Just about any parent in American who has a five year old girl knows about the Disney Princesses. Between Frozen, Tangled, Moana, and the others, the “House of Mouse” has stumbled upon a multi-billion dollar industry from films and toy sales alone, and far more when adding in other merchandising sales. However, there may be a dark side to the Disney Princess. Some parents are concerned that the properties may be teaching harmful gender roles to their children. Others point to the way films like Snow White, and Cinderella encode problematic views on rape culture. Is there anything to this? Wayne and Mav are joined by Andrew and Kestra Darowski of the podcast Disney Animation Minute Essentials to work through some of the issues with the way the Princesses and other Disney films (like Bambi, Lion King, and Lady and the Tramp) encode gender and sexuality for kids and adults alike as well as discuss some of the fascination that we have with hypersexualizing the idea of the Disney Princesses in other media from fan art to lingerie.
Citations and Links:
- This episode’s Call for Comments
- “Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect” by Stephanie Hanes
- Mav’s research on age of virginity loss over time
- Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme
- Listen to Andrew and Kestra’s show, Disney Animation Minute Essentials
- Listen to Andrew’s other show The Protagonist Podcast
- Follow Mav on Twitter: @chrismaverick
- Follow Mav’s Personal Blog: http://chrismaverick.com
- Follow Wayne’s Personal Blog: http://wayne-wise.com
- Follow us on Twitter: @voxpopcast
- Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/voxpopcast
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