Despite being a former Disney “cast member” (I used to work for the magazine group), I’m not much of a fan. In fact, I tend to look askance at Disney products, most especially the princess characters. However, I’m raising two young girls, so the Disney Princess franchise is a constant, if somewhat unwelcome, presence in my house. Those movies are girly-girl crack: the songs, the outfits, the hair, the general mood. And I understand why. I loved that stuff, too, when I was a little girly-girl. Now, however, I cringe at the characters’ passivity (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty —I’m looking at you, ladies), their willingness to be subjugated (Snow White, why exactly are you doing those dwarves’ laundry?), their general simpering (that’s you, Little Mermaid—when you’ve got your voice, anyway).
The only Disney chick I really like is the powerful, independent Mulan. And have you noticed that she’s never hanging out with the rest of the pantheon? I have yet to see a single Mulan dress-up outfit at my local Target. Moreover (and you knew this was coming) I take issue with the body images. My girls have beautiful, strong, healthy, sturdy little physiques. The thought that they might compare themselves to those Barbie-like figures (Ariel’s waspish waist is fully exposed beneath that clam-shell bikini) and find themselves lacking fills me with dread.
Which is why I was particularly intrigued by a new study, published in the latest issue of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, called “Am I Too Fat to Be a Princess? Examining the Effect of Popular Children’s Media on Young Girls’ Body Image.” It’s as if they were speaking directly to me.
These researchers measured the effects on very young girls—3 to 6 years old—by showing them scenes from movies that contained “appearance-related clips” (most were Disney movies, but Barbie in the Nutcracker was thrown in for good measure). What constituted an appearance-related clip? A scene that focused on the main character’s looks: the clothes-changing scene in Cinderella, for example, or the bit in Beauty & the Beast where Gaston says Belle is the most beautiful girl in town, “which makes her the best.” Meanwhile, a control group was watching shows considered neutral, like Dora the Explorer. (God bless Dora and her mind-numbingly boring adventures.) Before viewing the movies, each child was shown digitized pictures of herself with two different body sizes, and asked to select the picture that looked most like herself. Then each child was shown pictures of other girls and women, and told that one was a “real” princess; it was the child’s task to identify who it was. And after movie time was over, researchers observed the girls’ imaginary play.
The results? Kind of surprising, I must admit: “Results failed to reveal any direct negative effect on girls’ body dissatisfaction.” A majority of the children believed that they themselves could be princesses, regardless of their self-perceived body sizes. (Do I want my kids to believe they can be princesses?) A third of the girls did report that they would “change something about their physical appearance,” given the opportunity, and half reported worrying about being fat at least some of the time—but this was true whether they watched Belle or Dora.
Age was a more predictive factor than media imagery for girls’ answers to the researcher’s questions. The 5- and 6-year-olds consistently chose significantly thinner women as the “real” princess than did the 3- and 4-year-olds.
What to make of this? The authors say this is the first empirical study of its kind, so no sweeping judgments can be drawn just yet. It’s clear to me as a parent that there’s something afoot in this culture; this is not the first study to show that the older girls are, the more likely they are to equate thinness with desirability. It’s too easy, of course, to pin this on one source, such as princess imagery; this study underscores that.
In the end, regardless of the research, Disney princesses will remain a fixture in our home — until the High School Musical kids or Hannah Montana displace them (later to be dethroned by the Twilight characters, no doubt). But as long as they’re here, I’ll continue to make my mildly snarky, hopefully thought-provoking comments to my daughters. (And Mulan? You’re welcome here anytime, honey.)
Little Mermaid photo by robotnine.com
Princess Photo by Jon Rawlinson
Naomi Shulman
Naomi Shulman was the research chief at Wondertime magazine (may it rest in peace), where she also edited the books column and wrote for the staff blog. In previous incarnations she has been a book editor in New York City and a scientific periodicals editor in Boston. ...
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Jennifer says:
Mulan is the best. I don't understand the whole princess thing. How did it get so popular? I mean, I know it's now new, but it really seems to be a much bigger deal in the last five or six years...
carolita says:
All those princesses in Disney make me ill. Even worse, all the moral lessons have been bleached out of the original stories these princesses come from, in the Disney versions. In the original version of The Little Mermaid, the lesson was that a woman who gives away her voice in order to win her man will not only lose her man (because her voice was what made her who she was and who he was attracted to), but also herself -- in the original version, the little mermaid, voiceless and now human, cannot return to her world without drowning, which is how she ends up.
These Disney princesses seem to be designed to fill little girls with a false sense of identity-retaining capabilities. They're custom made to turn little girls into women without a clue how to survive in the world. THAT is what I have against Disney princesses. The mind-warp, not the body-image warp. (Though I have nothing good to say about that body image warp, either.)