Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Little Mermaid: Are people misreading these classic Disney movies?
An Essay.
As the feminist movement grows stronger, people are more concerned about female representation in the media, worrying about the role models children will be exposed to growing up. “At this time of enormous, sweeping, social change, it’s important that television and film provide an abundance of roles and role models for diverse girls and young women.” (Burton, 2018). The classic Disney Princesses have become a major point of debate, dividing opinions on whether kids of this new generation should still be watching movies such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Little Mermaid — or is it time to ‘cancel’ these classics that, according to some, are extremely dangerous for girls and boys to watch because of the ‘wrong messages’ they give to the young audience about female figures.
According to The Washington Post, the Disney Princess brand suggests to young girls that they should be submissive, waiting for prince charming to come and rescue them (2016). In fact, this is the main argument people use to critique Cinderella (1950). 1950s and The Media (n.d) said in an article that this movie is what truly originated the ‘Damsel in Distress’ since Cinderella is portrayed as innocent and in need of saving. Others add that Cinderella is passive, never fighting back from the constant abuse of her evil stepmother (King, 2016).
On the other hand, many argue that people are misreading these classics. For instance, in Cinderella, the princess’ goal was never to find a prince but to have one night away from the oppressions of her daily life (The Take, 2017). Plus, Cinderella’s main message is ‘to have courage and be kind’. According to an article on Medium (2018), the story isn’t teaching young girls to be complacent in their abuse. It’s teaching them to remain strong in the face of adversity by using kindness and hope as their defense mechanism.
In Sleeping Beauty (1959), the concern grows more serious when some believe that this classic contributes to rape culture, since prince Phillip kisses Aurora without her consent. A mother concerned about her son being exposed to this kind of movie went as far as to request the school to ban ‘Sleeping Beauty’ off the curriculum for its ‘inappropriate sexual’ message (Chronicle Live, 2017).
Additionally, people also complain about the fact that Aurora is the princess with least time on screen. “Aurora only had 18 minutes in the film. More amazing than that though, she only had 18 lines of dialogue. (…) She’s billed as the lead character, and the film is named after her, yet she doesn’t say a thing for the entire second half.” (White, 2014).
However, as Princess Weekes (2017) points out, there are factors in the movie that contradicts the concern of sexual assault in Sleeping Beauty. One of them is that Prince Phillip doesn’t kiss Aurora just for the sake of it. He knows that kissing the princess will wake her and the entire kingdom from Maleficent’s curse, as he was instructed by the Three Good Fairies to do so, after he is rescued by them from Maleficent’s dungeon. Moreover, an article written by Butler (2014) is as brave as in to state that Sleeping Beauty is the most feminist Disney movie ever made. Only it is not because of Princess Aurora herself, but the Three Good Fairies. According to Butler’s analysis, the true main characters of Sleeping Beauty are the Three Good Fairies and the villain Maleficent. These four characters are strong female figures responsible to drive the plot forward. In the end — Aurora and Phillip are nothing but mere pawns in the fairies’ clash.
Little Mermaid (1989) perhaps is the Disney princess with more debate about whether the movie is feminist or not. Nevertheless, it is a common idea already that Ariel gave up her under the sea life to live happily ever after with Prince Eric in the human world. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, actress Keira Knightley talked about how her daughter is banned from watching Little Mermaid. “The songs are great but do not give your voice up for a man!” (2018).
But then again, people in defense of this Disney classic argues that Little Mermaid is being tragically misunderstood. For starters, from the very first scene of the movie, Ariel is shown in love and fascinated with the human world as she explores a sinking ship with her best friend Flounder. We also see that she has a collection of human artifices hidden in a cave, where the princess sings about wishing to be a human in the song “Part of Your World.” In this song there’s even a line where she sings “betcha’ on land, they understand, bet they don’t reprimand their daughters, bright young women, sick of swimming, ready to stand” where we see Ariel’s stubbornness and desire to be free of her father’s strict commands to stay away from the human kind. This all happens way before she meets and rescues Prince Eric from drowning. In fact, the only reason their encounter happens is because Ariel is up on the surface watching the human beings on that ship. Furthermore, actress Jodi Benson (Ariel’s voice), was asked her opinion in an interview about the division of opinion on whether Ariel was a feminist princess or not. The actress said, “I think everybody can have their own opinion (…) We see a lot of wonderful qualities in Ariel in 1989. She’s tenacious, strong-willed, determined and motivated. She dreams big and lives out of the box” (2019).
Nonetheless, these movies are not perfect and indeed is possible to catch flaws and old-fashioned ideals in their stories. For instance, both Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty suffer from the ‘instalove’ phenomenon. As Gold states (2014), ‘Instalove’ is when two characters fall in love immediately, often without knowing each other beyond physical appearances or a single conversation. Cinderella and the prince see each other for the first time in the night of the ball, where they dance and fall in love in less than eight hours. In Sleeping Beauty, Phillip and Aurora meet each other in the woods one afternoon, where they sing, dance, fall in love and already plan to run away and get married.
However, we must be reminded that these are old movies, with Little Mermaid — the most recent of the three — being thirty years old. Disney is evolving, and a proof of that is their latest movie phenomenon Frozen (2013). “You can’t marry a man you just met” says queen Elsa to her sister, princess Anna, the two protagonists of the story. Later we find out that Anna’s love interest is actually the movie’s villain. The whole plot of Frozen was Disney’s way of showing to the world how they’ve grown from their outdated concepts of true love. Before Frozen, in 2012 Disney Pixar released Brave, where we meet Merida, Disney’s first princess without a prince.
Another problem is the lack of representation and diversity in Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid and majority of the Disney’s classic princesses. They are shaped to fit society’s western beauty pattern. As an article on Medium (2014) points out “The unifying physical attributes of these early Disney Princesses include: extremely hourglass figures, voluminous hairdous and symmetrical faces.” But then again, it is possible to see Disney’s progress with this as well. Princess and the Frog (2009) introduced us to Tiana, Disney’s first Afro-American princess. The latest princess, Moana (2017), is from Polynesian ethnicity, and the movie is all about her quest to save her island, and there’s not even a glimpse of romance in it. Nevertheless, it is possible to see diversity in some of the classics as well. For instance, Mulan (1998) and Princess Jasmine, from Aladdin (1992).
In conclusion, although Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Little Mermaid are classic old movies that may carry with them some outdated thoughts and beliefs, it does not mean that they are entirely wrong and should be banned. “A perspective is not right or wrong by default. It just is what it is: the point of view of a single person based on their life experiences and values, among other things. We each have one; sometimes we share it with others, and sometimes we do not” (Surdek, 2016). It is possible to read these movies and catch wonderful messages about love, kindness and determination to follow your dreams. There’s no need to forbid kids from watching these classics, for this would be depriving children of developing a better capacity of discernment and awareness on these subjects. The best would be for adults to have conversations to kids about these movies so they can see the positive aspects and messages that are in these classic fairy tales.
References:
Aladdin (1992). Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. [Film]. Burbank, California: Buena Vista International.
BBC America (2018). BBC America and Women’s Media Center Release New Study on the Impact of Representation in Sci-Fi and Superhero Genre on Girls. Available at: http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2018/10/bbc-america-and-womens-media-center-release-new-study-on-the-impact-of-representation-in-sci-fi-and-superhero-genre-on-girls (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Butler, L. (2014) How Sleeping Beauty is Accidentally the Most Feminist Animated Movie Disney Ever Made. Available at: https://www.tor.com/2014/11/06/how-sleeping-beauty-is-accidentally-the-most-feminist-animated-movie-disney-ever-made-and-how-maleficent-proves-it/ (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Cinderella (1950). Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske. [Film]. New York, USA: RKO Radio Pictures, inc.
Entenman, E. (2019) Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, explains why The Little Mermaid is more feminist than you might think. Available at: https://hellogiggles.com/reviews-coverage/the-little-mermaid-jodi-benson-interview/ (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Frozen (2013). Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. [Film]. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Motion Pictures.
Gold, T. (2014) ‘The Problem with Instalove’, The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say shhh!,23 March. Available at: https://librarianwhodoesntsayshhh.com/2014/03/23/the-problem-with-instalove/ (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Graham, H. (2017). Mum asks school to take Sleeping Beauty off curriculum as it promotes ‘inappropriate behaviour’. Available at: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/mum-asks-school-take-sleeping-13938590 (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Hains, R. (2016) Why Disney Princesses and ‘princess culture’ are bad for girls. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/24/princess-culture-is-bad-for-girls-now-theres-proof/ (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
King, S. (2016). My Unpopular Opinion: Cinderella is Overrated. Available at: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/unpopular-opinion-cinderella (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Little Mermaid (1989). Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. [Film]. Burbank, California: Buena Vista Film Distribution Co.
Magic Ears Dudebro. (2018) ‘Four Things Feminist Get Wrong About Disney Princessess’, Medium, 6 March. Available at: https://medium.com/@the_disney_dudebro/four-things-feminists-get-wrong-about-disney-princesses-f7af04d03956 (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Moana (2016). Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. [Film]. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Motion Pictures.
Mulan (1998). Directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. [DVD]. Burbank, California: Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
Princess Weekes. (2017) If We Are Gonna Talk About Consent in Sleeping Beauty, Then What Aurora Feels Matters. Available at: https://www.themarysue.com/consent-sleeping-beauty/ (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
Sleeping Beauty (1959). Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Les Clark, Hamilton Lusk and Wolfgang Reitherman. [Film]. Burbank, California: Buena Vista Film Distribution Co.
Surdek, S. (2016). Why Understanding Other Perspectives Is A Key Leadership Skill. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/11/17/why-understanding-other-perspectives-is-a-key-leadership-skill/#35358f7f6d20 (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
TheEllenShow (2018) Keira Knightley’s Daughter Has a Wild Ambition for When She Grows Up. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkS0Lz3JAjU (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
The Take (2017) Cinderella: Stop Blaming the Victim. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huLSdm6IH0g (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
White, M. (2014) 10 Classic Film Characters Who Didn’t Have As Much Screen-Time As You Thought. Available at: https://whatculture.com/film/10-classic-film-characters-didnt-much-screen-time-thought?page=4 (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
1950s and the Media (n.d) The Enticing 1950s. Available at: https://1950sandthemedia.weebly.com/damsel-in-distress-the-perfect-woman.html (Accessed: 03 January 2020)
