disney princesses were having a negative effect on her body image. The author then discussed a recent study carried out by Drs. Sharon Hayes and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn, who showed Disney clips to 121 girls from ages 3 to 6, half of which watched princess clips while the others watched clips from shows like Dragon Tales and Clifford. Despite the fact that many of the girls in the study were already concerned about their weight, their concerns weren’t shown to be affected by the princess clips and it “didn’t exacerbate their desire to be thinner” (Bronson). Clues from the experiment instead pointed to girls’ mothers as a reason why they saw being overweight as bad.

This is perhaps more reflective of the flaws in our culture, which stem not from fictional movies but from the messages children receive in their own homes. Alan Johnson discusses in “Patriarchy: The System,” how we feed into patriarchy on a daily basis, often without even knowing it. He says, “Participation in social systems shapes our behavior through paths of least resistance, a concept that refers to the conscious and unconscious choices we make from one moment to the next,” (Johnson 27). It is likely that when discussing complicated issues like body image, which is inextricably linked to patriarchy and the male vision of beauty, it is too difficult for parents to explain the true ins and outs of the issue. Rather than explaining how being fit is healthy and feeling good about yourself is important for reasons other than male acceptance, it is easier for mothers to simply say, “Being fat is bad.”

Though households often fail to step off the path of least resistance and instill feminist qualities in their children, that is not to say that outside influences like Disney princesses aren’t at fault as well. Po Bronson also revealed that the girls in the study felt as though it was easier to be a princess if they had blonde hair and white skin. In addition, another concerns expressed by the doctors who conducted the experiment was about the characters in Disney movies other than princesses; Characters that are bad or mean are often shown as fat or unattractive, while the "good characters often are depicted as beautiful and thin, and attractiveness is associated with sociability, kindness, contentedness, and success” (Bronson). Bronson also references “Beauty and the Beast,” in which Belle is seen as desirable because she is the most beautiful girl in the town and is therefore worthy of a prince.

One of our discussions in class raised the question of how the next generation would react to raunch culture. If the messages children are receiving in their homes and on TV are all of this nature, it seems likely that raunch culture will only persist. If young women are learning that the only way to be worthy is to look a certain way, they will most definitely go to drastic measures to look like the princesses they once loved. This is unequivocally linked to the idea of male attention equating to power. In “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” a girl named Shaina tells Ariel Levy about Playboy, “You know all those guys are sitting there staring at you, awe-ing at you. That must be power” (Levy 103). Male acceptance is constantly seen as powerful for women, which is reflected in the media from Disney princesses to porn. On page 43, Levy also discusses the women in Playboy and how they seemed like Barbie Dolls. This is an interesting comparison, as it shows the transition of this body type being depicted as ideal from the time we are playing with Barbie dolls until we are old enough to flip through the pages of Playboy. As with Disney movies and Barbie dolls, most of the women in Playboy were thin, white and blonde.

Although the study discussed by Bronson alleviated his concerns about body image, it is likely that the girls in the study were not yet aware of the impact the princess clips had on them. Ages 3 to 6 is very young…I’m willing to bet that when those girls become teenagers and are working for male attention in middle school, the images they remember from Disney movies that show white, thin, blonde females as worthy of a prince will come rushing back to them. This brings me back to where I began, with Audre Lorde’s discussion of patriarchy and the separation of racism, sexism and homophobia. Not only are princesses and those worthy of male attention depicted as white and thin (racism and sexism), they are most definitely seen as heterosexual, and almost always filling the stereotypical female role of caretaker, mother, maid, etc. Even in movies as seemingly innocent as those concerning Disney princesses, these issues are prevalent and inseparable. Not only are young children learning that they need to look a certain way, they are also learning that they need to ACT a certain way; they need to find a man. What if one of those girls grows up and realizes she doesn’t want to find a prince, but instead to be a CEO? What if another girl grows up and realizes she would rather spend her life with another woman? These scenarios are examples of what would be the “other” in society…the deviation from the norm. What we really need to instill through Disney movies, family discussions and the like is the idea that there is no normal and no “other,” simply differences. As Lorde says, “Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.”

It is only fair when discussing differences to bring men into the picture as well. Looking at the princes and male leads in Disney movies, they are almost always tall, dark (but still white), and handsome. They are strong, never cry, and do “manly” things like ride horses and shoot bows and arrows or fight dragons. Young boys therefore must also feel a certain amount of pressure to lives up to their male stereotypes and be like the princes they see on TV. If they cry, they are seen as wimps. If they are gay, there aren’t normal. If they hold doors for women, they are seen as sexist. It is clear that young girls aren’t the only ones who may walk away from the movie theatre with images in their minds that may cause them discomfort in the future if they don’t become the stereotypical prince or princess they see on the screen. Though it may seem over the top to take something as simple as a Disney movie and make it into a feminist issue, that is exactly my point: issues concerning feminism and patriarchy are woven into even the most innocent and everyday aspects of our lives…and it is not until we realize that that we can learn how to make a change. I wonder what Heidi Montag’s favorite Disney movie is?