Example Of Essay On The Disney Princess Effect: Setting Feminism Back 100 Years

Disney princesses invade little girl’s vision off what it is to be an admirable woman very early in their lives. From a very young age, female children are exposed to sexism, which is normalized in our culture, and the influences start as early as when little girls are watching television; most women in their twenties today, can still recall many characters such as Jasmine from “Aladdin” or Ariel from “The Little Mermaid”. No one has bothered to ask if those outfits were acceptable for children’s movies or what subliminal messages were being sent to their impressionable minds (Diaz 1). Feminist theory might argue that the Disney Princess Effect has given rise to a generation of women who believe that women are supposed to meet the Disney standard, rather than living up to the strongest, and most honest version of themselves.
Characters like Jasmine and Ariel not only had the “ideal” small-waisted, tight abed body image, but also wore revealing clothing, hyper-sexualizing the earliest role models of a generation of little girls. Mary Finucane argued that the road the Disney Princess Empire leads our daughters down is a scary one, in which it is perfectly normal to objectify and sexualize the female body, giving rise to children facing body image issues at younger, and younger ages as they seek to conform to the Disney standard. (Hanes 1).
The risk here is that little girls will ultimately abandon the best version of themselves, in an attempt to conform to what the world thinks they should become. Ashley Bipso noted that “It is evident that young girls seek to imitate the behavior of their beloved princesses, due to their belief that society and their peers evaluate them according to the standards created by Disney-related media (1).” This means, that for Disney to avoid negative body imaging, and anti-feminist propaganda, they must change the story, and give Disney watching daughters a new generation of female heroines who embrace their body image and are willing to take charge of their own story (Caprino 1).

Works Cited:

Bispo, Ashley. “Fairytale Dreams: Disney Princesses’ Effect on Young Girls’ Self-Images.” Rutgers Dialogues. 9(1). 2014. Web. < http://dialogues.rutgers.edu/all-journals/volume-9/148-fairytale-dreams-disney-princesses-effect-on-young-girls-self-images/file>.
Caprino, Kathy. "What's Wrong With The Media's Portrayal Of Women Today, And How To Reverse It." Forbes.com. Forbes, 2014. Web. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2014/11/21/whats-wrong-with-the-medias- portrayal-of-women-today-and-how-to-reverse-it/>.
Diez, Sofia. "Portrayal of Women in the Media Propagates Sexism." Jhunewsletter.com. Jhu Newsletter, 2014. Web. <http://www.jhunewsletter.com/2014/10/09/portrayal-of- women-in-the-media-propagates-sexism-85735/>.
Hanes, Stephanie. “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect.” Christian Science Monitor. 2011 September 24. Web. <http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0924/Little-girls-or-little-women-The-Disney-princess-effect>.