Disney Princesses: Comforting Childhood Characters, Or Villains in Disguise?

By: Zaharoula Mammis, Class IV

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Imagine an image of the Disney princesses. Now imagine one of the Disney villains. What is the difference in these representations? It’s quite easy to think of, even for those who have never seen the movies. But what makes the contrast so obvious? Well, the secret is something that has been constantly done and can kickstart self loathing and body dysmorphia in many girls. Yes, I’m talking about how Disney has been overemphasizing the importance of thinness to their young audience without thinking about how it can lead to body dissatisfaction across all ages.

Growing up, I was (and still am!) fascinated by Disney and have watched just about all of their content, from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to Encanto. However, in recent years I started noticing just how inaccurate the physical proportions of the Disney princesses are when compared to average women. The princesses all have similar builds, with exaggerated and unrealistic proportions such as incredibly skinny waists. Most of their physical characteristics are unachievable and unhealthy for real people. On the other hand, villains are often portrayed with more common and normal features; big noses, large chins, an overweight body, and much smaller eyes, which are painted as undesirable and ugly.

According to this Concordia Journal of Communication article, “The 2013 book Diversity in Disney Films notes that in many Disney films, animators ‘accentuate the ideal heterosexual female figure,’ contributing to their usage of stereotypical female behaviors. Conversely, many of the female villains have non-normal and deviant gendered characteristics, as many of the female villains are given masculine physical traits.” Again, these “non-normal” features are ones that are seen as unattractive and masculine, but that most people actually have. However, they are not normal when compared to the Disney Princesses. It goes on to explain that the same book talks about how the separation of female villains from the heroines is contributing to the gender stereotypes of our culture. On top of this, the article discusses how the researchers found that male villains are portrayed in a variety of ways, while the female ones share a pattern in appearance and personality. In fact, “…three out of four female villains are shown as old, ugly, and unattractive” Girls who watch this content, who notice that they share a certain feature with a villain, may begin to feel like they need to change their appearance in order to be “beautiful” and fit the standards set by the Disney princesses. 

This is all the more heartbreaking when one realizes just how unhealthy and unachievable the Disney princesses’ bodies actually are. As this DailyMail article explains, many Disney princesses have waists smaller than the distance between their eyes! That should in no way be presented to impressionable children as what is “normal.”

 In a study done during the COVID-19 pandemic called Project M.E.D.I.A., the caregivers of 320 children reported on their children’s favorite Disney princesses and their overall engagement with them, the first time around the age of 3.5 years, and the second time when the children were around 4.5 years old. This included watching  movies and playing with dolls of the princesses. This study was meant to show how exposure to the Disney princess dolls affected the children in only a year's time, emphasizing how there is a direct correlation between the physical appearance of a child’s favorite Disney Princess doll and their body image. PsyPost reported Project MEDIA’s finding, explaining that, “Specifically, children whose favorite princess had a more realistic body (e.g., Moana or Merida) experience better body esteem the more often children played pretend princess.” In contrast, children whose favorite princess had a thinner, more disproportionate body, experienced no positive impact on their body esteem through playing. So even though the super thin princesses were already known to negatively affect self esteem in young children, it turns out that having more inclusive, body positive princesses can actually improve the issue.

I decided to look into this issue further by interviewing a Class IV teen girl on how their consumption of Disney content has affected them throughout the years, and how different age groups perceive the same movies and characters.

Overall, the teenager’s views seemed to match what I had expected. She explained how Disney Princesses are not at all realistic in her eyes, and not relatable either. She gave the example, “…like… Cinderella meeting a prince at the ball is very unlikely to happen to your average girl…” The teenager did also discuss how she used to look up to the Disney princesses, but has recently “…been seeing many problems with looking up to unrealistic role models.” She also talked about her self esteem, giving the typical answer of how she hadn’t felt good about herself in a while but “recently I’ve been feeling a bit more confident after I began focusing on my health and wellbeing.” Again, this type of response was expected, and is reflected in the thoughts of many others similar in age, as can be seen by the articles which I already quoted above.

What I noticed about the Class IV student’s view is that she has clearly grown more reflective over time on the damaging expectations that Disney movies thrust at us when we’re still young and impressionable. I can only hope that this idea is being passed down to the next generation of young girls who will not only learn from real role models, but will see the harm that comes with looking up to unrealistic works of fiction. After all, we as a society are becoming more and more aware that these Disney princesses are truly nothing more than fairy tales.