If I have to read one more feminists freakin blog about how terrible Disney’s princesses are I think I’m going to puke.
Have you read these things?
These feminist mother’s get on their blogs and start slamming companies like Disney because supposedly their billions of dollars in princess marketing is making little girls think the only thing in life that matters is beauty, and to wait for a man to come rescue her some day.
Bullshit!
Have these people watched a recent Disney movie?
I’m willing to buy these feminists’ point if we’re talking about some of the old Disney movies where the princesses literally do nothing while they wait for their prince to rescue them…
But that sure doesn’t describe the recent line of Disney Princesses.
Just look closer at some of Disney’s recent princesses and you will not find helpless beauties waiting for men to save them. On the contrary, you’ll find strong women, usually oppressed in some way, fighting with everything they have to realize their dreams.
Here are some examples:
Tiana from Princess and the Frog, had a dream to complete her Father’s dream of starting his own restaurant. Yet despite her father dying before he could realize his dream, and despite living in poverty, she works hard, saves her money and eventually opens her restaurant.
Maybe I’m just a simple minded moron, and am incapable of understanding these advanced concepts feminists like to talk about, but if my little girl ever finds herself without her father, without money and a dream… I think following in Tiana’s footsteps would be incredibly admirable.
If she wants to dress up as princess Tiana and pretend to be her, then “Hell Yes!” I’ll buy her a Tiana dress; because her character is worth looking up to.
Or take Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled.
Oh sure she’s a beauty too, and a little naive. But who wouldn’t be if they’d spent their whole life locked in a tower.
The important thing is that despite being oppressed, she defied oppressive authority to reach for her dreams and discover what life had to offer.
True, she did end up falling for a handsome guy, but he had to work pretty hard to earn her respect first. and let’s face it isn’t that a message a few women could have paid more attention to before they got married?
Plus in the end Rapunzel saves the prince, not with fighting and brute strength but with sacrifice and love; and only after he’d proved himself worth saving and worth loving.
I guess feminists probably wouldn’t like that idea of being so weak that they’d have to sacrifice anything for a man… but maybe that’s why so many of them are divorced.
Just saying.
Mabye they think the Prince shouldn’t have even tried to save her, because she’s a woman and women don’t need help from Men.
While I’m sure that’s a cute line these feminist mommy bloggers were preached to by their single Mommies when Daddy abandoned them at a young age… that doesn’t make it true.
Telling someone they can do something without anyone’s help isn’t good advice for a little boy OR a little girl.
We all need help in this world. Believe it or not, all of our children have weaknesses that someone else in their life could help shore up.
Teaching your child that they should just ignore their weaknesses is just plain dumb.
I think our Daughters should look up to these recent Disney princesses.
They are Women of strength, who manage to achieve their dreams without callusing their hearts and abandoning their femininity.
Women have strength, and it doesn’t mean they have to abandon their femininity to achieve their dreams and it does not mean they have to stop trying to be beautiful.
It might not be the same kind of strength as a Mans but that does not make it any less valuable, or any less powerful.
We all love a beautiful, warrior princess who fights for her passion while maintaining her femininity, and from my perspective, that’s what it seems like Disney is trying to create for our little girls. Will they always get it right, probably not. But they get it close enough for me, and I think their recent line of princesses are worth looking up to.
Keep up the good work Disney!
Hi there Mac
I agree – the older princesses were not inspiring, and I do tell my daughter not to wait for some person to rescue her but to go after what she wants in life.
I also agree wholeheartedly that the new princesses are way, way better! They are strong, they’re sweet, they’re funny, they’re independent but will not reject help, they’re beautiful (inside and out) and they have at least some depth of character.
Every little girl wants to be a princess, and that’s ok. Especially when what we’re teaching them by example at home far outweighs what they read in a book or watch in a movie.
)
Nice article Mac.
Your pejorative use of the term ‘feminist’ is insulting.
Well Leanne, I find most feminist views destructive, insulting and off based, so you might want to grow some thicker skin if you want to hang around this site. Or better yet, leave a comment that actually has a point to defend your views instead of just whining about being offended.
Hi Marc,
I do not think the Princesses or any other famous person(s) are to blame how our children see themselves. I am a single mom of a 3 year old and she is my Princesses. She knows the difference between cartoons and real life. She is a little advance for her age, but that is because I have pushed her to learn at an early age. I think people will blame anything or anyone on how their kids feel about themselves because its easier to do so instead of blaming your self as a parent. If everyone looks back on when they were kids things where different less TV and video games etc, etc so parents the question is what do you teach your kids and how do you raise them it the parents fault if their children think they need to be someone that they are not. Parents have more control in your kids and not your kids in you. Set goal and rules and they will learn to love themselves and everyone else. Send them to a camp that has children with different life styles example special needs or low income etc by doing this you are showing them everyone is different and no matter what you are a special person in this world and need to set them up for goals to make a change seeing other kids that are different will make them see how lucky they are and how important it is for them to help others and stop worrying about their looks … well I will stop her but parents need to step up to the plate and take blame for the way they raise their kids …
Great point Susana, maybe blaming the princesses is easier than blaming bad parenting.
I agree with you. The new Disney princesses are totally cool. The older ones, not so much. However I have noticed that most of the “Disney Princess” items tend to feature the princesses from the older movies. Usually Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Jasmine are the big 4. My take on them?
Cinderella: Not a bad one to look up to. She decides she wants to go to the ball, she works very hard to try to make that happen (even though she has those who do everything they can to dash her chances).
Snow White: meh. Easily duped. Then sleeps until prince charming comes.
Sleeping Beauty: Same thing
Jasmine: This one I actually like. She’s not easily fooled and it took honesty and work before Jasmine gave aladdin a real shot, even when he was a “prince”. She also had her own dreams beyond just getting married and being the princess.
When you use slurs and stereotypes, someone is bound to take offense, which judging by the tone of your post, may be something you were hoping for. Obviously you have a right to your own opinion, as does everyone else. For instance, I believe that if a parent wants to ban disney princesses, or any other commercialized character from their child’s life, they should be free to do so without judgment or ridicule. As a woman, incredibly thankful to be the beneficiary of the suffrage movement, and a new mother to a baby girl who will one day be in disney’s target audience, I am struggling with this myself. I thought I’d have more time to reconcile my feelings on the subject, but she became a princess before she was even born. Once people found out I was having a girl the onslaught of princess themed items began. We received multiple cards, bibs, pjs, socks, shirts, a blanket, and a pacifier, all with princess references. I am adamantly opposed to the mass market princess built for consumption by little girls (by more companies than just Disney) which has little to offer in the way of positive values and often encourages very negative concepts like narcissism, selfishness, objectification, and victim mentality. Having once been a little girl myself, I understand the fun of dress-up and as a well read mom, know the value of imaginative play and positive role models. However, I would rather my daughter be exposed to a general princess theme which encourages unstructured opportunities for exploration and creativity allowing her to define what a princess is without being confined to the often less than ideal character traits and experiences represented in the disney tales (despite the recent shift). In the end, I don’t plan on banning disney outright, but like anything else she is exposed to in life, I will offer supervision and guidance when the values on the screen or page don’t match up with the ones our family has chosen to live by. And, I don’t envision ever purchasing disney princess paraphernalia for her, but also understand that doesn’t mean she won’t get a hold of it elsewhere.
JR,
Thanks for debating me by backing up your opinion, but I have some questions about your comment…
Maybe this blog post is too short a place to fully understand your views of how “Mass market princesses built for consumption” are bad for little girls, and I know lots of characters are created with negative characteristics like you mentioned. But I find that there are enough good “Commercialized Characters” to counteract the bad. Studies show that kids behave like the characters they see on TV, good OR bad, so I tend to not care about a commercialized character if it is serving as a good example for my children.
But it sounds like you’d disagree with me. Are you more against just the commercialization process of all characters then? If so why? Just curious.
I have a soon to be 3 year old daughter who loves princesses and all the hype that goes with them. I am very fed up with people condoning parents for allowing there girls to dress and act like princesses at a young age.
When people want to shelter their children from Princess Movies even the original Aladdin, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty because they think these characters are teaching our girls to wait for a man to do it for you or that they can’t do things on their own is absurd. I have watched these movies growing up and I am certainly not sitting around waiting for some prince charming to rescue me.
I watch my daughter playing dress up and acting like a princess and see a strong, confident girl who loves her appearance and herself! I believe in order for a girl to learn to be confident in herself we need to teach her that feminine traits are respectable and admirable including dressing like a girl, being treated like a princess, being sensitive, and caring. I am not saying that women cannot play sports, be the CEO of a company or anything else she puts her mind to, but women are more sensitive, more tender and caring which are very positive traits. Too many feminists demean women by taking away all the characteristics of a woman essentially telling women to act like men. So if my daughter wants a hero like Jasmine in the Aladdin movie, more power to her!
What’s wrong with being a princess? My daughter dresses like a princess one minute then is up to her knees in muddy water catching crawfish the next minute. Children are exploring…. themselves and the world around them. Beinga princess is part of being a woman. If you are lucky enough to find a prince, you’d better know how to act like a princess! It will make you both happy!
I told my girls to learn good characters of princesses. Like Belle loves to read, she’s brave and smart. Even thought there are some princesses as dummy as Snow White, we could still find that she’s nice to people and animals.