For my final project I propose to make a critique of Disney princess movies. Specifically the ways that they depict women, and how that translates to the young girls absorbing those messages. Through blog posts that I will publish, I will analyze the protagonist’s appetite, goals, problem solving, and many more aspects. I plan to move chronologically through the movies starting with the oldest and moving to the newest, researching common tropes and ideas that were prevalent in advertising and the media at the time the movie was released in order to make connections with a larger trend of women’s portrayal in pop culture over time.
I would like to specifically address the way that the princesses relate to food and appetite, and the way that their body is animated. I can scarcely remember scenes from the Disney princess movies that I have seen where the protagonist eats freely and with the actual purpose of sustaining themselves. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle gives up her chance for dinner out of repulsion from the Beast. Later when the “Be Our Guest” scene takes place where the household objects make a spectacular dinner for her, Belle barely has time to take a few bites before everything is whisked away, showing that the point is the spectacle, not her hunger. In Snow White and The Seven Dwarves, the princess’ downfall comes about because she gives into temptation and eats a poison apple, similar to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Another movie I hope to focus on heavily is Mulan and the way that masculinity plays into the way that her eating is portrayed. These are just a few of the ideas I will talk about in my analysis of the movies.
The reason I want to focus on Disney princess movies is because they are in the ranks of the most iconic movies of all time, and especially because they are geared toward very young girls, who watch some of these movies over and over into oblivion. There is no way for a child to avoid being subconsciously and deeply impacted by both the subtle and overt messages that are in the films.
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| Caught red handed |
Sources thus far:
Bordo, Hunger As Ideology
Whelan, Bridget. “Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the 20th Century Princess Narrative.” Interdisciplinary Humanities, vol. 29, no. 1, Spring 2012, pp. 21–34.
Awesome topic, Adele! As someone who grew up idolizing Disney princesses, I very much appreciate that you are going to delve into an analysis of them and the harmful messages produced. Some clarification needed - are you creating a blog specifically for this topic? I think a blog would be a good fit because also wrote you wanted to chronologically address the issues as they occur within the film. Have you thought about possibly creating a digital timeline, like a interactive website kind of thing? Another cool medium for this kind of thing! Also, I believe we have access to JSTOR as Hunter students - this analysis looks relevant to your topic: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41158321?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback! This is nice to hear :) I was thinking of creating a blog specifically for this purpose, but I hadn't considered the idea about a whole website. I'll definitely consider that moving forward!
ReplyDeleteDisney is iconic therefore very well known to audiences of all ages. I know for a fact that Disney influenced me when I was a kid in more ways than I can think of.
ReplyDeletePrior to this class I never thought about Disney and their princesses giving audiences underlying messages about food and appetite. I always noticed that the princesses bodies were thin and curvy to fit a particular beauty standard but never did I connect body appearance with what should be most obvious to me, food!
I think a really cool way of distributing this topic especially since you plan on showing your audience a variety of princesses would be to create memes. Not only would they be funny/entertaining to your audience but they would put the bottom line up front. I’d even suggest uploading all your memes to a website and writing a short description of what each meme is truly about underneath.
This would further continue your media project and your role as a media maker because memes are still very much popular in use today. They would also be similar to the picture of Cinderella that you included in your final project proposal blogpost and considering your caption I can tell you have a sense of humor which would be nice to see more of throughout your project since it’s a really interesting focus you chose.
I love this idea! I grew up loving and obsessing over everything Disney, yet never really paid attention to the underlying messages the movies may or may not be intentionally trying to get across. I know you are focusing particularly on appetite and body image in the movies, but Kiera Knightley just had an interview on Ellen where she talked about banning her children from watching certain Disney movies because of the messages of dependence she felt they portrayed. It might be interesting to analyze perhaps the awareness that is growing throughout Hollywood, as well as possibly the progress over the past however many years! I'm excited to see how it turns out!
ReplyDeleteI think this is such a great topic. We don't realize how powerful these disney characters are, especially since we're absorbing them at such a young, uncritical age, they have such a huge effect on the development of ideas of femininity in our young lives and onward. And i think the progression over time will prove very interesting as well!
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