Please begin at the bottom with the post titled "Princess Role Playing" and continue up until you reach the annotated bibliography post.

Annotated Bibliography

Aladdin (1992) - IMDb. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Perf. Robin Williams and Gilbert Gottfried. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 15 Nov. 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103639/>.

            I used the Internet Movie Database to find quotes from the movie Aladdin. I was trying to convey how Jasmine felt about being married and the only way to do it seemed to be by adding a direct quotation.  The quote is the same that is spoken in the movie. 

"All the Lyrics of Disney Princess in Alphabetical Order." Lyrics Mania. Web. 02 Nov. 2010. <http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/disney_princess_lyrics_42181/all.html>.

I used this source to quote the individual song lyrics of each princess. It was helpful to me to be able to see the lyrics written down instead of just half memorized in my head.  This cite is open to everyone and anyone can submit lyrics. As far as I know the lyrics were all correct. 

Bell, Elizabeth, Lynda Haas, and Laura Sells. "Somatexts at the Disney Shop." From Mouse to Mermaid: the Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. 107-36. Print.

This chapter of the book looks at the way that Disney’s artists portray the princesses at their “prime” age in life: at the height of puberty.  They also look at the way the villains and heroes are drawn, either old and ugly or young and strong.  The authors are professors/assistant professors of Writing, Communications, or Women’s studies.  They look at Disney’s Princesses through a feminist perspective focusing on visual depiction of characters, gender, race, and class.  This book contributed to my essay on Disney’s tendency to spotlight unattainable beauty.

Dundes, Lauren. "Disney's Modern Heroine Pocahontas: Revealing Age-old Gender Stereotypes and Role Discontinuity under a Facade of Liberation." Social Science Journal 38.3 (2001): 353-65. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Nov. 2010.

            Dundes looks specifically at Disney’s warrior princess, Pocahontas.  She dissects Pocahontas as a character and as a princess and compares and contrasts her with the other Disney Princesses.  This is different than most of my other sources because it is a close dissection of one princess not just a broad summary of all of them. This was helpful in my introduction to the princesses, specifically Pocahontas, because it helped me put together a way to reveal her as a new age warrior princess.

Henke, Jill and Diane Umble. "The Disney Myth in the Video Age." Mediated Women: Representations in Popular Culture. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 1999. 321-37. Print.

Henke and Umble start by briefly analyzing Disney and continue with three in depth analyses of the main female characters in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas.  The main points they focus on are women’s roles, power structure, how the women shape their destinies, and how the women take action for themselves.  They look at how Disney’s females have become more assertive, but retained the same basic characteristics.  This source relates to my previous entry because it has a focus on 3 princesses instead of an overview of them all. It compares in depth these three princesses as they came about during Disney’s transition from old to new. This was very helpful with my introduction to the princesses and with my comparison of Disney’s older princesses with the newer ones.

Photograph. Fanpop.com. FanPop, Inc., Nov. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. <http://www.fanpop.com/spots/disney-couples/images/6707977/title/princess-aurora-prince-philip-photo>.

Photograph. Triplets and Us. 2009. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. <http://www.tripletsandus.com/disney/beauty.htm>.

Photograph. Disney Princess Dresses. FlexSqueeze, 28 July 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. <http://disneyprincessdresses.net/>.

I used these three websites to help add some pictures to my blog.  I wanted to make it more appealing to look at.  Adding pictures was important to me because I think if you have something to look at while you’re reading it makes it easier.  Also it helps the reader visualize who or what I am talking about.  

 Towbin, Mya A., Shelley Haddock, Toni Zimmerman, Lori Lund, and Litsa Tanner. "Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films." Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 15.4 (2003): 19-44. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.

            This journal article examines how Disney’s uses age, race, gender, and sexual orientation in its movies through characters.  It is an abstract overview that dissects specific quotes and examples found in the movies. This article also helped me by comparing old and new movies and how they repeatedly portray certain aspects in positive and negative light.

Wohlwend, Karen E. "Damsels in Discourse: Girls Consuming and Producing Identity Texts Through Disney Princess Play." Reading Research Quarterly 44.1 (2009): 57-83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.

This was a study conducted in a kindergarten classroom. Its focus was on young girls and how they interacted with Disney Princess dolls and how they interpreted the gender bias of their stories.  This article came from an academic journal and is affiliated with Indiana University.  The article helped shape my blog entry about girls identifying with the princesses. It also informed me of the extent of Disney’s Princess paraphernalia and how princess play is carried out with young children.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 18 November 2010.

            I used YouTube to watch videos of the songs I talked about in my blog. I also used it to embed videos in my blog.  In my first post I inserted the videos for the songs “Some Day My Prince Will Come” from Snow White and “Just around the River Bend” from Pocahontas. I thought it was important to see what was visually going on during these songs to get the full effect of their impact on children. 

Zarranz, Libe Garcia. "DISWOMEN STRIKE BACK? THE EVOLUTION OF DISNEY'S FEMMES IN THE 1990s." Atenea 27.2 (2007): 55-67. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Nov. 2010.

“Diswomen” is an article written about the Disney women of the 90s. The princesses at this time began to evolve from helpless to independent.  This article looks at that aspect and also highlights the way that even though the princesses have evolved they still revert back to the old distinct attributes that make the Disney Princesses who they are. The article comes from a magazine out of Spain and is affiliated with the University of Zaragoza, Spain.

Conclusion

In my research on this topic I learned many things about Disney, and also about myself.  I am a huge fan of Disney, but what I discovered during this project caused me to waiver quite a bit.  It is disturbing that there is so much sexism and impossible perfection in the world that all girls fall in love with when they are children.  Even though I have opened the door to all this negativity that surrounds Disney, I still love the movies and the franchise itself.  I have to believe that most young girls will look at these stories only as what they are, fairytales.

Unattainable Beauty

This topic is an issue for many.  Disney’s Princesses are no doubt gorgeous, but their looks are completely unrealistic: perfectly thick hair, never out of place, long lean limbs, waists the size of your pinky, lips full and soft, and skin so perfect and glowing.  These attributes are extremely rare on their own, let alone all together on one person.  Now, I do realize that they are just drawings and that no real girl looks like they do, but do little girls know this? 

            Disney Princesses are diverse in many aspects, but they all have these unrealistic attributes that may harbor themselves in the subconscious mind of a child and come back to influence her as she grows.  “The young heroines are typical of ‘the perfect girl,’ whose body, voice, and destiny are a ‘mesmerizing presence’” (Bell 120-121).   They are so visually appealing, with story lines that always end happily that it is so easy to get caught up in the fairytale, making it part of your reality.  It scares me that there may be girls out there buying products and makeup and anything they can that will help them attain this standard.  Even worse, they may be starving themselves, trying to reach their goal of a pinky-sized waste.  Most girls are going to have a hard enough time with body image as they get older; there is no need for it to start as early as age 3. 

            However, Disney has grown.  They have come from differences between princesses being as small has hair color, to a variety of ethnic backgrounds and changing from dreams for a man to dreams for yourself.  They have finally given girls an ideal role model in Tiana.  My hope is that some time soon they will produce a Princess who is of average size, maybe even overweight.  All girls need someone to look up to, to tell them they are also beautiful, not just the impractically perfect. 

Jasmine, Snow White, Mulan, Aurora, Cinderella, Pocahontas, Tiana, Belle, and Ariel

Finally Equal

Fig. 1 Princess Tiana

Disney has recently released the newest addition to its’ Princesses, Tiana (Figure 1).  She is the first African American princess, born and raised in the grand city of New Orleans in the movie The Princess and the Frog.  Tiana has dreams for herself.  She wants to open her own restaurant in honor of her father who passed away.  She believes so strongly in this dream that she spends her whole life trying to make it her reality.  One day Prince Naveen visits the city.  He is swept away by the culture and stupidly falls in with Dr. Facilier, the “Shadow Man”, who uses voodoo to turn Naveen into a frog per request of his jealous assistant, Lawrence.  Later, Prince Naveen convinces Tiana to kiss him, promising that he will return to his normal state.  But because she is not yet a princess, Tiana becomes a frog.  They travel near and far to try and change back into humans and along the way, fall for each other.  They marry, making Tiana a true frog princess and he kiss makes them both human again.  Tiana never gives up her dream and once they are finally changed back, she opens her restaurant. 

This movie is the beginning of a new type of princess movie.  Tiana is a great role model for young girls.  She has dreams and she is driven in her pursuit of them.  She does not plan her life around finding a man to take care of her.  Tiana is successfully independent, and works hard for what she desires.  Another difference in this movie is the role of the male characters.  Prince Naveen is handsome, charismatic, and charming, but ultimately arrogant, until Tiana teaches him to appreciate the simple things in life.  The “Shadow Man” is the evil villain, communicating with the underworld and ruining the lives of the fortunate.  And then there is Lawrence.  He is an overweight, overworked assistant who is “green with envy”.  He wants to live the life of the rich and hands himself over to Dr. Facilier to obtain it.  This is a big step for Disney.  They are finally showing young girls that it is important to dream, but to make that dream come true you need to work hard.

A New Era: Disney’s Warrior Princesses

Fig. 1 Pocahontas

Pocahontas (Figure 1) is an Indian princess who lived around the time that the English came to America.  She is another princess who knows there is more to the world than the small part that she lives in.  She teaches girls to follow their adventurous side and explore their options before making life changing decisions.  Her father is the Chief of her tribe and has laid out a plan for her to marry the strongest warrior in the tribe, Kocoum.  She struggles with deciding whether or not to marry Kocoum or to follow her own path.  Once she meets John Smith, an explorer from the New World, her adventure changes.  She now spends time teaching him things about her world, falls in love with him, and saves him from being killed.  This movie has a new twist that had never been done before: when John Smith asks Pocahontas to join him in England she refuses, saying she must stay with her people.  Pocahontas is sending a message that she is not ready to give up her life for love, she wants to explore herself further.  In this movie the princess may not end up with the man of her dreams, but she does find her happily ever after.  

Fig. 3 Mulan

Fig. 2 Mulan as a warrior

Mulan is truly a warrior princess.  She is looked down on by her community because she is not as ladylike as women are supposed to be.  When the Huns invade China her elderly father is called to fight in the army.  To save him from almost certain death, Mulan disguises herself as a boy and goes in his place (Figure 2).  She trains with the rest of the new recruits, having to perform strenuous tasks without revealing her true identity.  While training, Mulan begins to fall for her superior officer, Shang.  When the army is attacked on mountain, Mulan is the one who comes up with a brilliant plan to get them out of trouble, but shortly after her secret is exposed.  Mulan is outcast for being a woman, and has brought great dishonor to her family through her actions.  Shang refuses to speak to her and leaves her on the mountainside.  It is not until the very end of the movie that Mulan, once again, uses her wits to save China from the Huns.  Shang appreciates her only after this and she is finally accepted and honored for who she is as a woman (Figure 3).  Throughout the movie Mulan is watched over by an ancestral dragon (male), named Mushu.  He is mostly a guardian, and never abandons Mulan, even when she is an outsider.  Mulan is a smart, independent girl who is not afraid to stand out.  She is even willing to put her life in danger for the greater good.

The Modern Princesses: Wish for Independence, Still Inferior to Men

Fig.1 Ariel as a mermaid

Ariel (Figure 1) is the underwater princess in the movie The Little Mermaid. She is the most beautiful daughter of the Sea-King, King Triton, curious to learn, who disobeys her father so she can discover what she does not know.  Disney, once again, casts the powerful female in the evil role with Ursula, while King Triton is portrayed as all that is good.  In Ariel’s first song, “Part of Your World”, she sings in her beautiful voice about her desire to be living on land with the people and her curiosity about all of the things they can do.  She has a will for change and for something more for herself, until she sees Eric, a prince whom she rescues during a storm.  By the end of the song her will changes from wanting to be “part of that world” to “part of your world” (Princess Lyrics) showing that her strongest desire is to be with him.  She even goes so far as to give up her own voice to be closer to him.  He meets her and falls in love with her based solely on her looks, since she has no voice to have any type of conversation with him before their marriage. At the end of the movie Eric ends up killing Ursula, and King Triton grants Ariel her one wish to be on land with Eric by giving her legs.  The movie displays men as being all powerful.  On page 325 of the book Mediated Women, Henke and Umbel state, “power over her life merely changes from her father’s rule to the prince’s rule”.  King Triton is very controlling of Ariel and refuses to allow Ariel to live on the land with the humans until he sees that she will be in the care (or under the control) of another man, Prince Eric. She is constantly under the watchful eyes of the male characters. 

Fig. 2 Belle

Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, is a beautiful young girl who lives in a small town full of “provincial” people.  Belle (Figure2) is a seemingly independent and not afraid to speak her mind, teaching girls that it is okay to be yourself not matter who is watching you.  Belle enjoys reading and is very smart, that is where she is considered an outcast.  Belle reads of far off places, creating dreams for herself and how she imagines her life to be.  She cannot leave however because of her love for her father and the care that he needs.  Belle is selfless, and goes so far as to sacrifice herself to the Beast to save her father from him, but the Beast presents her with a challenge.  He is a bitter “creature”, but she sees something more in him.  No matter how cruel or cold he is to her she keeps going back, refusing to believe that is all there is to him.  Once he lets his guard down they fall in love and one special kiss turns him from a beast into the prince he was before he was cursed.  Although Belle is a persistent and determined princess, once she falls in love with the Beast all of her dreams turn from far off places to no farther than the Beast’s castle, another example of giving up your dreams to live forever pleasing a man. 

Fig. 3 Princess Jasmine

Jasmine (Figure 3) is the princess of the city Agrabah in the movie Aladdin.  Her father, the Sultan, is forcing Jasmine into marriage.  Jasmine does not want this.  She wants to be independent and free, telling her father, “Please, try to understand. I've never done a thing on my own. I've never had any real friends…I've never even been outside the palace walls” (Internet Movie Database).  Jasmine is asking for her father to comprehend that his plan for her life is merely suffocating her.  However the Sultan is allowing Jasmine to choose her prince, which is not customary.  This gives Jasmine little freedom, but she is still obligated to marry.  Also in this Disney movie, the men may possess the power, but they are not all powerful.  The Sultan is a man who controls the city of Agrabah, he means well, but he is rather spacey.  Jafar is the power hungry advisor to the Sultan, who spends the whole movie scheming about how to take over the Palace, but ultimately fails.  Aladdin, the title character, falls for Jasmine’s beauty and attempts to become her prince through lying and trickery, but gets sidetracked by the appeal of the power that comes along with becoming Prince of Agrabah.  Jasmine’s story shows young girls that only you know what is right for yourself.  Although her father has good intentions and wants only the best for Jasmine, she ultimately has to make the decision that will shape her destiny.