Many people grow up with the Disney Princess franchise as an essential part of their childhood; however, as these people grow up they find flaws they never imagined as children in the Princesses. While some of these accusations are valid, many people find it necessary to nitpick the tiniest of details, and, often, these points do not even hold ground. Take, for example, this article, entitled "4 Terrible Lessons from Disney Princess Movies." by Bailey Hemphill. This article delves into many classic Disney Princess movies such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, along with some more recent movies such as The Princess and The Frog and Tangled. Hemphill states that these movies teach young children lessons from feminine portrayal to family structure to social interactions, but she insists these movies teach all the wrong lessons to their young viewers. However, Hemphill overlooks the many good aspects Disney movies teach children, exaggerating the bad, and even portraying good lessons as terrible ones. Overall, this article holds little validity, and delves far too deep into the Disney movies, missing the beneficial lessons the stories are meant to teach.
Hemphill begins with the first ‘terrible lesson’, which is as follows: 1. Your romantic relationship should be co-dependent, based on lies, or make you change everything about who you are. According to this author, all Disney princesses are portrayed as helpless, lying, desperate girls willing to do anything to get the man of their dreams. That’s hardly the case. Mulan, for example, never intended to fall in love. The only reason she changed herself was to protect her family, and, most importantly, her father. She was not lying or changing herself in order to ‘get the guy,’ she was desperately trying to save her father’s life, even at the potential cost of her own. Snow White is also one of the supposed ‘helpless, desperate’ princesses according to Hemphill. Somehow, taking care of the several needy dwarves all while hiding away from a murderous queen makes her “helpless” and “desperate.” 2. Having a dysfunctional family builds strong character and makes you more interesting. First of all, this author blames Disney for the structure of the families when, in reality, the stories are not a Disney original. Most Disney Princess stories are taken directly from the Grimm Fairy Tales, and then animated into a movie. Disney cannot be blamed for a family structure taken directly from a different source. Even if Disney could be blamed, Hemphill goes too far in saying that “these broken families could suggest to children that they’re not interesting or likable, unless they have dysfunctional relationships with their families”. If anything, the dysfunctional families simply evoke sympathy among the audience for the protagonists from the movies. These family structures, it could be said, are simply used as a plot device to cause the viewer to sympathize with the Princess. To take it even further, Disney’s family structures don’t teach children that a dysfunctional family makes you more interesting; they teach children that dysfunctional families aren’t a disadvantage, nor do they define you: they teach children that they can become successful regardless of their family structures or past. 3. A social life consists of spending time with animals, inanimate objects, or non-humans. There are certain defining factors of a Disney princess: sing-song soprano voices, classic facial features, and, of course, animal friends who she loves. However, some could say that the absence of human friends could lead to antisocial tendencies. I could say that "some" are wrong. Realistically speaking, having a pet increases social interaction, and it helps with social anxiety or stress or depression. So, if anything, these movies are showing kids that being friends with animals is a positive thing. It also teaches them to not be mean or abusive to animals or their own pets. Also, kids aren't going to focus on how she's "antisocial" and "only talks to animals." They'll pay attention to the cute animals and the funny remarks or motions they make. I don't even think kids know what being antisocial is, so I doubt that they will think things like, "Those animals are making the princess not talk to anyone else." Also, in Snow White, Snow White has animal frienda, but she also talks to the seven dwarfs, so your claim is invalid. 4. Bad people are always fat, ugly, old, or some combination of those traits. These disney movies were made a while ago (for example: Snow White, 1937; Cinderella, 1950; Sleeping Beauty, 1959) - before people started to realize that what they said actually hurt others. Most of which were based off of Grimm Fairy Tales that were written in the 1800s. Also, in Beauty and the Beast, the whole idea is that Belle overlooked the fact that the Beast was… well… a Beast. She taught him how to read! She loved him for who he is, not what he looked like. Hemphill tells us that “Gaston = Ugly,” “The Witch = Ugly and Old,” and “Maleficent = Ugly and Old.” The point of all three of these villains is that they’re supposed to be beautiful. And the fairy godmother from Cinderella is a kind, loving being, but she’s shown as “old and fat.” And, with the kind of people living now as opposed to the 1900s, children will know the difference between right and wrong, and they will know better than to equate being bad with being "ugly" or "old" or "fat." Let's be real: not a lot of kids these days are watching old movies like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. They're watching newer princess movies like Frozen and Brave. So get a new topic to whine about.
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