Disney Princesses: Traditional Gender Conventions And Tropes

In this essay, firstly, I will be addressing the impact media and marketing has on society, in particular children, and how female heroines shown through these methods can conflict with what we want to be representing as a ßrole model. I will then be analysing the evolution of Disney princesses and their representation of females in 20th and 21st century post-feminist ideologies. I will start from 1937, all the way to the last release in 2013. I will be deciphering their progression and examining whether there has been successful change in these heroines to break traditional gender conventions and tropes.

Disney is arguably one of the most successful companies in the world, titling as the ‘world’s largest media conglomerate by market value’,
Snow White is docile, submissive and obedient; without question she automatically accepts her role of as ‘a fervent housekeeper’. As Jack Zipes encapsulates, she is the ‘virginal housewife’ who spends her life singing about the day her prince will come. She needs a ‘dashing male saviour to order her and become whole’. (Zipes 2002: 128) She does nothing but imagine a life of perfection in which her Prince will protect her. She is shown as naïve and her ‘saccharine romanticism’ is extremely distinct when she believes that by biting into an apple her dreams will come true. (Singh
The image of the wicked Queen (initially conceived as a raven-haired glamour girl, and the epitome of late-1930's sophistication) who drinks an aging potion and then shrivels, sprouting warts and claws, turning before our eyes from a sexy, voluptuous creature into a frightening old crone, must leave as powerful an impression on the audience as Snow White's chirpy femininity. (Indeed, there's a grown-up version of this nightmare, with Jack Nicholson embracing a young beauty who turns ugly and ancient as he holds her, in ''The Shining.'') As ''Snow White'' returns to help shape a new generation of eager little viewers, only those of us already under its influence will fully appreciate the range and depth of the impression this classic makes. Lighthearted as these figures may be, there are some of us whom Snow White taught everything about idealized prettiness. The dwarfs epitomized teamwork, good humor and masculine protectiveness. The forest creatures, ever frolicsome and friendly, helped to further the sense of an alert and sympathetic universe. And if some of this film's lessons trouble the mind, they go straight to the heart for each new audience, and they always will. Snow White will always make scrubbing and scouring seem the pleasantest of chores. She will always make marriage seem a girl's only