I’ve noticed that a lot of edits are being made on Tumblr that generate narratives surrounding “The Big Four”— Brave, Tangled, How to Train Your Dragon, and Rise of the Guardians. 

While I love seeing this posts, there is one issue about them that I wanted to briefly address.

I don’t feel completely comfortable with the idea of “shipping” Merida with Hiccup or Jack Frost. And it has nothing to do with what I think of these characters individually, or even together. I absolutely love each one of them (especially Jack), but just the idea of putting Merida into a romantic relationship bothers me.

Brave was revolutionary for being the first Princess movie to not have a Prince. A major plot point was Merida’s desire to escape the fate of having to get married or have a husband chosen for her. 

Isn’t the idea of “shipping” Merida with someone exactly what she was fighting against?

Not that she shouldn’t be allowed to enter romantic relationships, of course she can (I have a feeling that there will be a sequel where this happens). 

But we’re pairing her with people she has no connection to, has not developed a relationship with, and doesn’t know. 

This is exactly what she didn’t want to happen. 

I’m sorry if this post seems negative, and I have to be honest, I personally really love those sets that include each of these characters. But it just seems to counter part of the feminist message in Brave, and I really don’t want this feminist aspect to get lost and become postfeminist instead.

(postfeminism is, for the record, the idea that feminism has “done its job” and is now irrelevant)

So, my brother recently got engaged to a lovely girl who I am also good friends with. And what’s the first thing a girl does after getting engaged? Looks at wedding dresses of course! 

For Christmas, we gave her a little gift bag with some things she might need to help her plan her wedding- a wedding planner and a bridal magazine, among other things. As I flipped through the magazine, imagine my surprise to find Disney splashed across several pages! It’s amazing how engrained into our everyday culture Disney is. This was not appealing to children, of course, and it certainly wasn’t featuring small toys. Disney has its own line of wedding dresses.

Now, bridal culture was something I was planning to talk about when examining the Disney Princesses franchise, since the dream of being a Princess on your wedding day relates so closely to the fantastical, ideal happily ever afters that every woman had seen as a wide-eyed child watching the Disney films. Apparently, at some point Disney caught on to this idea and decided that it needed to expand the Disney Princesses franchise to cater to these oversized children in search of the perfect wedding dress to fulfill their Princess fantasy. 

“Today’s brides grew up believing in the dream… in the idea that, somewhere out there, her Prince charming awaits” 

I took that quote from the Disney bridal website. There’s a few problems with this. The first line acknowledges that “today’s brides” have been heavily influenced by popular culture, and have grown up expecting the things that happen in Disney movies to happen to them in real life. The idea of expecting a “Prince Charming” to come find you is also incredibly problematic. It idealizes men to the point where they no longer have any flaws or even much personality at all- they are one dimensional characters. In Disney, Prince Charming was the name of Cinderella’s prince. But it doesn’t really matter which one it is. All of the original Disney Princes are basically the same character. I couldn’t tell you a single defining characteristic of any one of them. Shouldn’t women be looking for something more than a pretty face and a title when finding the person they are going to marry?

The fact that Disney is able to successfully sell these products to fully grown women using the exact same tactics they use for children absolutely proves how influential the Disney Princesses franchise truly is. By growing up playing with the dolls, having the costumes, and watching the movies, we have raised our children to believe that they should live the lifestyle of the Disney Princesses— that it is more than a fantasy, but something that they can and must fulfill in reality in order to successfully become a real woman, a Princess.

The line is designed by Alfed Angelo and features at least two styles for every princess (that is, except for Pocahontas and Mulan. What a surprise— not). Let’s take a look at some of them.

Here we have one of the designs for Snow White. I have no idea what makes this dress specific to Snow White aside from how it is branded in advertising, with the model sporting red lips and carrying an apple. I think the cape like fabric at the back is supposed to resemble Snow White’s cape, but that’s a real stretch. I don’t know how anyone would feel like Snow White wearing this. 

The advertisements for these dresses use a lot of visual cues and motifs that serve to immediately bring to mind the Princess they represent. This must be Belle- look at all those roses surrounding her! Though I have to note that there actually is only one rose in the film— and this is incredibly significant as it represents the fragility of time and the Beast’s own vulnerabilities and fears.

Here we have one of the Jasmine dress designs, in an ad that looks like it is a screenshot taken from a Bollywood movie.

To show you how little the dresses themselves actually resemble their movie counterparts, let’s take a look at a picture of just the above dress, without all the extra special effects:

I have no idea what part of that is supposed to resemble something Jasmine wore, especially when her wedding dress looked like this:

Part of my point by showing the above image of Jasmine is to show that while this line of bridal gowns purports to be representative by having designs “based” on some of the more multicultural Princesses (Jasmine and Tiana), it actually is only using the Princess names and the nostalgia that comes along with it to market the same dresses you see in every single bridal salon and magazine. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the line has a dress for every single Princecss except for Mulan and Pocahontas. These poor girls always get left out of things because Disney seems to view them as less marketable. But honestly, how great would it be to actually have a wedding dress that incorporated traditional Chinese style, or Aboriginal patterns, and have it sold from a popular line, increasing people’s awareness of these different cultures?

I can take this even further than just the dress. There’s all kinds of products sold by the Disney Princesses line to make your wedding a “fairy tale”. They have bridesmaid and flower girl dresses, veils, jewelry, party favours, stationery, cosmetics, and even shoes. I bet you can guess what the shoe line is called. That’s right— “The Glass Slipper Collection”. 

They also have suggestions for planning your engagement, wedding ceremony and honeymoon all at Disney parks and on their cruise ships!

You can truly become a Disney Princess— that is, if an expensive, plastic, commercialized theme park is your idea of a fairy tale castle. 

I’ve been itching to discuss a very recent advertisement that Disney has promoted called “I Am a Princess”. The video itself seems to be a response to people critiquing their Princesses Franchise as I am!

One of the first things we see in this video is the above girl. And already I can see that the commercial is capitalizing on this year’s latest trends. I’m going to throw out a guess here and say that you thought of Katniss from the Hunger Games when you saw this picture. Maybe you even thought it was a screencap from the movie. It also recalls Disney’s most recent addition to the Princesses Franchise, Merida, from Brave. So within the first few seconds, this promotion is already making us think of products and commercial enterprise rather than about the Everyday Girl (who, according to the ad, also happens to be a Princess). 

Now I’m not trying to say that it isn’t a beautiful promotion with some really great sentiments, but I do think we need to be aware of where it’s coming from. And how the commercial’s argument for what a Princess is fails to capture the definition that Disney’s films have given us. 

This is the voiceover given throughout the promotion:

“I am a Princess. I am brave sometimes, I am scared sometimes. Sometimes I am brave even when I am scared. I believe in loyalty and trust. I believe loyalty is built on trust. I try to be kind, I try to be generous. I am kind even when others are not so generous. I am a Princess. I think standing up for myself is important. I think standing up for others is more important, but standing with others is most important. I am a Princess. I believe compassion makes me strong. Kindness is power. And family is the tightest bond of all. I have heard I am beautiful, I know I am strong. I am a Princess. Long may I reign.”

It’s interesting, first of all, to note that even with Disney trying to change the definition of Princess, we still get the sense that it is putting forward a certain construction of femininity. Kindness, compassion, beauty, generosity. All standard, traditional “feminine values”. In her discussion of feminism in fairy tales, Karen Rowe argues that traditional fairy tales exhibit “passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues”. I think we’re still seeing a lot of that in this commercial, even though it is trying so hard to break away from that regressive view of Disney. While it does mention strength, a less “feminine” quality, it seems to be equating this with kindness. As if girls have a different definition of strength than boys.

I will say that the promotion does a good job of ensuring it is representitive. There are individuals from a great variety of ethnic backgrounds (though they are all Americanized— no one is represented in traditional cultural attire) and there are even two representations of girls with disabilities:

I was disappointed with how brief this image of a young girl with Downs Syndrome was, as it took me several times watching the commercial to even notice her presence. So while I am glad she was included, I have to wonder why Disney was so cautious about this representation? It is almost as if she is there for those who want to see her, but those that don’t can easily glaze over that quick second she is on screen. 

This girl who uses ASL (so is probably deaf and/or mute) to sign “I am a Princess” has a much more prominent presence. There is no denying her existence in this promotion. 

This got me thinking about the lack of representation of girls with disabilities in the Princesses Franchise (not to mention Disney in general being fairly lacking). There is a representation of a mute girl, a mute Princess, in fact: Ariel. She wasn’t born with it, but it serves the same function. Perhaps girls with disabilities can associate with Ariel, feeling unable to be properly understood by those around them. But there’s a problem with this representation: Ariel’s loss of her voice represents a loss of agency. And more than that, Ursula encourages her that without a voice she can still use her body language, her attractive curves and form, to communicate. What a message. Not exactly how I would want my daughter to look upon herself whether she has a disability or not.

I saw a comment on the Youtube page for this video stating that all of the individuals in the promotion are straight and cis-gendered, and so it is not fully representative. While it’s not easy to tell from such a short commercial whether the girls represented are cis-gendered are not, there aren’t any explicit examples of other possibilities either, so that is likely the interpretation we are meant to take. For instance, there could have been a representation of a transgender individual- someone who is physically a boy, but identifies as a girl. Would that person be a Princess too, according to Disney? Or there could be a representation of a same-sex couple acting as parents to one of the “Princesses”. Of course, I didn’t expect Disney to include such things. They’re taking a safe route, and that would not be safe at all. Still, it would be nice. 

In the near future, I will do another post looking into the variety of comments made on this promotion in greater detail. 

For now, though, I want to finish by discussing the incoherence between the definition of “Princess” given by this commercial and by Disney’s films. 

“Family is the tightest bond of all” is something emphasized in this commercial. But is it, according to the Disney Princesses Franchise? Let’s look at our lineup:

Snow White has only the evil Queen as her stepmother, and no other parents. 

Cinderella has a wicked stepmother and two wicked stepsisters.

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) was sent away from her parents and instead raised by fairies, who didn’t tell her of her family until she was much older. When they did tell her, she returned to her “real family” without having any true relationship with them at all.

Ariel has a father and sisters, but doesn’t seem to have a good relationship with any of them. There’s a serious lack of communication until the very end of the film.

Belle has only a father, but she does have a close bond with him throughout the film, even when she is not with him physically.

Pocahontas has only a father, and there is again a lack of communication between them until the end of the film.

Jasmine has only a father, who cares for her deeply but despite that seems to fail to communicate properly with her.

Mulan has a full family and loves them very much. She defies them, however. (Of course, it’s only fair to mention that she defies them in order to protect her father)

Tiana’s father has passed away, leaving her with her mother only.

Rapunzel was raised by an evil witch who she later defies. She reunites with her family later, but like Aurora has no real connection with them aside from blood. 

There’s no coherent representation of family in the Disney Princesses franchise. But unfortunately, in general, family doesn’t seem to be much of a tight bond at all. In fact, many of the princesses strive to break free from their “family”. 

Which brings me to another issue: stepfamilies. Where is their fair representation? I think it’s about time that we get a good stepmother or father to throw in the mix. Young girls who identify with the princesses, and who might have stepparents and even stepsiblings might then try to associate their stepfamilies with those in the films. These stepparents and siblings could be incredibly nice to the child and still not be accepted because they are perceived by the girl to be inherently bad. Just something to think about. Stepfamilies are getting more and more common and conventional, and yet we’re still stuck with that old view of them as “wicked”.

The final incoherence I’d like to discuss is one already touched on briefly: disabilities. The only Princess with any sort of disability is Ariel, and that was somewhat by choice and was in the end reversible. I’ve already discussed with the issues of that, anyway. Though Disney strives to give the impression that girls of all abilities can be princesses in their promotion, the films clearly tell a different story. 

I was talking about this with a close friend recently, who has a cousin with Downs Syndrome. I myself have a cousin who is developmentally delayed. And both of us feel strongly that there should be some more role models for children like our cousins. There are so few representations of people with disabilities, or even just different from the “norm”, in popular culture. Disney has such a great influence and wide audience. Surely, if Disney gave us the image of a Princess with Downs Syndrome or something similar, there would be even less stigma about such things, and these children could feel that they too can truly be a Princess. (as I had this conversation with my friend I immediately started having visions of a Disney film with sister Princess, one with Downs Syndrome, finding their way in the world together. I hope that one day I can say my dreams have become a reality!)

In case you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you familiarize yourself with this video before my next blog post, which will be commenting on it!

A few weeks ago I received an email from Disney recommending that I “Download a Disney Book App for your Princess!” (yes, I am on Disney’s mailing list. I don’t exactly remember when I registered for it or why, since I usually avoid these things), and once I opened up the email, I knew immediately that I would have to write a blog post about this. 

First of all, let me say that it amazes me that they market iPad apps to such a young audience— what would a five year old do with an iPad? 

Now, on to discussing the App itself. It’s a Disney Princesses sticker book (to me, though, part of the fun of sticker books is lost when it’s in digital form). And you can dress up the different princesses in all sorts of outfits, mixing and matching and accessorizing to your heart’s content. But what really gets me is the feature that allows the child to become a princess. Disney’s website explains that using the interactive camera feature,  ”your child’s face will appear as a favorite Disney Princess—Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, Snow White, Jasmine, Belle, or Tiana. 

With a swipe of a finger, you can change outfits and accessories, add tiaras, and then send your child’s royal portrait to friends, family, and fellow princesses”. 

Is it just me or are those images terrifying? Here, we have more than little girls simply fantasizing by playing with dolls. They are becoming the Princess— the doll— themselves. Seeing this reminded me of something I have been thinking about and struggling with a lot in terms of this project: Lacan’s “mirror stage”.

Essentially, the mirror stage represents the moment in a small child’s life when they are able to look in a mirror and recognize themselves, thus realizing the separation of the self from society, the separation of the natural self and the social self. The child realizes that he or she is a separate entity from the mother, and from everything else in the world. This is especially important when discussing Disney because children are exposed to it at such a young age, in many cases before they even reach this “mirror stage”- dolls, blankets, clothes, even baby bottles all have Disney Princesses plastered across them. Little girls are immersed in the Disney Princess franchise from birth. 

With the “mirror stage” comes a desire for a perfect completeness- the child sense that there is something missing. With subjectivity being formed, a void is felt. What the Disney Princesses do is provide an imaginary, a way to access the ideal feminine existence and fill the void. With this App, this has been taken to an entirely new level. This isn’t a little girl dressing up in the Disney branded Cinderella dress. This is a little girl placing her face onto the body of Cinderella. It’s a camera, not a mirror, but the effect is the same. They are looking at the image of themselves, not as they are, but as the ideal Princess figure. Part of what is unsettling about this image, perhaps, is the implication of maturation: the Princesses whose bodies these children’s faces are taking over are much older, they have a womanly body- the breasts are clearly visible. Looking at this image of herself could cause the little girl to feel even more distanced from her identity, and from who she should be. She doesn’t look like her image. 

Which is the “right” image? The one she sees here— the one that she can accessorize freely, adding elements of fairy tales to her own existence— or the one she sees in a real mirror? How is a little girl who has been exposed to this all her life to know?

One more quick note: I couldn’t help but notice in the second image, the accessory on the girl is a necklace shaped like a shell. This is a necklace worn by Ursula in The Little Mermaid, and it contains Ariel’s voice. It represents a loss of autonomy, or, alternatively, a gaining of control over someone else. Of all the accessories from Disney films to include, and to show in the promotional images, why this? 

Brave is a revolutionary Disney film in many ways. It features the first Pixar Princess, and the first female lead in a Pixar film. It also features the first Princess to not find prince. 

I have to say, I was quite pleased with this development. While watching the film, I was hopeful that Merida would remain single until the end, but I have to say that a small part of me was still expecting a noble prince to show up within the last few minutes of the movie. I honestly would not have been surprised if in the final scene Merida announced in the voice over that she did in fact fall in love and find a prince on her own terms. I am incredibly thrilled that they chose not to do this. Merida is free to find love— or not— as she sees fit. (Of course, as I write this, I am having visions of a Brave 2, where Merida will finally find the love she has been seeking. I sincerely hope that this isn’t going to happen, but I will not be surprised if/when it does.) 

I think that Merida succeeded in being a strong female lead, a princess who can fend for herself, and who is able to cause revolutionary changes in the hierarchical structure she finds herself in. Did she go about it the right way? No. But it’s nice to see that she isn’t the perfect character, either. She makes mistakes. What person doesn’t? 

It is unfortunate that she doesn’t recognize the gravity of her mistake until her mother has been transformed into a bear as a result of her attempt to “change” her mother (by which she basically meant she wanted her mother to view what she had done as right, rather than irresponsible, and to then agree with Merida). The trouble really began when she decided to fight for her own hand without warning, disrupting a ceremony that held the fragile alliance between the clans together. That could have caused some serious problems- perhaps more battles to decide on a new reigning clan. So of course her mother didn’t agree with her. I understand where she was coming from, and I know there was little else for her to do to break out of the situation she was trapped in. The problem is that she didn’t seem to recognize the serious difficulties this could have caused her entire clan, and didn’t seem to listen to her mother when she tried to tell her that. But the most significant problem, which led to all of these problems, is the lack of communication between Merida and her mother. And though she doesn’t know it, and doesn’t even realize it is happening, this is what the will-o-the-wisps are leading her to rectify.

Still, Merida comes to realize her mistakes, and after seeing the problems her mistakes had caused (the main one being that her mother had been turned into a bear, but this then caused her to think about the other issues she had created as well) is even strong enough to be willing to go through with the betrothal in order to set things right. The renewed bond between her and her mother meant that the lack of communication between them was no longer, and they both finally understood each other’s point of view— despite one of them now only speaking Bear. Together, they were able to come up with a solution that would satisfy the clans and allow Merida her freedom of choice. Ultimately, it is this new recognition of the importance of communication and familial relationships that breaks the spell. And all is right with the world again. 

All in all, I found Brave refreshing and interesting, and truly enjoyed it. Merida is a unique character, with a new construction of femininity not shown in other Disney Princess films. She is tomboyish, but she is not pretending to be a boy, and has no desire to do so. She is comfortable in her femininity, never wearing anything other than a beautiful dress, even while exploring and practicing her archery through the forest—though she does not like the tight dress that her mother puts her in to make her appear more appealing to her suitors.

This dress, in fact, she rips while she draws her arrow to compete for her own hand; physically demonstrating her intent to tear away from the single, controlled version of femininity laid out for her. She is not breaking away from femininity all together: she is seeking freedom to choose how to express her own personal femininity.

Her sleekly styled bow, powerful but clearly designed for a female hand, is an excellent representation of Merida’s personality: feminine, but strong-willed and determined. Her mother throwing the bow in the fire was then an expression of her desire to break down Merida’s strong will in the hopes that she would fall into the acceptable version of femininity for a Princess. Of course, she then immediately realizes what she has done and retrieves the bow from the fire, realizing that she, deep down, wants her daughter to be free to express herself as she sees fit, even if she wants her to go through with the betrothal to appease the other clans. 

It was a beautiful Disney Princess film that finally truly showed the power that a girl can have: not in taking on a male role, not in finding a man, but in being herself. I only hope that this is the first of many films of its kind.

I’m going to be talking a lot about this topic, but to begin, let’s discuss the merchandise that has recently been released for Tangled Ever After. (I haven’t yet seen this short film so I apologize if I get any of the facts wrong.)

I’m already a little bit disappointed with this short film solely because of its title: Ever After? Yes, just like the ending to a fairy tale in a children’s storybook. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with this, especially considering how Tangled ended, but I would have appreciated a little bit of originality. The short film also just seems to me to be an excuse to promote more merchandise and boost sales of Rapunzel dolls again. Did we really need to see their “happily ever after” moments? Could this not have been left up to our imagination? I was quite satisfied with the ending of Tangled, with that it left open the possibility of the couple waiting a long time before deciding to get married. Eugene (Flynn) says that after “years and years of asking” he finally said yes— though after Rapunzel scolds him, he corrects himself and concedes that he had asked her. Still, I had interpreted his comment to mean that he had in fact asked Rapunzel to marry him for years before she agreed— that is, she exercised her own power of choice, and chose to wait and test things out first before marrying. This would be an expression of agency that other Disney Princesses have not had- most seem to marry their prince just a few days after meeting them, and even those that don’t marry the prince in the film never seem to have a say in the matter. It’s simply assumed that they will marry the prince, but rarely are they actually even asked. (I will note that Jasmine is an exception to this, since she was explicitly given the choice to marry whoever she wanted by her father. Still, she wasn’t given the choice to just not marry at all. Mulan is another exception, as it seems that the relationship is just beginning at the end of the first movie)

Back to the short film, from what promotional material I have seen, Rapunzel’s choppy hair seems to suggest that the wedding occurred very shortly after the end of the first film. Which contradicts my interpretation of Tangled’s ending. I think I would have preferred to keep on thinking about the ending that way. And while I don’t know if children would have interpreted the ending the same way, that it is left open still probably would have sent a better message, suggesting that happy endings don’t require two rings and a big white wedding dress to be complete. 

In any case, I’m digressing from the point. The point is, in the film, Rapunzel has short brown hair. This was a very significant development in the first film, signifying her escape from the oppression of her “mother”, and a personal transformation. Her short hair is how we know she is not the same girl we see at the beginning of the movie. And yet, the majority of the merchandise being sold as part of the “Ever After” line depicts Rapunzel with her long blonde hair:

Even the girl on the website modeling the wedding dress is shown wearing the hair piece with a golden braid:

And the ever-present cameo of the Disney Princess featured on the chest of every Princess costume? Guess what she looks like on the wedding dress?

Of course, she has long blonde hair. 

Now, after searching the entire Disney website, I did find one version of Rapunzel in her wedding dress with short hair. She comes in a four piece set. 

I actually find this set pretty interesting. Since it includes Rapunzel with both long hair and short hair, it actually shows evidence of her transformation. This is something that’s hard to do with dolls, which typically can only show one instant, a single image of the character, and this instant is situated entirely out of its context (which can make all the difference- remember Mulan’s matchmaker dress? Look at it in the context of the film, and in the context of all the dolls that are sold. In the film this conforming to norms was departed from, while in the dolls and other merchandise it is praised). So I am quite happy with this particular set. I have to say, though, that it seems to be rare. They have never had it at the store when I’ve gone. 

It must be because longer hair is more fun to play with, more easily marketable to young girls who want to style their dolls’ hair. I was certainly one of those children- one of my favourite part of having Barbies was being able to practice new and crazy hairstyles on them. But why, then, must the plush version of the doll still have long blonde hair? This serves no purpose, other than to construct an identity for Rapunzel contrary to the one depicted in the two films. A construction of an overt, exaggerated ideal of typical femininity- soft, fair, long hair, with flowers weaved among it. The Rapunzel I remember from the movie had a very different reason for keeping her hair long, and her reason for being upset with her hair being cut was because it meant she no longer had the ability to heal, to save the one she loved. But once she realized that she still had that power, her reason for keeping the unnatural hair, not even her true colour, was gone. And I think she had a more fulfilling life as a result of not having all that hair dragging her down. 

After looking at the Disney website as well as exploring in store, it seems to me that the Disney Princesses we see on merchandise are not the Princesses we see in the movies. At least, not always. All artwork, promotional material, and dolls I can find— except for the one I already discussed— show Rapunzel with her long blonde hair. I understand the aesthetic appeal of long hair, all the artistic things that can be done with it, but this is merchandise that is being put in the hands of children. These children won’t necessarily be thinking critically about this, and reason that the long hair was chosen for visual effect. They might not have even seen the film, not understand the characters in context. All they see is this girl with long hair and a princess dress. Free of its context and of any explanation, how would you interpret a doll like that, when hundreds and hundreds of it are stacked up on walls, and the same face is plastered on to the brightly coloured clothing and bags in front of you? 

Welcome to anyone who comes across this page! This is the very first entry to my Disney Princesses blog. Basically, this blog started because I came up with this idea for doing my undergraduate thesis on the Disney Princess Franchise- looking into how this incredibly popular line schools girls into certain modes of femininity, affecting how they perceive themselves and their relationship to the world. My supervisor suggested that I make a blog about it, and since I love blogging, I thought I’d go ahead and get started on that! My thesis doesn’t technically start until September, so keep that in mind while reading the posts over the next few months. Things will likely get more interesting as I get further into my thesis and have more research and experience to draw on. 

But for now, I wanted to talk about a trip I had been looking forward to for a long time. My best friend and I are both huge Disney fans, and we both proudly describe ourselves as “eternally five years old”. We had been planning to go shopping at the Disney Store since school ended. But we were incredibly disappointed to find that the mall we had gone to no longer had a Disney Store. So our trip was postponed, and we finally made our way to a still-open Disney Store just yesterday! 

As we walk in, this is the first thing we see: 

As I’m sure you’re all aware, Disney is currently gearing up to release its latest installment to the Princess line, Brave. There are walls and walls of dolls depicting the main character Merida in a variety of forms- baby dolls, plushies, Barbie-style dolls, etc. And I have to admit, the immense amount of advertising is working. I really want to see this movie. Aside from the obligatory slapstick humour, the film looks incredibly stylish and I have high hopes that Merida will set a positive example for young girls looking to break from typical gender norms. 

My goal for this trip was to buy one of the Disney Animators’ Collection dolls (which is what the Merida you see above is from). If you’re not familiar with these dolls, they are basically heavily stylized young versions of each of the most well known Disney princesses (the anime fan in me wants to call them “chibis”). 

That’s just a small zoom in of an enormous wall full of these dolls. Being the 90s kid that I am, I had already narrowed down my choices to between Belle and Ariel. Both are adorable, and I had a lot of trouble deciding which one to buy, but eventually I settled on Ariel. When I excitedly opened the box after getting home, I was amazed at the amount of effort that went into ensuring that no part of the doll could possibly move out of its place while in transport, not even a single hair on her head. But I’m used to this, I have a box full of Barbies in my basement, after all. I was a little bit disappointed to find that despite claiming to be a depiction of a young Ariel, she has feet- you know, the thing that she, as a typical rebellious teenager, so longed for, and yet couldn’t remember the name of? I am, of course, not surprised in the least by this, despite my disappointment. Clearly this makes them easier to manufacture, when each probably has an identical mold with only slight superficial modifications. And that way she can stand up with the rest of the dolls in the collection- each at identical height, looking up at you with a coy, sidelong glance. 

It’s an absolutely adorable doll, and I love it very much. But I can’t help but think that many of these dolls fail to capture what made me fall in love with the stories they’re meant to represent. Each of these Princesses is an individual, with unique characteristics, interests, and flaws. The more modern ones tend to push for this individuality more explicitly, rebelling against expectations to come into their own, to become their own kind of woman instead of the kind of woman others want them to be. But as I’ve already said, these dolls, for all the variety in their outfits and hairstyles, seem oddly uniform. Should Belle not be buried in a good book? And Ariel not be investigating some new human gadget she’s discovered? Rather, each looks up with almost the exact same expression.

I’m currently reading a book called “Cinderella Ate my Daughter” by Peggy Orenstein. She points out the same thing that I have just done: that the Disney Princesses merchandise doesn’t seem to project the same values, or the same constructions of femininity, as the films do. An excellent example of this is basically every doll made of Mulan ever:

Read More