Hello everyone! Apologies for not writing in so long, I've
been really caught up with school and other such things. I hope you guys all
had a great Christmas and hopefully you'll all have an amazing New Year. Dubai
is planning to break the world record for fireworks displays by having a
45-minute fireworks show at landmarks across the city. It's going to be very
pretty, but also very smoky and foggy the next morning...
Anyway, on the 11th of December, I got to go and see 'Saving
Mr. Banks' with my friend Ciara at
Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) an entire week before general
release. 'Saving Mr. Banks' is an emotional roller-coaster of
a movie that is about the author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, and how she
reflects on her tragic childhood during meetings with Walt Disney regarding the
adaptation of her novel. It depicts Disney studios during the late 1950's to
early 1960's and really is a must-watch. Another recently released Disney movie
that I watched was Frozen, the latest addition to the Disney
princess series. Together, these two movies got me thinking about how much
Disney has evolved since it started. I will warn you now: this post
contains major spoilers for Frozen, so if you haven't
seen the movie, I suggest you stop reading now.
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| Concept art for Anna from Frozen |
If you're still reading, I'll assume that you've watched the
movie. Frozen really broke the norm for Disney princess
movies, and it did this in several ways. First, the prince. In early Disney
movies, most notably Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping
Beauty, the princess had no trouble or second thoughts about marrying a man
she had just met. While that might have been fine at the time, it may not send
the right message to young girls today, as you now can't completely trust
someone who you've only recently met. Frozen communicates
this- Anna gets engaged to Hans, a prince from a nearby kingdom, on the night
that they meet and she is sure it's true love. As it turns out, all he wants is
to steal her crown. Clearly, that engagement didn't turn out so well.
Frozen also
helped to show that over the years, Disney's female characters have become more
independent. If you look at the three classics again- Snow White,
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, you'll notice that the
women are all reliant on their prince. Snow can only defeat her evil stepmother
with the help of her prince, Cinderella can only escape her evil stepmother and
ugly stepsisters by getting married to the prince, and Aurora can only be saved
from Maleficent's sleeping curse through a kiss from a prince. The men are
constantly coming to save them. This trend continued into a few of the more
modern Disney films, such as The Little Mermaid, where Eric is the
one who needs to give Ariel her voice back.
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| Screencap from Sleeping Beauty |
However, it does start to change. In Beauty and
the Beast, Belle is intelligent and brave, and instead of the Beast saving
her, she saves the Beast. It's the same thing in Tangled- Rapunzel
saves Flynn. Mulan is the toughest of all Disney protagonists-
she doesn't get married, defends China against the Huns and instead of the men
saving her, she saves all the men. And of course, we have to look at Merida
from Brave, who saves her kingdom single-handedly. In Frozen,
Kristoff may have rushed to save Anna from freezing solid, but in the end, it's
her sister, Elsa, who saves her.
Frozen proves
to audiences that it is possible to save yourself, rather than to wait for some
prince to come and save you. And like Brave, it shows the
importance of family relationships. Merida's relationship with her mother was a
key part of the main storyline in Brave and in Frozen,
the relationship between Anna and Elsa was at the forefront of the movie.
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| Screencap from Brave |
In conclusion, Disney princesses always have been and will
always continue to be role models for young girls. It is important, therefore,
that these characters communicate the right message. As Walt Disney once said: "movies
can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of
entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood."
