As I’ve said before, girls and women are constantly being compared to the perfect image given by the media. The runway models, the airbrushed celebrities, and basically anyone featured in a magazine. But today I’m going to talk about some people we often over look, and they are Disney princesses.
I recently stumbled upon a story about a girl named Jewel, a junior in high school, who started a petition for Disney to make a plus sized princess. In her petition she talks about how “she is a plus sized young woman, and she knows many other young plus-sized girls and women who struggle with confidence and need a positive plus-size character in the media.” Many studies have shown that a child’s confidence greatly correlates with how much representation they have in the media, and she states that she wants there to be a character out there for these young plus-sized girls to look up to.
Disney Princesses portray many messages. And one of the most prominent underlying messages that princesses teach young girls is that you can be strong, you can be smart, and you can have it all — as long as you’re pretty. Disney has a princess that corresponds to every race, Jasmine (Arabian), Mulan (Asian), Pocahontas (Native American) and Tiana (African American) However each of them does have one thing in common, their tiny waistline.
I totally agree with Jewel, and I think that Disney needs to give girls princesses of all shapes and sizes, because that is the reality. women are born into all kinds of different body types, and it is scary to see how easily society can be changed into thinking that something different from the norm (given by Disney in this case) can equate to something that is considered ugly. It’s hard to think of a young girl sitting in her room, ashamed of her body because she doesn’t look like Ariel, Snow White, or Belle. It’s equally as scary that she could grow up and live the rest of her life thinking that she is not good enough because of this.
Disney films are extremely influential and incredibly wide-spread, and they impact the lives of many children, especially girls. If Disney were to create a plus-sized princess it would be revolutionary. Disney would be providing young girls, who are not confident and feel there are worthless, with a reason to believe they are just the opposite of that. If Disney were to make an addition like this to their line up of princesses it would have an incredible affect on the rest of the media as well. This change would encourage others to change their mindset about the perfect image that the media portrays, and help them to fully realize that just because someone doesn’t fit into this image, does not make them any less valuable.
I think the Jewel’s petition suggesting that Disney add a plus-sized princess is exactly the step forward that we need, and I hope Disney is willing to step up and make it happen.
The Petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-walt-disney-company-make-plus-size-princesses-in-disney-movies?share_id=WBjRKmZRQw&utm_campaign=invite_page_mobile&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition
Article Commenting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/30/petition-make-plus-size-princesses-in-disney-movies_n_4695664.html
I think this would be a great idea! The only issue with it is that Disney wants to make what will sell and what other people want to see, and generally what people want to is other pretty people, or at least what they’ve been told is pretty. If Disney can break the stereotypical idea of beauty in this country, though, then that would be great and would be a huge step towards improving the self esteem of people everywhere, but from a business standpoint I sort of understand why they haven’t already.
This is really interesting because people often reference Barbie dolls for being at fault for portraying unrealistic images of beauty to young girls, yet this still prevalent in Disney movies their parents take them to/show them all the time. It’s true that the heroic princess in these movies is always beautiful and thin, while (for example) the evil stepsisters in Cinderella are not as attractive and have more weight.
I hope that Disney goes through with this also! This is a great idea! Girls need to be reminded that they can do anything they put their mind to, no matter what size they are or what they look like. The Disney princesses mean so much to young girls and every little girl always wants to look like them. (I did when I was little.) But, they need to know that in fact most women do not look like that as Caroline said, and that’s ok.
I hope that this petition does go through because the average size of an American woman is a size 12, not a 2. As long as it isn’t causing heath issues, there is no problem with being plus-sized and young girls struggling with their weight need to know that.
This is so true! All of the princesses have unrealistic levels of beauty, and as huge role models in girl’s lives, this can definitely have a negative effect. You said it so well when you wrote: “you can be strong, you can be smart, and you can have it all — as long as you’re pretty.” Every girl is capable of showing strength and wits like the princesses do, but not every girl looks like them. And we shouldn’t expect them to.