Disney Princesses

[annabellesmum123]

Why is Disney's image of a Princess so popular today?! My DD seems to aspire to Cinderella like nobody's business! I was just wondering seeing as the princesses seem to just make women seem purely there for the use of men and as sexual

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

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.

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.

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

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:

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

Fantastic, thank you !

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.