When we think of letting children watch Disney princess movies such as Cinderella or Aladdin, it's a no-brainer because of the reputation Disney has of innocence. In my AP seminar class at Kennedy, I have looked more in-depth on how the body images and messages of these movies are affecting the way children develop and i feel as though it is necessary to blog about.
When some of the first movies were made, it was during a time when females were thought of to be domesticated and to take care of men which was portrayed by all of the films of the era. Snow White showed her taking care of all the 7 dwarfs which shows how she needed to be domesticated to do so. The movies messages have changed over time corresponding with the era. Now we have movies being spit out such as Frozen which show girls that you don't need a prince charming due to the modern view on women. I love this message to little girls who look up to Ana and Elsa so that they don't think they need to serve a male.
Also, the body image that the princesses portray is crucial in taking in a count when deciding whether or not little girl's should be getting to view these movies. The Disney princesses are portrayed to have an unrealistic body consisting of an unnaturally small waist, large breasts, huge eyes, batting eyelashes, and dainty limbs. Literally every princess portrays this look and even the animals in these films. From this, children can take that you need to be pretty to be attractive and that is not something that i would want my future daughter learning. A study done by Milkie shows that little girls that watched these films knew that the bodies of these princess's were unreal, but that they still had a bad view of their own body. This is because of the attraction of males to the princesses and the little girls think that the body image of the princesses is the body criteria of which they should have to meet.
Another bad thing that these movies are teaching little girls is that appearance is all that you need and that everything else such as personality is all crap that nobody needs. A huge example of this is when Ariel in the Little Mermaid is cursed by the evil villain Ursula to be able to have feet. A part of the curse was to not be able to speak, so when she finally meets Prince Eric, she can't talk. This being, he is only attracted to her from her looks and not by anything that she could potentially tell him about herself, which is troubling to me. Also, in Beauty and The Beast, Gaston proclaims that Belle is the prettiest in the village which seems to us that he only wants her for her looks, another piece of evidence to my statement.
In conclusion, i am not bashing Disney movies because i love them and watch them on a weekly basis. I believe, though, that we need to implement classes to teach girls that beauty is not everything, because it is not. With girls in society today, we are given girls like Kylie Jenner who show us what we "should" look like at 18 filled with lip plumper and plastic surgery. It is honestly sad to me and we cant't change society, but we can give today's little girls a confidence booster so that they believe they are truely beautiful inside and out.
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