This weekend, I spent some time looking at the Disney
Princess Facebook page. Boy, was there a lot to look at. Between the
#DreamBigPrincess campaign, a video telling the story of “Beauty and the Beast
in emoji’s, and a whole lot of Disney Princess tennis racket covers, I
certainly felt overwhelmed. However, there was one comment on a post that immediately
grabbed my attention. One mom wrote:
“For my 6-year-old daughter
this is awesome. I do wish there was more movies for my 5-year-old son that had
a boy or man as the star. Not a car or a toy or animal. There's so many strong
princesses for my daughter to look up to. I want to see something like that for
my son.”
This grabbed my attention
for a few reasons. First, although there is no “Disney Prince” Facebook page,
men certainly are the stars of many Disney films. In the Guo article titled “Researchers
have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies,”
it is proven that especially during the second wave of films, the men speak
significantly more than women. In class we often discuss how the Disney
Princesses don’t really do much. The first wave all essentially just clean their homes and
look beautiful. Belle is the pseudo feminist because she likes to read, but
that’s basically it. So how have we never examined the princes and the fact
that they largely do nothing either? The Beast and Prince Charming, for
example, just sit in their castles until a woman comes along and shakes things up. I wonder why Disney has not marketed the
princes in the same way they promote the Disney Princess brand. Appealing to
boys would only help them increase their capital. Perhaps they have tried and
failed in the past.
Another thing that caused me to chuckle is
that the woman said there are so many strong princesses for her daughter to
look up to. I believe this is true especially with the third generation of
princesses. Yet, here are these strong role models plastered onto tennis racket
covers captioned with “Which one inspires you to #DreamBigPrincess?” Like what? A tennis racket cover has never inspired me. Random branding
like that grinds my gears because it’s just such an obvious marketing scheme. Doesn’t
it degrade how respectable these characters like Tiana and Merida are?
I suppose the #DreamBigPrincess
videos aren’t awful. The cinematography and incorporation of film clips is
exceptional, as to be expected of Disney. They inspire girls to do more than
just sit and wait for a man, so that’s good. I do not know if they are
available anywhere other than Facebook, though. If they are only on Facebook,
how are little girls supposed to see them? They obviously don’t have social
media accounts (I’d hope).
All in all, the Disney
Princess Facebook page is kind of ridiculous, but it’s fine. I was expecting to
just see Disney marketing its products on the page, but it actually had some
inspirational content for young girls, too. It is an interesting space for mothers
with daughters to interact and share their thoughts about the franchise.
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