In Defense of the Disney Princess & Real Feminism

(Before I begin this article, I would like to say that I did, in fact, enjoy Frozen. There were many things about it that were fun and well-done. But for a movie that had so much potential, it frustrates me that I didn't walk out of the theatre in love with it and that Americans are deeming it such a step forward for women in film.)

I’ve written previously about Frozen in another blog post back in January, but there’s another issue I’d like to discuss that, really, doesn’t have much to do with the film itself, but has come up because of it.

Feminism.

Now, before anyone loses their hair or lunch, I’m not “anti-feminist.” But I think we need to understand what exactly “feminism” means, because people have decided to take this word and transform it into some kind of ugly monster that now makes the very mention of it polarizing. In reality, feminism is not something that should be heavily debated, nor should it induce such heavy rage as it seems to whenever someone dare utter the word.

By definition feminism is: 

“The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” 

Equality. Really, that’s all that feminism is about: Treating women with the same respect and dignity that men give each other. It is NOT the idea that women are better than men, more important, more valuable, more intelligent, more anything. And it does NOT undercut the value of men or ignore the fact that men and women are created differently from one another. We are. Men and women are different both intrinsically and biologically, and there is ample evidence to suggest that this is not a debatable issue. However, regardless of what a man can do or a woman can do, we all have the same value.

For example, I love my brothers. One is seventeen and the other thirteen. While they have some things in common, you would be hard-pressed to tell me that they were essentially the same person and could do anything that the other could do. The younger one is driven, clever, and a natural peace-keeper. The older one is comical, responsible, and private when it comes to his personal issues. While you could argue that they are both extroverts and get along well with one another and the people around them, there’s no way that they are “the same.” However, this doesn’t mean that my parents or I consider one or the other more valuable. They are both wonderful because they are people. Human beings. And no matter how much one of them kicks and screams, they cannot change who they are.

For the purposes of this article, I'm going to refer to the infamous Mary Wollstonecraft and her book A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which is often used to demonstrate how the long-considered Mother of Modern Feminism thought that men are evil or have always been tyrannical in nature, suppressing women and keeping them from their potential. And if you only bothered to read those quotes, then yes, it would be logical to assume that Wollstonecraft felt that way about men and believed in the uprising of women and their power.

Except she didn’t.

For every (out of context) quote that people toss around, there are double the amount of quotes describing how she did not view the male gender as inferior or the female gender as superior. Wollstonecraft’s entire point of Rights of Women was that men and woman are equals, are friends, and have the same intrinsic value. She criticized both sides for perpetuating the subjugation of women: men for treating women like they had no real capacity to think, and women for not doing anything to argue otherwise. Not to mention she also wrote an article that coincided with Rights of Women: A Vindication of the Rights of Men. She wanted everyone, not just some men or some women, to have a thorough education so that society would grow and flourish. She saw it very much in a stagnant, beginning-to-decay kind of way because of the perpetuation of foolish ideologies such as the natural inferiority of women. They weren’t just bad for women; they were bad for everyone.

Here are some quotes from Rights of Women to emphasize my point:

“I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.”

Wollstonecraft wanted women to take charge of themselves and their lives, rather than sit back and let a man do everything for them. She didn’t believe that men were better, or that they should rule over women like tyrannical dictators. She wanted women to recognize their own potential and take charge of who they are, rather than sit back and let their husbands do everything for them.

"Were women more rationally educated, could they take a more comprehensive view of things, they would be contented to love but once in their lives; and after marriage calmly let passion subside into friendship—into that tender intimacy, which is the best refuge from care; yet is built on such pure, still affections, that idle jealousies would not be allowed to disturb the discharge of the sober duties of life, nor to engross the thoughts that ought to be otherwise employed."

And here’s another criticism of women—far too often, women believed that the same passion and exuberance they experienced during courtship would last through their marriage. Then, when it inevitably fizzled and the man may have turned out to be a bit of a floozy, the woman was left bored and uninterested, leading to things like extramarital affairs to try and regain that passion they once had with their husband. Wollstonecraft argues here that marriage is a strong friendship, rather than a fondness. The husband and wife should have things in common and actually enjoy the other’s company. She also points out that rational thought leads to contentment—woman would no longer feel like they needed to love more than once, suggesting that she was a supporter of solid, happy marriages that lasted.

And for the sake of space and time, I won’t continue. But with these points in mind, let us take a look at where Frozen, and by association its fandom, begins to get on my nerves.

It was out of fashion, anyway.

It was out of fashion, anyway.

For whatever reason, there seems to be a massive backlash against the “Disney Princess” image. With the onset of “Modern Feminism,” people seem to enjoy poking fun at the Disney Princess lineup, its themes, characters, story lines, and just about anything that doesn’t fit into the “modern” perspective on the world. Disney has even started taking shots at itself with films like Enchanted, openly stating clichés or making obvious jokes that the audience is meant to laugh at and go, “Oh yeah, remember THOSE archaic views? Look how far we’ve come!"

Except, have we really?

As a society, we have become so obsessed with the idea of representing females as strong, independent characters that we’ve begun to lose sight of what it is that makes a character such things. Rather than focus on simply making them people, we’ve turned them into she-men with the exact same stereotypes and sucked all the individuality out of them. A woman can no longer just be a woman; she has to be a strong, independent woman that “don’t need no man” to complete her. That’s become our modern definition of “feminism."

Frozen is one of the biggest culprits of this way of thinking. While I enjoyed the film visually and thought it had some of the best comedy of any of their films, there were so many moments that I wanted to chuck my popcorn at the screen because I got so damn sick of hearing some variation of the phrase “You’re marrying someone you just met” uttered every ten minutes. I feel like most of the film went out of its way to buck a stereotype that we seem hell-bent on insisting exists. Disney doesn’t add that stuff into their movies because they’re “socially progressive;” they do it because that’s what puts people’s butts in the theatre seats. That’s what people want to see—the constant, habitual, uninterrupted lambasting of Disney and their rich history of beautiful films that, by the way, were the most successful when they weren’t focused on producing “feminist” characters.

Let’s look at Elsa, who has become the quintessential example of the feminist ideology: She’s the beautiful, albeit mentally and socially disturbed, queen of Arendelle. She spends the majority of her life locked away in her room, forced to hide herself and her powers from everyone, even her sister (because you know, us women have always been subjected to being locked away where no one could get to us!). When it comes time for her coronation, she exhibits more fear than anything else which, given the circumstances, is justified. But instead of sucking it up and dealing, or even offering to re-open the lines of communication with Anna who could possibly help her not only understand her power, but learn to cope with it, Elsa chooses instead to hide behind her fear. When her powers are revealed by a frustrated Anna to a large portion of the kingdom, she runs away and abandons her duties as queen to live in isolation in the mountains, doing nothing except singing and looking pretty.

 

How exactly is this “feminist?” Come to think of it, her actions and personality sound more like the antithesis of Wollstonecraft’s feminist. She’s weak, selfish, incapable of standing up for herself, isolating, and thoughtless. The person who is supposed to run her kingdom with pride and dignity instead spends most of the film cowering in a pretty, empty ice castle like a wet, shivering Chihuahua. With sexy heels.

But hey. That song is catchy.

I get the message that Disney was trying to send. I really do: The idea was to be free from fear and anxiety and to let go of everything that holds you back so you can live your life. But if Elsa really wanted to do that, why did it require her to run away from all of her responsibilities, her sister (who is the only remaining member of their family besides herself), and her kingdom? That isn’t rising above circumstances; that’s running like hell away from them. Not to mention she won’t even let Anna talk to her when she comes to the castle. The sister that braves treacherous snow storms and wilderness just to reconcile their relationship and knock some sense into Elsa so she can save their kingdom from inevitable destruction is shoved aside for fear that she could be hurt. Is it a valid fear? Sure. But the fact that three-fourths of the way through the movie this is happening doesn’t portray a strong character with a wide arc at all. It’s someone who is manipulated and controlled entirely by fear.

Sure, she’s got a character—weak-willed, narrow-minded,  and lonely with a nice face, pretty dress, and absolutely no sense of priorities—but a character nonetheless. And that’s fine. Have someone who is like that and then either dispose of them or give them an arc. Leaving her in the film to fester in her own self-pity and then slapping a “she doesn’t get married in the end” label on her does NOT make her a feminist icon. It makes her even less interesting.

Then of course Anna gets shunned for her stupidity and carelessness when it comes to romance, because every teenage girl is always an expert at relationships, especially when they are deprived socially. Anna continues to be criticized throughout the duration of the movie, with everyone and their brother commenting on how marrying someone you just met is foolish. She’s seen as “weak” because she is engaged to someone in less than twenty-four hours and Elsa is “strong” because she doesn’t? What on earth does that have to do with feminism? If we’re still looking at Wollstonecraft’s model, she never mentions the idea that true feminism requires women to detest quick marriages (or marriage in general) or that to be a feminist character you’re not allowed to want to find true love.

In fact, Anna displays more feminist traits than her sister. Regardless of how ridiculous her decision to marry Hans was and then leave him to control the kingdom while she left, she did something. She took charge and went to find her sister out of love for her and her kingdom. She at least defended her decision to marry Hans, sticking with him until he turned out to be a loser. She saved her sister’s life and sacrificed her own in the process…and Elsa is still the better character because she doesn't want to find love or marry anyone. It makes no sense.

Why should Anna be shunned for the fact that she wants to be married? Why have we, as a society, suddenly decided that the desire to meet “The One” and get married is such a heinous idea? Judging by the number of “dating tips” blog posts I’ve seen, it seems we’re all very much in the same boat as Anna. Why do we villain-ize the romantic attraction young women have towards men, at least in animated movies? Is it because of the time frame it takes to happen?

Let me point out that these are, above all, movies. Children’s movies, specifically, and all of them thrive on simplicity. The simpler the plot and characters, the better. Unlike adults, kids aren’t looking for complex story lines and well-developed characters. They just want to look at a screen and be entertained for ninety minutes. In order to do that, Disney has to cut corners here and there and carefully plan their plots so that they are possible, but not necessarily probable, all while trying to create good characters, update the fairytale, do justice to the original, and market the film to as many people as possible. Falling in love can happen in three days, but is it likely? No. But it’s easier to make a movie that takes place over a shorter time frame because, if not, you have to make up for the missing parts with either transitions (which can be tricky) or exposition (which can be VERY tricky).

If Frozen took place over an extended period of time, the plot would have ended up even clunkier than it was. Besides that, it’s not even clear that Anna and Kristoff are married at the end of the movie. They may have begun to realize their romance is blossoming, but neither of them comes out and says, “I’m madly in love with you, please marry me.” They are, as Wollstonecraft would have described, best friends, if nothing else. The timeline isn’t meant to be realistic, it’s meant to be concise and, at the very least, possible.

And yes, I have known several people who met their significant other and knew that same day that they were meant to be together. Some of them have been married for upwards of thirty or forty years.

But then there’s another question that we could ask: Is it possible to have complex kids’ movies while still keeping a level of simplicity? Yes. Disney’s been doing it for the past seven decades.

Of course, I’m not limiting this realization to Disney Princess films. Ninety percent of the films that the company has put out since Snow White have some layer of depth to them. Here are some examples:

Pinocchio

Bambi

Lady and the Tramp

Dumbo

Alice in Wonderland

Fox and the Hound

Jungle Book

Pocahontas

Lion King

Sword in the Stone

Princess and the Frog

The Little Mermaid

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

Mulan

Tarzan

And the list goes on. Most of the time, Disney manages to get some sort of secondary layer to their films, even if it is something that has been beaten to death (like prejudice). But while these films all have some kind of subtext that can be gleaned from them, their focus is on creating story lines and some-what engaging characters, not limiting their leading ladies to stereotypical, card-board cut-outs.

As another blogger pointed out, even in the Princess films, the romance is something that comes secondary to the initial wants of the characters. Every last princess—with the exception of Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora—begins their tale with a desire to have something, be something, change something, etc. Ariel wanted to see the human world before she came across Eric. “Part of Your World,” the prime example of the “Whining Song,” happens before she even runs into his ship. Belle wants something greater than herself, whatever that might be. She denies Gaston not because he’s a man, but because he’s a self-absorbed jerk. Tiana wants a restaurant because of her close connection to her father and a love of cooking, falling in love with Naveen only after he stops whining about being a frog and starts to pull his own weight. Rapunzel wants to see floating lights and get out of her tower, Mulan wants to save her father’s life and sacrifices her own safety and security in the process, Jasmine wants to escape the constricting life of royalty and be her own person, and Pocahontas just wanted peace. All of these ladies find love only after they begin their adventure to achieve their initial goal. The romance is almost always secondary.

Instead of recognizing plain ol’ good characterization and clear motives that have developed in Disney movies over the past several decades, we’d rather focus on all of the movies that don’t necessarily hit that mark. But even when you look at films like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty—two of the most common films that get beat with the Sexist Stick—you can see that Disney opted for simplicity in the storytelling and the characters in order to make room for the stunning animation which, at the time, was all done by hand and took lots of blood, sweat and tears to produce (not that current films don’t, but hand-drawn films will always be more impressive to me). Not to mention that these were made in 1950 (Cinderella) and 1959 (Sleeping Beauty), at a time when culture was drastically different, and that neither of these movies were original material. They came from fairy tales that were passed around for centuries, all over the world, by women. 

And I think that, with all of this outrage over the themes and characters and sexism and improbability of story lines, we are only making things worse for our kids. Children are not born with sexist ideas. They’re raised to see them. And when we sit down and tell our daughters that “Disney is bad because they don’t make good female characters and you should always watch movies that strip women of any lady features because that’s weakness,” we’re the ones creating the problem.

Bill Cosby was once quoted, after being asked what would be the best way to stop racism, as saying, “Stop talking about it.” His point was, essentially, race is an issue because we continually talk about it and make it an issue. The same thing applies to feminism. When we spend all of our time trying to tiptoe over the issue or slam it in people’s faces, we’re only exacerbating the problem and creating a larger divide. Why do female characters have to be labeled “strong?” Why can’t they just be “female?” Why do we have to marginalize the role and qualities of men just to make women look stronger? That isn’t equality, that’s a problem. And it certainly isn’t feminism.

We’re not giving our kids enough credit. Even in a day and age when everything has the potential to be “offensive,” kids are still rational creatures. Watching a movie isn’t going to make them suddenly transform them into an air head. Sure, when they’re little they may think in simpler terms, but that changes when you get older. You grow. You learn. You analyze and develop opinions on your own.

Case in point: When I was little, my family had VHS’s of both The Little Mermaid and Cinderella. I remember that each day I would get up, grab the VHS, and would watch Cinderella over and over and over and over again. All day long, for weeks straight. I did the same thing with The Little Mermaid a few years later. Why? Because I liked the movies. That’s it. No other reason. In fact, my strongest memory of either of those films was the scene where the stepmother locks Cinderella in her room and Lucifer tries to keep the mice from letting her out, as well as when Triton destroys Ariel’s collection of human artifacts. I remember those scenes because they moved me—I was so angry that the stepmother was so mean and that Triton could be so heartless towards his daughter.

You know what I don’t remember?

The sexism. The shallow characters. The forcing of men and women stereotypes on everything. I didn’t remember those things because I was five and I didn’t give two dog turds that Cinderella fell in love with a man she met once or that everything about her character looks vapid and uninteresting from modern day standards. I thought the mice were cute and Ariel was pretty.

I didn’t grow up to be an irrational, dim-witted floozy. I fully recognize that beauty is on the inside and that people falling in love in two days isn’t realistic. I have not been tainted or transformed by a few dozen children’s movies, and chances are, neither will any other child. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to teach your son or daughter that their value is found on the inside—not Disney’s.

So leave the Disney Princesses alone and relax. Enjoy the movies for what they are, and stop trying to force a feminist ideology on characters. Let them be people—let them be human beings. When you shoot for anything else, you’re bound to simply fall flat.