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Watching Cinderella on the screen transform from a girl no one cared for into a beautiful woman with an even prettier dress and the envy of a whole town was like watching magic on the screen. Or watching a young mermaid leave her magical kingdom for an even more fantastical dream of becoming a human, leaves so many children in awe as they wish they could have thier wildest fanatsies come true too. The hardest realization for a young girl with a beautifully diverse background, is looking down at her hands and seeing that she wasn’t the same skin tone as Cinderella or had the same figure as Snow White. Could she ever be a Disney Princess? “When I was younger I did not grow up with diverse princesses. I would compare myself to them and I would end up disliking the color of my skin,” said Natalia E. The lack of diversity is one of Disney’s downfall, the other would be their subtle, dark messages.
Disney has grown to be more diverse as the years go by with the release of Mohana and The Princess and the Frog, yet there is a great amount of diversity yet to be tackled in their films. Considering African Americans make up 13.2% of the population and Latinos make up 17.6 percent, Disney has yet to have an African American prince or even a Latina princess in their films. Furthermore, many of the princesses have similar thin, body times that almost seem impossible for any human to achieve having. According to Time.com, while talking about creating the characters for the movie, head animator of Frozen, Lino DiSalvo, made an off-hand comment that related to this to topic, “Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, difficult, because they must go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty.”. Pretty does not look only look Anglo and is not only thin. All body types are beautiful and movies that are targeted towards a younger audience should demonstrate this.
Although Disney pulls in 84 million viewers each day, most of them being young children, their films messages can be quite disturbing as well. An anonymous teacher in England took it upon herself to critique Disney’s subtle messages by uploading a lesson plan called Racism/ Sexism in Disney. This lesson plan which has been downloaded more than 5,808 times and viewed more than 11,000 times, critiques movies such as Beauty and the Beast. This teacher believes that this movie presents the idea that domestic violence is something a woman must accept and be patient over. The teacher states, “In other words, it is the woman’s fault if her man abuses her. And of course, the beast turns into a handsome prince because ugly people cannot be happy.” In the film, Belle is never physically abused but is yelled at and is trapped in a man’s castle where he projects great anger by smashing furniture when she upsets him. Scenes like these make adults and teachers believe that such messages should not be glorified especially in a school setting. The chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, Chris Mcgovern stated, “These lesson plans represent an ignorant, insidious and covert attack on family values and on the ancient wisdom of fairy tales.” He went on to say that they are “dangerous to their [ the children’s] well-being”. Critiques have also went on to say that movies such as Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and Aladdin have unsuitable messages for children as well.
The characters and the messages that are strung together to create the Disney films many grew up watching, should work on doing much more than entertaining, but to formulate characters that any girl or boy can relate too. The creators of this films need to take note of the world around them; it is not one body type and it is not one color. It is an array of diversity; therefore, an audience that represents our population should be represented in these films. The messages handed to our youth should not tell them that being pretty is what breaks you away from the chains of being in an uncompromising relationship or winning a man’s heart over will save you. You can save yourself and you deserve the world. You are ultimately stronger than a Disney princess and Disney should format to your beauty, not the other way around.
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