Last week in class we learned all about Disney Land. While discovering changes from the Fifties to modern days we looked at an interesting news clip about how Cinderella is “the Ideal woman.” The clip focused entirely on her figure and hair colour, completely disregarding the actual story, music or animation. One of the questions I made sure to write down after seeing that review was “How can Disney impact kid’s body image?”
It’s a well known fact that older Disney movies were made to support the views of the time period in which they were created. Producing stories about pretty girls saved from horrid situations by rich princes. While I love Disney, I’ve never been a huge fan of the whole prince saves princess thing. I’m glad overtime Disney has moved away from that storyline and added female heroes. One thing they haven’t moved away from is extremely unrealistic body types.
To understand the body types and standards created by princesses I read this article.
I found out that most Disney princesses have a smaller waist than traditional Barbie dolls. Making their bodies actually impossible to achieve.
Additionally I discovered some images displaying their proportions…
Above is an image of Ariel, as you can see the distance between her eyes is much larger then the width of her waist. While even I considered this might be style or specific design. I realized that even if this is a style it still promotes unhealthy standards to so many children with no explanation.
The body proportions of princesses is not like the Prince-Princess storyline, this issue isn’t exactly of the past. While princesses features are no longer as exaggerated, they are still incredibly thin. They are all so similar in size that each princess could share the same wardrobe.
While I love so many Disney movies and princesses, I overall wish there was more unique princesses. With Disney being the number one source of children’s films and T.V, The image they display is extremely important. I believe acceptance is important for children. Having a role model that viewers can identify with will not only inspire but will also make the protagonist more relatable, therefore likeable. I think Disney has the potential to improve the confidence of millions of young kids, they could create so many possibilities with one realistic Princess.
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