When my mom bought me my first princess dress at Hong Kong Disneyland, I was so happy; I really felt like I had finally become a “real” princess. Looking back, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t just playing a character\u2014I was already starting to buy into the specific beauty standards that Disney pushes. The Disney franchise exerts a profound influence over global culture by turning storytelling into a lifestyle. Disney has moved beyond the screen to become a constant presence in the daily lives of children. With over 25,000 products sold worldwide, these films play a huge role in how children see the world and what they expect from relationships (England et al. 555). A perfect example of this is the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1937). In this story, Snow White is described as “lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow.” Her appearance is the only reason her stepmother hates her. After she runs away to live with the dwarfs, she eventually falls into a deep sleep because of the toxic apple from her stepmother and is saved when a prince she barely knows kisses her. While people call this movie a classic, it is, in fact, problematic when viewed through a modern lens. From a feminist perspective, Snow White pushes unhealthy beauty standards and gives children a unrealistic idea of what a relationship should look like, which is why this story is in desperate need of a \u201ccritical update.\u201d
Snow White teaches girls that their main goal should be getting rescued. This conveys the message that a woman requires a man to save her. Before meeting the prince, Snow White was living in dire circumstances. She has to do all the chores for the seven dwarfs to have a place to stay, and she is constantly worried that the Queen is trying to kill her. This “damsel in distress” theme peaks when she is poisoned and lying in a coffin, and a prince she barely knows kisses her to wake her up. It suggests that a girl doesn\u2019t even need to know the man she marries, as long as he “saves” her from her problems. Additionally, the movie makes it seem like women are always competing with each other. The Queen\u2019s whole motive is being the “prettiest” in the world, which teaches girls to see other women as rivals for attention and marriage. As Alexander Bruce points out, the Prince is a “remarkably flat, undeveloped character,” yet he is still the “ultimate fulfillment” of Snow White\u2019s life (20). This suggests that in the Disney world, a man\u2019s personality matters less than his function as a rescuer. By leaving the Prince’s character blank, the film implies that a woman\u2019s \u201chappily ever after\u201d does not require a deep emotional connection, but merely a male savior to end her struggle. This effectively teaches young audiences that a girl’s primary role is to be passive and “found”, rather than to exert her own agency.
This internalization of gender roles is further reinforced by the film\u2019s visual cues. Snow White\u2019s appearance still sets an unrealistic beauty standard for girls today. In the movie, she is described as having “skin white as snow” and a slim body. This standard is unrealistic because it presents beauty as an effortless, permanent state of physical perfection\u2014characterized by extreme slimness and “snow white” skin\u2014that is used to signal a character’s moral goodness and worthiness of love. Even though she is poor and has no social power compared to the prince, he falls in love with her instantly. This sends a message to young girls that being beautiful is the most important trait a girl can have. It makes the audience feel like they need to be as pale and slim as Snow White to be considered a “princess” or even just to be seen as “beautiful.” Even the seven dwarfs do not assist her out of pure kindness; rather, they primarily decide to let her stay because she is pretty. As Joyce Inman and Kelli Sellers point out, scholar Elizabeth Bell noticed that early Disney characters were designed with “fair-skinned, Anglo-Saxon features” that matched narrow Hollywood standards (43). This links a girl\u2019s value to a very specific “Eurocentric ideal” that excludes almost everyone else. Ultimately, the movie suggests that beauty is a girl’s only real ticket to a good marriage and that you only have value if you are pretty enough to be “saved.” By making a “happily ever after” depend on how someone looks, the film implies that a happy ending is only for a certain group of people. This suggests that the magic of the prince\u2019s rescue is not about being a good person, but about having a specific, “pretty” appearance. For any girls who don’t fit this specific look, the movie makes “true love” feel like something they could never have.
The movie also teaches girls that marriage is the only real way to find happiness and escape a hard life. Before Snow White meets the prince, her life is full of suffering; she is a servant in her own castle and then an outlaw hiding in the woods. However, the moment she gets married, all her problems disappear instantly. This suggests that a woman\u2019s life is “on hold” until a man arrives to complete it. Because marriage is treated as the ultimate prize, the movie describes other women as enemies rather than friends. The Evil Queen is not just mean; she is motivated by being jealous of Snow White\u2019s beauty and her desirability to men. This implies that women are each other’s competitors in the “marriage market.” According to Alexander Bruce, for Disney princesses, “finding the right man to marry” is the ultimate motive, and marriage is presented as their only true fulfillment (7). Even when a princess is in a dangerous or difficult situation, the movie shows that a woman\u2019s primary goal is finding “true love.” This teaches girls that no matter how hard they work or what they achieve on their own, they are not truly successful until they have a marriage. This gives the audience an unrealistic expectation that marriage is something one can happily live ever after and could be considered as “a successful life.”
Some people might argue that we shouldn’t take Snow White so seriously because it is merely a fairy tale and does not reflect real-world values. They might say that it is just harmless entertainment for children and that nobody expects real life to work like a Disney movie. However, this argument ignores how much influence Disney has. Snow White is not just an old story; it is a massive film distributed by one of the largest companies in the world, reaching millions of viewers. Because the main audience is young children, they often are not capable of distinguishing between “make-believe” and the values they should follow in real life. According to Joyce Inman and Kelli Sellers, children “internalize” these gendered narratives long before they are old enough to question them (40). When children internalize these stories, they start to see them as \u201cnormal\u201d rules for how to behave in the real world. This can be harmful because it shapes their own identities and desires before they even realize it is happening. For example, a girl might grow up believing her only power comes from being pretty or waiting for someone else to solve her problems, simply because that is the main story she has known. The values planted in these movies eventually affect how people see beauty and relationships in the real world, which is why we have to look at them with a critical eye. From a feminist lens, we must notice how Snow White makes a woman\u2019s success depend entirely on her looks and a male savior. Without this critical view, children internalize these stories as “normal,” which limits their belief in their own independence. By questioning the film, we can see that these old standards are a “main story” that can trap women in passive roles.
The influence of Snow White has shaped the way girls view beauty and relationships for decades. Many young women still feel an intense pressure to be thin or pale to meet the standards these films promote, while others grow up waiting for a “prince” to solve their problems instead of solving them themselves. If these messages don’t change, the stakes are high because we risk raising another generation of girls who value their appearance over their own abilities. For example, when a girl believes her only goal is to be “pretty enough” to be saved, she may stop trying to develop her own skills or independence. We see teenage girls resorting to unhealthy habits, like skipping meals, to reach a body type that isn’t even realistic. Beyond physical health, these stories create a toxic environment where girls see each other as rivals, believing that being the “thinnest” or “fairest” is the only way to win in life. However, moving forward does not mean we have to hate these characters. The Disney franchise has slowly become more diverse over the years. For example, in the movie Frozen, Elsa is a powerful queen who focuses on her sisterly bond rather than waiting for a prince. Similarly, in Moana, the main character is a leader who saves her people through her own bravery and skills. To update a story like Snow White, I would like to see a version where she uses her kindness to lead the dwarfs as a team, rather than just doing their chores. Instead of being “saved” by a kiss, she could wake herself up through her own strength, showing that a girl\u2019s value comes from her mind and her actions.
Annotated Bibliography
Bruce, Alexander M. “The Role of the \u2018Princess\u2019 in Walt Disney\u2019s Animated Films: Reactions of College Students.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 30, no. 1, Fall 2007, pp. 1\u201325. JSTOR, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/23416195
In this article, Alexander M. Bruce interviewed students at Florida Southern College in Fall 2005, asking them questions about the six Disney princesses to see how the Disney films affected them (both male and female students). The questions include how they describe the princesses, what traits they see in the princes, and what they envision for their own ideal life in ten years. Alexander also compares the responses from male and female students to see whether gender would affect the perception of the movies\u2019 message. This article is very helpful for providing information on how college students in 2005 were affected by the Disney princesses\u2019 movies\u2019 message. What\u2019s more, it also studies how gender would affect the results. Reading the article can provide the information needed for analyzing how Disney princesses\u2019 movies are affecting their audience.
Inman, Joyce Olewski, and Kelli M. Sellers. “The Disney Princess Dilemma: Constructing, Composing, and Combatting Gendered Narratives.” Counterpoints, vol. 477, 2016, pp. 39\u201350. JSTOR, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/45157185
In this chapter, Joyce Olewski Inman and Kelli M. Sellers designed a first-year honors composition course titled “The Disney Dilemma” in Fall 2012, asking students to write personal narrative essays reflecting on a learning experience with Disney. By analyzing 23 student essays, the authors identify three gendered metanarratives \u2014 youthful impertinence, physical beauty, and heteronormative domesticity \u2014 that students unconsciously reproduced in their own writing, suggesting that Disney princess culture is capable of shaping students\u2019 understandings of gender identity. The authors also closely examine one student who challenged Disney\u2019s gendered narratives. This article helps analyze how Disney princess movies affect their audience because it provides qualitative evidence that Disney\u2019s gendered messages are not only recognized by students but are already deeply internalized, showing up in the stories students tell about themselves even before any critical discussion takes place.
England, Dawn Elizabeth, Lara Descartes, and Melissa A. Collier-Meek. “Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses.” Sex Roles, vol. 64, 2011, pp. 555\u2013567. Springer, https:\/\/moodle.cornellcollege.edu\/pluginfile.php\/117494\/mod_resource\/content\/2\/England%20et%20all%20disney%20princesses.pdf
In this article, the authors conduct a systematic, quantitative content analysis of nine Disney Princess films\u2014ranging from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to The Princess and the Frog (2009)\u2014to examine how gender roles and “climactic rescues” have evolved over time. By coding specific behavioral traits as either traditionally masculine or feminine, the researchers found that while both male and female roles have become more complex, all films still contain stereotypical representations of gender. This source is particularly useful for providing statistical evidence of the “unrealistic beauty standards” and “damsel in distress” themes discussed in the essay, as it explicitly tracks how often princesses are rescued versus how often they perform rescues. It supports the essay\u2019s argument by showing that even as Disney moves toward more diverse characters, the underlying gendered expectations for princesses often remain rooted in traditional ideals.
Golden, Joanne M., and Donna Canan. “\u2018Mirror, Mirror on the Wall\u2019: Readers\u2019 Reflections on Literature through Literary Theories.” The English Journal, vol. 93, no. 5, 2004, pp. 42\u201346. JSTOR, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/4128934
In this article, a university professor and a high school teacher describe a collaborative study where they taught students to apply different literary theories, such as feminism and psychoanalysis, to classic texts like Snow White. The authors focus on how using these \u201ccritical lenses\u201d helps students recognize and question the underlying values in familiar stories. This source is valuable for the essay because it provides a practical example of the “critical update” the essay calls for; it shows how readers can move past seeing Snow White as “harmless entertainment” and instead analyze it as a tool that shapes societal norms. By documenting how students respond to feminist critiques of the story\u2019s beauty standards and relationship dynamics, Golden and Canan provide real-world support for the idea that these “classic” narratives require active, critical re-evaluation by modern audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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When my mom bought me my first princess dress at Hong Kong Disneyland, I was so happy; I really felt like I had finally become…<\/p>\n