Female Heroes in Disney's Princess Movies

From a young age, I watched a lot of Disney “princess” movies. From the stereotypical Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, to more recently made movies such as Brave, Tangled, and Moana. These movies display a clear shift in the Disney princess heroic narrative. The first three, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, all, at least in their original Disney storyline, portray a damsel in distress who is saved by a Prince Charming with whom they live happily ever after. Though all three main female characters have some minor aspects of a hero narrative, in the end, they are unable to save themselves and must be saved. They perpetuate stereotypes of a weak and cowering woman below a powerful man. On the other hand, the later three movies, Brave, Tangled, and Moana, all coming out in the 2010s, display a strong female character who, throughout their own distinct hero’s journeys, fight back and show up the various misogynistic characters who get in their way. This is of course just a cursory description of the female main characters in these movies, I’m sure there are millions of YouTube videos spouting about the misogyny of the movies, but they still are clearly distinct from the movies of the earlier decades.

            It is not surprising that there is this separation between the films of different decades, since the world we live in has done a bit of evolving in the last century, but we, as current juniors and seniors, are in an interesting position, as people born primarily (other than Mr. Mitchell) in -the first few years of this century. Our Disney princess experience was damsel-in-distress-centric for the first half(ish) of our lives and then female-hero-centric for the second half(ish). I think this may have been part of the reason why I, at least, didn’t identify much with heroes growing up. I wasn’t a huge superhero person, and had very few living heroes, at least as far as I can remember. I was surrounded by a culture of male heroes and found it difficult to find female heroes that I could connect to. As I have gotten older and more involved in social media and keeping track of the news, this situation has changes, since I have learned about other women, both fictional and in real life, who have had heroic journeys and inspiring life stories. These women have given me a foothold into what I can do, pulling me out of the confusing mess of patriarchal ideas I was previously immersed in.

            When I think of modern Disney princess movies, in the context of this class and this blog post, the one which comes to mind first, is Moana. A story of a girl living in her normal life, whose call to adventure is refused at first, not by her but by her father, but who ends up leaving anyway, making use of the talismanic boat she discovers behind a waterfall and following the advice of her magical mentor Maui to complete her task, save her world, and return to her home a changed woman (girl?), ready to lead her now rejuvenated people to a bright and wonderful future on the seas. Moana is the literal savior of her people and is the kind of role model princess who I wish had decorated my room as a child. I think children now are incredibly lucky to both be able to see Disney damsel and warrior princesses and to be a part of an incredible population of women around the world, many of which would make fantastic, albeit parasocial, heroes.