Problems Surrounding The Female Characters In Walt Disney Films
Today, Walt Disney is a household name. You will be hard-pressed to find any person who has not seen, in their life, at least one Disney film. They are well-liked by children and parents alike, and provide a fun escape for the viewer. However, they are not without their problems. This essay will explore in particular some of the problems surrounding the female characters within Walt Disney Animation Studios' shorts and features, concentrating particularly on the Official Disney Princesses. We will also explore how the advances made by Disney’s princesses has reflected the progress of women in the real world.
Early Years: In the early years of Disney, throughout the 1930s, in the days where cartoons of Mickey Mouse and his friends were at …show more content…
their most popular, female characters such as Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck existed for the sole purpose of being the damsel in distress. They existed to be saved by the male leads and then to serve as their love interests. They were very one-dimensional and were more of objects to be desired by the male characters. Minnie Mouse appeared in just 70 of the 129 cartoons featuring the ever-popular Mickey Mouse, always as a secondary character save for a handful of cartoons. Despite being an iconic figure of Disney, featuring on much Disney merchandise and as a regular in the parks in parades as well as a meet-able character, she has only ever appeared in one feature length Disney film and that was a cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Of course, the earlier cartoons were a product of their time. All made in the 1930s, a time where a woman's role in anything was perceived to be far less important than a man's and where here in almost all films and plays at the time their role consisted of serving largely as a device for the development of the plot and of the male characters arcs.
Snow White, 1937
Although female characters generally played a secondary role, Walt Disney Animation Studios' first ever feature length film would star a woman - Snow White. Snow White is the main character of Walt Disney's ground-breaking feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She is a 14 year old princess who is cast out by her wicked step mother and made to run for her life, seeking refuge in the forest. Snow White, however, merely reinforces Walt's already established view on what women's roles should be. Despite the lead being a female, she is still waiting for her man. One of the main songs in the film is titled, "Someday, My Prince Will Come." She's singing it at a time in her life where she is likely very unhappy, as her step-mother is forcing her to do work cleaning the palace all day. This song is more about Snow White breaking free from her controlling step-mother and finding a place where she is happy and safe. And to achieve this, she believes that her dream prince is her only option. But, what other option does she have? Her step-mother is not only her step-mother, but also a queen. The Queen, or the Evil Queen as she is commonly referred, holds a lot of power over Snow White, and Snow, being a child, has few options available to her. She cannot ask anyone for help and there is no one around her who she could ask. She cannot try to escape form the Queen's castle because she is not able to fend for herself. Her prince dream is the only thing she can do. However, this is not presented in the film, and so, Snow White can give the audience the impression that she wants to be rescued by a man because she does not want to help herself. Snow White sings the song, "Someday, My Prince Will Come," after she has arrived at the dwarfs house, suggesting this further. She has already escaped from the Queen, and is in a safe place, so why would she still need her prince? Well, she's 14 years old. She's still a child, and the dream of her prince is likely one she has had for a very long time. Dreams like that don't disappear overnight, because it’s been ingrained in her for so long to believe that she has no other options than to wait to be rescued. Also, ironically, Snow White has escaped the drudgery of life in the castle to the safety of the dwarves’ home where she earns her keep by cooking and cleaning for the dwarves. Snow White remains in her domestic role until the prince finds her and the story ends with the marriage. The film was made at a time when women were expected to give up outside work when they got married, so reflects very well the expected role of women.
Cinderella, 1950
Cinderella, Disney's next venture into the realm of princess, also focuses on dreams and centres on the story of a young girl who is also abused by her step-mother. However, Cinderella doesn't dream of a prince in the same way as Snow White does. The song central to Cinderella, "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes", centres on the dream itself and how if you believe in it enough it surely will come true. However, this film does contain many negative stereotypes. For example, when Cinderella is attempting to make her dress for the ball and the mice are helping her, one of the male mice says, "Leave the sewing to the women," which reinforces the strict gender roles in place at the time this film was made, 1950. This is also something which happens in the world today, as sewing and crafts of this kind are still seen as being "feminine" things which men and boys can't partake in, and the fact that this film is still shown to young children today enforces these further. The Prince also falls in love with Cinderella at first sight, suggesting that her looks are more important than her personality, and it is unclear whether he would have even glanced at her if she had been in her typical "housewife" clothes at the beginning of the film. This, and the comments she receives at the ball about how beautiful she is, renders Cinderella to nothing more than a pretty thing to be observed. However, Cinderella and the Prince do then spend a good proportion of the film talking to each other while they dance together, so much so that midnight catches them by surprise. It can be assumed by this point the Prince's attraction to Cinderella is no longer purely to do with her physical appearance. However, the film is resolved by Cinderella and the Prince marrying and living "happily ever after" in a beautiful palace. This emphasises a very much criticised point which runs throughout almost all Disney films: that characters can only find happiness through romantic love and marriage. Only a handful of films do not conform to this model, and even fewer of them are ones featuring a female protagonist. It is almost expected that for a female character to have a happy conclusion to her tale that she must have found her "true love", and this presents great problem. As a result of this, it suggests not only that fictional characters can’t be happy without ‘true love’, but also people in real life cannot be happy without it. This sends a damaging message to young children who may be asexual and/or aromantic that they may never achieve happiness in their lives, if "happily ever afters" are only to be found when one falls in love. It also suggests that the pursuit of romantic love should supersede other ambitions.
Apart from the female lead roles, it is interesting to look at the other female roles. Often the women that are portrayed are in domestic roles, like the teapot in Beauty and the Beast, or are evil characters – Cruella Deville and wicked stepmothers are examples of this. The bad women all tend to be older and not really the ideal of the young girl waiting for her prince to come. One exception is the Fairy Godmother but her role is to help Cinderella to look beautiful enough for the ball.
Between Sleeping Beauty in 1959 and The Little Mermaid in 1989, Disney Studios didn’t make any films with female leads. The last film that Walt Disney worked on personally was Jungle Book, which had a male lead, in 1967. The Studio was struggling when they released The Little Mermaid, which was a success, so it could be implied that having a female lead was actually popular with the audiences.
Beauty and the Beast, 1991 It could be argued that the earlier Disney princesses discussed above are presented in this way because the fairy tales from which they are adapted do not leave much room for female strength, however, as proved by later Disney films based off of fairy tales, they can be changed to give the female characters more strength. For example, Belle, the lead character in the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast, displays acts of extreme bravery - fighting off a pack of vicious wolves and at one point and also standing up for herself and for the Beast to a large, angry, violent mob of villagers, and also when she decides to take her father's place as the Beast's prisoner. However, in the original fairy tale, the character of Belle does not display these traits, and is far more quiet and accepting. She goes to the Beast's castle knowing she will be treated as a guest rather than a prisoner, which makes the acts of volunteering to take her father's place a little less meaningful. Disney could have chosen to portray Belle in this way in their film, as a character who serves little other purpose than to save the men in her life from death - first her father, then the beast - but instead, Disney wrote the character of Belle with more strength and independence, and as a better, more well-rounded character.
This could be seen as Disney moving with the times and finally recognising that women are strong character in their own right, however, Belle’s life does still seem to revolve around the men in her life - the only other significant female character in the story is a teapot, whose role in the film is a housekeeper, and Belle also does not know any of the women in her village. In fact, the only people she appears to know outside of the Beast's castle are her father, the librarian, and Gaston, who is a character that does not exist in the original story and who also is a replacement for the two original villains in the tale, Belle's wicked elder sisters, who plot to kill her out of jealously of her kindness in the original story, and who were omitted from the Disney adaptation of the tale. At first, Belle shows a lot of promise, as she is very content in her love for books. She finds no need for marriage or men, as she rejects Gaston's proposal of marriage without a second's thought, because she believes there is “something more” out there in the world for her to see, as she sings about in reprise of the opening song, “Belle”. The whole reprise consists of Belle singing about how being Gaston's “little wife” is not the life she wants to lead. However, by the end of the film, she is content marrying the Beast and becoming his “little wife”. In the song she talks about her longing for adventure, however only a short while later she is happily settled down with the Beast, which further emphasises the point that all of these princess tales lead towards the “ultimate goal”, so to speak, that in order to achieve happiness, one must fall in love and get married. Belle cannot simply be content with the books that the Beast gives her – she must also fall in love with him.
Tangled, 2010 Another example of Disney altering a fairy tale to give the female character more strength is the recent film Tangled (2010), which is a retelling of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel.
In the original tale, Rapunzel can do nothing but sit in her tower waiting for the witch, Gothel (another example of the evil older woman), to return. Rapunzel has no friends and no life outside the tower. She doesn't even know anybody aside from the witch until the Prince happens upon the tower. However, in Tangled, Rapunzel takes her fate into her own hands and decides to leave the tower by herself, behind Mother Gothel's back. This shows that Disney's modernised Rapunzel has a lot of independence that she would not have had in the original tale. Rapunzel has been manipulated by her abuser - Mother Gothel - her entire life and still manages to maintain her cheerful and optimistic outlook on life, which is an important message to portray. Rapunzel is a very strong female character, and this was the intention of the film's directors, Byron Howard and Nathan Greno. They knew that in making a film for a modern audience it would be good to have Rapunzel be a "role model". They wanted the film to be driven by "girl power", and they specifically intended for Rapunzel to be a character who "has these hopes and dreams and she's going to get what she wants out of life."1 This shows that Disney Studios has made leaps and bounds when it comes to the centre of the female lead's story arc, finally recognising that women are strong and independent. They probably also realised that the modern audience had moved on from the 1950s and would prefer a strong female
lead. However, Tangled is not without its problems. Concerning the character design of Rapunzel, she has a very cartoon like design, which does not really fit with the relatively semi-realistic feel of the rest of the characters and settings. Her eyes are huge - bigger than her fist, in fact, and her waist is almost only half the size of her head. Rapunzel was designed by concept artist Glen Keane, who is known for designing female characters this way, with large eyes and very small waists. Also, at the end of the film, she is, ultimately, saved by her prince, Eugene. She is chained up and, although she resists Mother Gothel to the best of her ability she is unable to stop herself from being taken away by her and continually used for her magical hair for the rest of her life. Eugene then removes her power, which in itself is problematic, but also kills Mother Gothel.
Pocahontas, 1995 Another example of Disney changing an original tale, but for the worse this time, is that of the 1995 film Pocahontas, which centres around the arrival of English settlers in what is now Virginia, USA. Pocahontas was a real person - she lived from 1595-1617 - and is best known for her association with the colonies in Virginia and for her relationship with the settler John Smith. She was 12 years old at the time John Smith arrived in America with other English settlers in 1607, however in the film she is aged up to be about 18, and her physique very curvy and adult-like, with very long legs and a short skirt, all designed to appeal to the male gaze. This is all so she is more suitable to peruse a romantic relationship with John Smith, of which there is simply no evidence of ever happening in actuality.
Mulan, 1998 One film which stands out for positive portrayal of a complex female character is the 1998 film Mulan, in which the titular character disguises herself as a man in order to take her father's place in the Chinese army and the proceeds to train hard and fight to save China from invasion by the Huns. Mulan manages to be tough, clever and a skilled fighter whilst also maintaining her femininity - she defeats the Huns in a dress, not her armour. She is upset at the beginning of the film because she believes the only way in which she can bring honour to her family is through marrying an honourable man, however throughout the course of the film she learns that there are many different ways a woman can bring honour to her family and that a woman's worth is not restricted solely to marriage. Although she does have a love interest in the film, General Shang, there is no reason to say that this film is historically inaccurate or not as Mulan is a legendary figure of Chinese folklore, and there is no actual proof of her existence.
Frozen, 2013 It has been argued whether the changes made to Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, as it was adapted into the hugely successful 2013 film Frozen, were positive changes or not. It has been argued that the changes made were negative, as a number of important female roles were discarded in favour of adding more male characters. The Snow Queen as a tale is very female-oriented, and follows the path of a young girl called Gerda as she searches for her best friend Kai, who has been stolen by the Snow Queen. Frozen only very loosely follows the plot of this tale, and one of the only similarities between Frozen and The Snow Queen is the fact that there is a queen in the story who possesses icy powers. There are almost no other links. There is no romance in the original tale, however, this being a Disney film, quite a lot romance is added to it. In addition, the character of Gerda is aged up and renamed to Anna. She is also given a personal relation to the Snow Queen. She becomes her elder sister, Elsa. This proves for an interesting dynamic between the two characters, who are treated of almost equal worth. The company has them together on much of their merchandising, their meet-able characters in the Disney theme parks are always together and they have both been made official Disney princesses together. However this kind of relationship between sisters is not a new one to Disney, as their 2001 film Lilo & Stitch presents a very similar positive relationship between two sisters. The character of Anna is somewhat similar to that of Rapunzel. She is bright and optimistic despite a less than happy childhood, and she also goes out to seek what she wants by herself, although, like Rapunzel with Eugene, Anna also has help from her love interest Kristoff. However, in this film, Kristoff does not in any way save the day. It is Anna who resolves everything, but stopping Hans from killing her sister and by helping her sister to realise that their sisterly love is the solution to her icy problem. Kristoff only helps Anna out along the way. There are also problems in Frozen, as there are in all the films, and many of these lie, as in Tangled, with the design of the characters. Specifically, the two female leads and their mother - the design of these characters has been highly criticised as being lazy, as all three of them are almost identical, with only a few very slight differences. Their facial stricture is all the same - their eyeballs are all larger than their wrists - and their figures as well are thin. The only thing that really differentiates the three characters is their hairstyles. It has been criticised because Disney has proved in the past it is capable of designing female characters of the same gender that are related but not identical. For example, Lilo and her sister Nani from Lilo & Stitch and also Tiana and her mother Eudora in The Princess and the Frog. It has also been criticised for being very similar to the design of Rapunzel and Sgt. Calhoun from the film Wreck-it Ralph, and also recently the design of Honey-Lemon from Disney's upcoming film Big Hero 6. However, the head animator for Frozen, Lino DiSalvo, stated in an interview that animating female characters is "really, really difficult" because, although women have many complex emotions "you have to keep them pretty"2. This is a standard which is almost never applied to male characters. Even male characters whose attractiveness is one of their defining features, for example Eugene Fitzherbert from Tangled, it has never presented an issue during the animation process. To conclude, it is safe to say that the role of women in Disney films has progressed since the beginning of Disney, and the female characters are no longer restricted to always simply being damsels-in-distress or objects of male desire, and are now being treated as rounded human beings. However there are still improvements that could be made, in perhaps varying the design of the princesses and also the tired trope that characters can only achieve happiness by falling in love. The changes to the female characters have roughly followed the changes in women’s lives in real life but a bit later. The ideal “ambition” for women to find romantic love and get married has probably always been unrealistic for most women. It is interesting that the female leads stopped between 1959 and 1989, a time when feminism had led to changes that meant that women had to be treated equally and that women didn’t leave work to get married.
There are still improvements to be made, for example, all the female leads are still very young, very slim and very pretty and, until recently, there is still nearly always a romantic storyline, but progress is definitely being made.
Early Years: In the early years of Disney, throughout the 1930s, in the days where cartoons of Mickey Mouse and his friends were at …show more content…
their most popular, female characters such as Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck existed for the sole purpose of being the damsel in distress. They existed to be saved by the male leads and then to serve as their love interests. They were very one-dimensional and were more of objects to be desired by the male characters. Minnie Mouse appeared in just 70 of the 129 cartoons featuring the ever-popular Mickey Mouse, always as a secondary character save for a handful of cartoons. Despite being an iconic figure of Disney, featuring on much Disney merchandise and as a regular in the parks in parades as well as a meet-able character, she has only ever appeared in one feature length Disney film and that was a cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Of course, the earlier cartoons were a product of their time. All made in the 1930s, a time where a woman's role in anything was perceived to be far less important than a man's and where here in almost all films and plays at the time their role consisted of serving largely as a device for the development of the plot and of the male characters arcs.
Snow White, 1937
Although female characters generally played a secondary role, Walt Disney Animation Studios' first ever feature length film would star a woman - Snow White. Snow White is the main character of Walt Disney's ground-breaking feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She is a 14 year old princess who is cast out by her wicked step mother and made to run for her life, seeking refuge in the forest. Snow White, however, merely reinforces Walt's already established view on what women's roles should be. Despite the lead being a female, she is still waiting for her man. One of the main songs in the film is titled, "Someday, My Prince Will Come." She's singing it at a time in her life where she is likely very unhappy, as her step-mother is forcing her to do work cleaning the palace all day. This song is more about Snow White breaking free from her controlling step-mother and finding a place where she is happy and safe. And to achieve this, she believes that her dream prince is her only option. But, what other option does she have? Her step-mother is not only her step-mother, but also a queen. The Queen, or the Evil Queen as she is commonly referred, holds a lot of power over Snow White, and Snow, being a child, has few options available to her. She cannot ask anyone for help and there is no one around her who she could ask. She cannot try to escape form the Queen's castle because she is not able to fend for herself. Her prince dream is the only thing she can do. However, this is not presented in the film, and so, Snow White can give the audience the impression that she wants to be rescued by a man because she does not want to help herself. Snow White sings the song, "Someday, My Prince Will Come," after she has arrived at the dwarfs house, suggesting this further. She has already escaped from the Queen, and is in a safe place, so why would she still need her prince? Well, she's 14 years old. She's still a child, and the dream of her prince is likely one she has had for a very long time. Dreams like that don't disappear overnight, because it’s been ingrained in her for so long to believe that she has no other options than to wait to be rescued. Also, ironically, Snow White has escaped the drudgery of life in the castle to the safety of the dwarves’ home where she earns her keep by cooking and cleaning for the dwarves. Snow White remains in her domestic role until the prince finds her and the story ends with the marriage. The film was made at a time when women were expected to give up outside work when they got married, so reflects very well the expected role of women.
Cinderella, 1950
Cinderella, Disney's next venture into the realm of princess, also focuses on dreams and centres on the story of a young girl who is also abused by her step-mother. However, Cinderella doesn't dream of a prince in the same way as Snow White does. The song central to Cinderella, "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes", centres on the dream itself and how if you believe in it enough it surely will come true. However, this film does contain many negative stereotypes. For example, when Cinderella is attempting to make her dress for the ball and the mice are helping her, one of the male mice says, "Leave the sewing to the women," which reinforces the strict gender roles in place at the time this film was made, 1950. This is also something which happens in the world today, as sewing and crafts of this kind are still seen as being "feminine" things which men and boys can't partake in, and the fact that this film is still shown to young children today enforces these further. The Prince also falls in love with Cinderella at first sight, suggesting that her looks are more important than her personality, and it is unclear whether he would have even glanced at her if she had been in her typical "housewife" clothes at the beginning of the film. This, and the comments she receives at the ball about how beautiful she is, renders Cinderella to nothing more than a pretty thing to be observed. However, Cinderella and the Prince do then spend a good proportion of the film talking to each other while they dance together, so much so that midnight catches them by surprise. It can be assumed by this point the Prince's attraction to Cinderella is no longer purely to do with her physical appearance. However, the film is resolved by Cinderella and the Prince marrying and living "happily ever after" in a beautiful palace. This emphasises a very much criticised point which runs throughout almost all Disney films: that characters can only find happiness through romantic love and marriage. Only a handful of films do not conform to this model, and even fewer of them are ones featuring a female protagonist. It is almost expected that for a female character to have a happy conclusion to her tale that she must have found her "true love", and this presents great problem. As a result of this, it suggests not only that fictional characters can’t be happy without ‘true love’, but also people in real life cannot be happy without it. This sends a damaging message to young children who may be asexual and/or aromantic that they may never achieve happiness in their lives, if "happily ever afters" are only to be found when one falls in love. It also suggests that the pursuit of romantic love should supersede other ambitions.
Apart from the female lead roles, it is interesting to look at the other female roles. Often the women that are portrayed are in domestic roles, like the teapot in Beauty and the Beast, or are evil characters – Cruella Deville and wicked stepmothers are examples of this. The bad women all tend to be older and not really the ideal of the young girl waiting for her prince to come. One exception is the Fairy Godmother but her role is to help Cinderella to look beautiful enough for the ball.
Between Sleeping Beauty in 1959 and The Little Mermaid in 1989, Disney Studios didn’t make any films with female leads. The last film that Walt Disney worked on personally was Jungle Book, which had a male lead, in 1967. The Studio was struggling when they released The Little Mermaid, which was a success, so it could be implied that having a female lead was actually popular with the audiences.
Beauty and the Beast, 1991 It could be argued that the earlier Disney princesses discussed above are presented in this way because the fairy tales from which they are adapted do not leave much room for female strength, however, as proved by later Disney films based off of fairy tales, they can be changed to give the female characters more strength. For example, Belle, the lead character in the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast, displays acts of extreme bravery - fighting off a pack of vicious wolves and at one point and also standing up for herself and for the Beast to a large, angry, violent mob of villagers, and also when she decides to take her father's place as the Beast's prisoner. However, in the original fairy tale, the character of Belle does not display these traits, and is far more quiet and accepting. She goes to the Beast's castle knowing she will be treated as a guest rather than a prisoner, which makes the acts of volunteering to take her father's place a little less meaningful. Disney could have chosen to portray Belle in this way in their film, as a character who serves little other purpose than to save the men in her life from death - first her father, then the beast - but instead, Disney wrote the character of Belle with more strength and independence, and as a better, more well-rounded character.
This could be seen as Disney moving with the times and finally recognising that women are strong character in their own right, however, Belle’s life does still seem to revolve around the men in her life - the only other significant female character in the story is a teapot, whose role in the film is a housekeeper, and Belle also does not know any of the women in her village. In fact, the only people she appears to know outside of the Beast's castle are her father, the librarian, and Gaston, who is a character that does not exist in the original story and who also is a replacement for the two original villains in the tale, Belle's wicked elder sisters, who plot to kill her out of jealously of her kindness in the original story, and who were omitted from the Disney adaptation of the tale. At first, Belle shows a lot of promise, as she is very content in her love for books. She finds no need for marriage or men, as she rejects Gaston's proposal of marriage without a second's thought, because she believes there is “something more” out there in the world for her to see, as she sings about in reprise of the opening song, “Belle”. The whole reprise consists of Belle singing about how being Gaston's “little wife” is not the life she wants to lead. However, by the end of the film, she is content marrying the Beast and becoming his “little wife”. In the song she talks about her longing for adventure, however only a short while later she is happily settled down with the Beast, which further emphasises the point that all of these princess tales lead towards the “ultimate goal”, so to speak, that in order to achieve happiness, one must fall in love and get married. Belle cannot simply be content with the books that the Beast gives her – she must also fall in love with him.
Tangled, 2010 Another example of Disney altering a fairy tale to give the female character more strength is the recent film Tangled (2010), which is a retelling of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel.
In the original tale, Rapunzel can do nothing but sit in her tower waiting for the witch, Gothel (another example of the evil older woman), to return. Rapunzel has no friends and no life outside the tower. She doesn't even know anybody aside from the witch until the Prince happens upon the tower. However, in Tangled, Rapunzel takes her fate into her own hands and decides to leave the tower by herself, behind Mother Gothel's back. This shows that Disney's modernised Rapunzel has a lot of independence that she would not have had in the original tale. Rapunzel has been manipulated by her abuser - Mother Gothel - her entire life and still manages to maintain her cheerful and optimistic outlook on life, which is an important message to portray. Rapunzel is a very strong female character, and this was the intention of the film's directors, Byron Howard and Nathan Greno. They knew that in making a film for a modern audience it would be good to have Rapunzel be a "role model". They wanted the film to be driven by "girl power", and they specifically intended for Rapunzel to be a character who "has these hopes and dreams and she's going to get what she wants out of life."1 This shows that Disney Studios has made leaps and bounds when it comes to the centre of the female lead's story arc, finally recognising that women are strong and independent. They probably also realised that the modern audience had moved on from the 1950s and would prefer a strong female
lead. However, Tangled is not without its problems. Concerning the character design of Rapunzel, she has a very cartoon like design, which does not really fit with the relatively semi-realistic feel of the rest of the characters and settings. Her eyes are huge - bigger than her fist, in fact, and her waist is almost only half the size of her head. Rapunzel was designed by concept artist Glen Keane, who is known for designing female characters this way, with large eyes and very small waists. Also, at the end of the film, she is, ultimately, saved by her prince, Eugene. She is chained up and, although she resists Mother Gothel to the best of her ability she is unable to stop herself from being taken away by her and continually used for her magical hair for the rest of her life. Eugene then removes her power, which in itself is problematic, but also kills Mother Gothel.
Pocahontas, 1995 Another example of Disney changing an original tale, but for the worse this time, is that of the 1995 film Pocahontas, which centres around the arrival of English settlers in what is now Virginia, USA. Pocahontas was a real person - she lived from 1595-1617 - and is best known for her association with the colonies in Virginia and for her relationship with the settler John Smith. She was 12 years old at the time John Smith arrived in America with other English settlers in 1607, however in the film she is aged up to be about 18, and her physique very curvy and adult-like, with very long legs and a short skirt, all designed to appeal to the male gaze. This is all so she is more suitable to peruse a romantic relationship with John Smith, of which there is simply no evidence of ever happening in actuality.
Mulan, 1998 One film which stands out for positive portrayal of a complex female character is the 1998 film Mulan, in which the titular character disguises herself as a man in order to take her father's place in the Chinese army and the proceeds to train hard and fight to save China from invasion by the Huns. Mulan manages to be tough, clever and a skilled fighter whilst also maintaining her femininity - she defeats the Huns in a dress, not her armour. She is upset at the beginning of the film because she believes the only way in which she can bring honour to her family is through marrying an honourable man, however throughout the course of the film she learns that there are many different ways a woman can bring honour to her family and that a woman's worth is not restricted solely to marriage. Although she does have a love interest in the film, General Shang, there is no reason to say that this film is historically inaccurate or not as Mulan is a legendary figure of Chinese folklore, and there is no actual proof of her existence.
Frozen, 2013 It has been argued whether the changes made to Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, as it was adapted into the hugely successful 2013 film Frozen, were positive changes or not. It has been argued that the changes made were negative, as a number of important female roles were discarded in favour of adding more male characters. The Snow Queen as a tale is very female-oriented, and follows the path of a young girl called Gerda as she searches for her best friend Kai, who has been stolen by the Snow Queen. Frozen only very loosely follows the plot of this tale, and one of the only similarities between Frozen and The Snow Queen is the fact that there is a queen in the story who possesses icy powers. There are almost no other links. There is no romance in the original tale, however, this being a Disney film, quite a lot romance is added to it. In addition, the character of Gerda is aged up and renamed to Anna. She is also given a personal relation to the Snow Queen. She becomes her elder sister, Elsa. This proves for an interesting dynamic between the two characters, who are treated of almost equal worth. The company has them together on much of their merchandising, their meet-able characters in the Disney theme parks are always together and they have both been made official Disney princesses together. However this kind of relationship between sisters is not a new one to Disney, as their 2001 film Lilo & Stitch presents a very similar positive relationship between two sisters. The character of Anna is somewhat similar to that of Rapunzel. She is bright and optimistic despite a less than happy childhood, and she also goes out to seek what she wants by herself, although, like Rapunzel with Eugene, Anna also has help from her love interest Kristoff. However, in this film, Kristoff does not in any way save the day. It is Anna who resolves everything, but stopping Hans from killing her sister and by helping her sister to realise that their sisterly love is the solution to her icy problem. Kristoff only helps Anna out along the way. There are also problems in Frozen, as there are in all the films, and many of these lie, as in Tangled, with the design of the characters. Specifically, the two female leads and their mother - the design of these characters has been highly criticised as being lazy, as all three of them are almost identical, with only a few very slight differences. Their facial stricture is all the same - their eyeballs are all larger than their wrists - and their figures as well are thin. The only thing that really differentiates the three characters is their hairstyles. It has been criticised because Disney has proved in the past it is capable of designing female characters of the same gender that are related but not identical. For example, Lilo and her sister Nani from Lilo & Stitch and also Tiana and her mother Eudora in The Princess and the Frog. It has also been criticised for being very similar to the design of Rapunzel and Sgt. Calhoun from the film Wreck-it Ralph, and also recently the design of Honey-Lemon from Disney's upcoming film Big Hero 6. However, the head animator for Frozen, Lino DiSalvo, stated in an interview that animating female characters is "really, really difficult" because, although women have many complex emotions "you have to keep them pretty"2. This is a standard which is almost never applied to male characters. Even male characters whose attractiveness is one of their defining features, for example Eugene Fitzherbert from Tangled, it has never presented an issue during the animation process. To conclude, it is safe to say that the role of women in Disney films has progressed since the beginning of Disney, and the female characters are no longer restricted to always simply being damsels-in-distress or objects of male desire, and are now being treated as rounded human beings. However there are still improvements that could be made, in perhaps varying the design of the princesses and also the tired trope that characters can only achieve happiness by falling in love. The changes to the female characters have roughly followed the changes in women’s lives in real life but a bit later. The ideal “ambition” for women to find romantic love and get married has probably always been unrealistic for most women. It is interesting that the female leads stopped between 1959 and 1989, a time when feminism had led to changes that meant that women had to be treated equally and that women didn’t leave work to get married.
There are still improvements to be made, for example, all the female leads are still very young, very slim and very pretty and, until recently, there is still nearly always a romantic storyline, but progress is definitely being made.