Disney Princesses

Pixar's experiencing a bit of a quality dip lately to coincide with Dreamworks upping its game, and the new trends in the Disney (without Pixar input) are rooted in very clever marketing. The merchandise, particularly the princess stuff, is what kept the company afloat when they were churning out crap like Home on the Range and Brother Bear. They do realize they need to keep the girls onside but also provide for the boys. And I do think they realized this when the Ghibli films did so well. It's a bit cynical but if it works...

The dwarves in Snow White were practically on the level of the mice in Cinderella, they were deliberately given a large part of the film because they were so much easier to animate than the rotoscoped realistic characters. If you watch the end of the film, you can see the prince do a strange sort of shimmy up to the glass casket, the animators agonized over that for days and in the end just gave up. Snow got the whole dance sequence which in and of itself took weeks to film, trace and colour.

Chaos, the giant eyes are part of a growing trend in animation. As I've said, Snow White was rotoscoped so she's the most realistic princess, the ones that came after were freehand drafted but done in mostly the same style. Large eyes are just more expressive, they can mean the difference between animating 24 frames or animating 96. Anime does it all the time, and the man who pioneered the anime genre was influenced directly by Disney's use of large expressive eyes in Bambi. Anime's never been as popular as it is now and it's filtering back to Western animation.

I'll say this for Dreamworks, they are a lot less nervous about making their characters awkward looking or downright homely. I think Disney gets gunshy about this, originally I heard they wanted to make Anna look more gawky but they were afraid her merchandise wouldn't sell.

Fantastic, thank you !

Charlotte's Web is lovely, I wasn't sure what a live action version would be like but it's very faithful to the book. My DDs (also 6&4) have also like 'The Secret of Moonacre' which is based on the book 'The Little White Horse' by Elizabeth Goudge which was one of my favourite books as a child. The Spy Kids was a successful franchise, we've not watched them yet but they look fun and they are all U rated so should be OK for this age range. Check out favourite book titles on Blinkbox, there's live action film versions of lots of children's classics, e.g. all the Roald Dahl books.

Thanks! My DCs are 6 and 4 so a bit young for Harry potter but I'll look at the other ones.

This is a really interesting thread. It's making me think which I really like!

I don't understand the distinction between animation and general release, aren't all family films animation these days?

Look at the male characters in the Disney films, the prince in Snow White barely exists

There are 2 named and speaking female characters: Snow White and the Queen. I think you are forgetting that there are seven named and talking male characters in that film that dominate the action. Sure the Prince doesn't say much but he's a minor character (along with the King and the Woodsman). It's still a male dominated film that was made in the 1930s for general audiences.

Most films (animations as well as general release) have more male characters than female characters, the current figures are that 75% of film characters are male. HALF of all films don't have female characters speaking to each other at all (Pixar has even worse stats than that). I would completely disagree that the recent change in Disney films is to make them more male friendly, the last few films (Tangled, Brave, and Frozen) are unusual because they have actually represented female-female relationships, something Hollywood doesn't generally show much interest in. Disney bought the western distribution rights for Studio Ghibli a few years ago, I wonder if they've now realised there is a market for films about girls.

While I get what your saying Teacake my problem isn't with the body shapes of the Disney Princesses, although they have changed from realistic to Barbie-like over the years, it's with their faces and facial features. I remember years ago watching a program about the making of one of these films and the chief animator said that they draw the princesses with huge eyes now, so that they look more baby-like, because that way, they are more appealing to people. If you look at pictures of Snow White's face and even Cinderella's, they have well proportioned facial features, whereas, Belle, Rapunzel et all have enormous doe eyes.

I'm probably over reacting, but they all, even the ones that don't need rescuing, look like they need rescuing. IYSWIM?

I'm talking about animated films, not general release. Animation used to be something the whole family watched together until the eighties when it was brought to television and segregated by gender and in some cases made purely to sell toys. Look at the male characters in the Disney films, the prince in Snow White barely exists, same with Cinderella. Eric in The Little Mermaid is slightly better but pretty passive.

Disney has had a lot of stiff competition from Dreamworks recently, mostly since Shrek smashed the box office, which was why they changed the format for Tangled, made the male character more of a feature to appeal to both genders as less of a princess-tale and more of a slapstick comedy. Brave followed in a different vein, Merida was the clear focus but there was a lot of broad comedy with the brawling tribes and her triplet brothers. Both Frozens' male and female characters are well-written and likeable (with the one obvious exception) so there's someone for everyone to aspire to, not just the girls.

Adapting the original Snow Queen fable would have been problematic because it's so female-heavy, it might have failed the reverse Bechdel test and the company wants to get more bums in seats.

The reason Disney gives for changing the story is the lack of back story for the Snow Queen. Actually the few film that have failed the reverse Bechdel test have done incredibly well, probably because women respond so strongly to seeing women on the big screen. Mamma Mia is the highest grossing musical of all time with a predominantly female cast.

I don't think films are less gendered than they use to be, quite the reverse in fact. Most of the Disney princess films have a an isolated princess without a network of female relatives or friends to support her. The Snow Queen fairy tale is very unusual because it is about women working together, that is why it is such a shame that Disney had to change it into a princess story, albeit a rare one where princesses work together.

Lego, some little girls are highly romantic, in a very chaste way. When I was a little girl I had no access to Disney, I watched the same boy's cartoons my brothers watched, and I still wrapped myself up in old lace curtains and declared I was going to marry the 'Hansel Prince'. That's not Disney, that's the classic folktale archetype and as I've mentioned before marrying well was up until quite recently the only way for a girl to fulfill her potential. It still is in some cultures.

Also, the days of segregating films based on gender are pretty much gone, Disney are waking up to the fact that not only will little girls see their films, but so will their brothers, swaths of teenagers and young adults and even couples on date nights. Adapting the original Snow Queen fable would have been problematic because it's so female-heavy, it might have failed the reverse Bechdel test and the company wants to get more bums in seats.

Snatch, the My Little Pony franchise gets rebooted every couple of years. The ones you grew up with are Gen 1, they had Gen 2 in the nineties, Gen 3 in early 2000s and the current one is Gen 4. They all look quite different to each other because they all correspond to a different generation of girls.

The reason Gen 4 looks the way it does is because it's following the look of the cartoon, which is made with the Flash program and stylized to suit that format. The characters look the way they do because it's easier to animate that way, and the cartoon has the dubious honour of being a cartoon for little girls that's so good even grown men can watch and enjoy it. Check it out for a bit and see how you feel:

I suppose I'm comparing them to the MLPs I had when young which looked a lot more like pastel coloured horses and a lot less like "shapely cartoons" - plus the human dolls that go with them also seem to be Disney princess shaped.

applejack

equestria girl

Whay's that, Snatch? Please allow me to try and convince you otherwise, I think it's one of the best toys on the market for little girls.

But in Brave Merida convinces her parents to free her from the obligation of a male protector.

The entire story revolves around a better relationship with her mother, and to an extent her father, and a bid for independence which she wins.

before disney was on the telly, 70's i remember quite clearly telling m friend i was a princess, my friend was from pakistan, and she said " why not hte queen" and i said " queens are old" i was not older than ten

friend became a doctor - needless to say i am not

I don't understand why romantic stories are considered appropriate at all for young girls. Why can't there be more stories about girls just having adventures? Romance can be left till they are older surely?

We went to see Frozen recently and while there were things I did like about it (the sisters' relationship, and the song 'Let it Go' where Elsa finally decides to stop hiding her power and uses it to create the castle) there were still lots of issues, particularly when you compare it to the source material: The Snow Queen. In the Snow Queen Gerda saves Kay with the help of the Witch (she's maybe not so much help!), the Princess, the Robber Girl, the Lapp Woman and the Finn Woman. See how many women are important characters in that story. In comparison there is Elsa, Anna, and the female troll in Frozen. So the depth of female characters just isn't there, all the minor characters are male and indeed most of the main characters as well. And I didn't like Elsa's excessive wiggle when she became the Snow Queen, personally I thought it jarred against the very powerful song.

I sometimes think with Disney they do just enough with their big Princess movies to make them appear 'more feminist' than older versions but actually they are only make a few concessions to feminism. In 10 years we'll be looking at Brave, Frozen and Tangled and thinking 'but they were not feminist enough'.

I don't want Disney princesses looking for a prince for my girls, I want Lilo from Lilo and Stitch, Vanellope from Wreck it Ralph, and Alice in Wonderland. Girls having adventures. Oh, and a Pixar female buddy film to balance all the male buddy films. No princesses.

Princess Teacake, modern My Little Ponies freak me out.

We went to DisneyLand Paris in the summer. We went to Cafe Auberge so dd could have lunch with the Princesses. Her long suffering brother came along.

Ds left with his first ever crush. On Aurora.

He watched with his mouth open wide and said "Mum, she's amazing ".

And she was. She was surrounded by various children and was conversing with them all. Fluently, in each of their languages. Whilst maintaining her character, and noting the cameras to pose appropriately.

He later met Prince Charming. He spent the entire week deciding he wanted to work hard at school and do that job and make children feel special.

When his sister announce she wants to be a princess he tells her she better work hard and learn to speak Manderin

Snow White was created using rotoscoping, an animation technique utilized by essentially videotaping a real person's actions and then tracing over them. Back when it was made animating a realistic human character was unheard of, Disney were firm users of the rubber-pipe limb technique. Snow White was played by Marge Champion, that's why she looks so much younger than the other princesses and has short hair. Marge had a professional dancer's body and hair is notoriously difficult to animate unless it's rendered as one solid mass or just cut short.

(Marge can be seen in action in this video: )

The unnatural proportions in the more modern pictures are down to stylizing in the animation medium, it's not unique to Disney. Dreamworks animation has just about all of its characters as stringy beanpoles with heads bigger than their waists but few ever complain and anime is a different story altogether. It's common in illustration to exaggerate features to make them more expressive. An animated character that looks too realistic usually falls victim to the Uncanny Valley effect, as in the character looks so realistic but still so subtly 'off' that it makes the audience uncomfortable. (See Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for details.)

The idea that most of the princesses just wait for their man to rescue them is such a lazy interpretation and taken severely out of context. Ariel had a long-standing infatuation with the surface world long before she saw the prince, and when her father completely overstepped his boundaries by destroying her possessions, that was the catalyst that drove her to ask the witch for help. Picture it another way: let's say a Muslim teenager became infatuated with Western culture and her very traditional father discovered her collection of Hollywood DVDs and set fire to them, driving her to seek the help of people traffickers to flee the country. It's largely the same story, with or without a romance involved.

Belle's story is not as cut-and-dry as Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie. The Beast was never outright abusive, she originally stayed in the house to free her father and he lost his temper and scared her a few times but ultimately showed himself to be a good person. And he let her leave of her own free will, she also returned of her own free will. A more clear example of abuse is Cinderella's stepmother, there was deliberate malice in her actions whereas the Beast was plain antisocial and awkward.

And the question of positive role models is a falsehood. Lauding Mulan and Merida as positive while deriding Cinderella and Snow as negative is going against one of the basic rights of feminism, the right to be any kind of person you want to be. Not all little girls want to play with weapons or go on adventures. Some little girls want to fall in love and get married and live happily ever after. Some want to read books all day, some want to collect random odds and ends for their aesthetic purposes. There is no right way to be a person, as long as you don't go out of your way to do harm to another human being.

I'll cite a franchise that makes this message a little clearer: My Little Pony. Does your daughter like to grow flowers? So does Posie. Is she a daredevil? So is Firefly. Is she nurturing? Give her Baby Cuddles. Does she long to be more grown-up and glamorous? Give her Heartthrob. These can be applied to the princesses as well, for every Merida-like tomboy there's also a homebody Snow White baking pies or an artsy Rapunzel drawing on your walls.

I think original Cinderella and original Snow White and original Alice were quite different creatures though - young, pretty but normal, no sexy vamping or impossible waists.

1937 snow white

Saw Frozen with DD, it was great from a Bechdel point of view but made me sob - my DDs have similar age gap and even similar names, and I have a crazy sister whose icy heart I would love to be able to melt

I'm with Lurcio on B&B, though and bloody Ariel winds me up with her anatomically impossible waistline and marriage at 16 to the first bloke she meets, who 5 minutes ago was ready to marry someone else,not being bright enough to spot she is actually evil.

SingSongSlummy Merida is from Brave. I quite like Mulan as well.

I loved Frozen (Disney in modelling good and bad relationships and explaining the difference shocker!). Also fond of Tangled. Love Merida (she doesn't marry any of them). Bit m'eh about The Princess and the Frog, though. Great score, great to see a non-white princess... but the prince... He's not a keeper, is he? He's going to screw around behind her back, shirk his share of the work in the restaurant and generally mess up.

As for Beauty and the Beast - visually stunning, but a horrible, horrible message - you are kidnapped and held against your will by a grumpy, abusive captor, but if you, note you, love him enough, he will miraculously change and it will all turn out happily ever after. Every time I see it I just think of all the women in abusive relationships being socially coerced to stay.

And yes, good relationships are utterly life-enhancing. But training your daughter to sit on her arse waiting passively for her prince to come? No thank you. (Fortunately - see Frozen, Tangled) Disney do seem to finally be getting a bit better at that.