A while back, I posted about why my daughter’s not allowed to watch Disney movies, and I said that eventually I’d be posting part two.
This is part two. Eventually, I’ll be posting part three, about misogyny in Disney movies, because it turns out that I have a lot to say about this.
Two quick notes: I hate unnecessary capitalization, but have tried to capitalize princess when it’s specifically referring to the Disney Princess line. When it’s referring to princesses in general, it’s (probably) not capitalized. Hopefully I managed to keep it straight throughout; apologies for any errors.
Also, I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: this is specifically about Disney’s Princess movies. It’s explicitly not about Monsters Inc. or Robin Hood or Mary Poppins or Ponyo, several of which I’ve seen and liked very much. I’m not saying all Disney movies are bad and everyone should hate them forever, I’m just saying that a little bit of critical thinking never hurt anyone.
Unlike the last post, this post starts with a picture. Two of them, in fact. Looking at the picture, what do you notice? Notice the pink, maybe? That’s sort of the obvious–the “girl’s” aisle at Toys R Us is bathed in it. Pink signs, pink signboards, pink packaging, pink dresses. There’s also a lot of yellow, and sometimes blue (mostly, I noticed, on bath toys,) but surprisingly little purple–apparently pink and yellow are the big “girl colors” now.
Those two pictures are (almost) the entirety of the Disney Princess display at my local Toys R Us. Like I was saying the other day, there are nine princesses: Belle, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Ariel, Mulan, Pocahontas, Jasmine, and Tiana. Maybe, looking at those pictures, you’ve noticed that only the first five princesses on that list are represented.
In fairness to Disney and Toys R Us, I have to admit that there’s a Princess and the Frog display next to the one that I took photos of–it’s about two shelves, roughly the size of the shelves in the pictures. It seems to mostly have a ton of dress-up clothes, plus a few Tiana Barbies. It also has a Polly Pocket set, which costs about $35 and comes with a prince and a horse and a carriage, I believe.
Still, the focus of the Princesses is clear: Princesses, for the purposes of Disney, are white. When you’re looking at the whole Princess line, it’s easy to think that Disney has done a reasonably good job of providing heroines of different nationalities. And, in the films, they mostly have, I suppose. Sure, Tiana spends the vast majority of the movie as a frog, but hey, at least she’s there, right? And okay, Pocahontas exists solely to help the white peoples, but representation, yay!
Unfortunately, the films, at this point, are sort of obsolete. Not because no one has them (though it seems that the actual films have waned somewhat in popularity, replaced by sing-along DVDs and Princess-themed shorts,) but because the real money’s in the merchandise. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying that the films don’t make money. I’m just saying that in terms of yearly revenue, I’d bet that the dolls and dress-up costumes and Princess-themed bookbags bring in more than sales of the DVD backlist.
And, really, Disney’s merchandising is impressive. Princess dolls in every size, if not shape or color; clothes from the movies; clothes allegedly inspired by the movies; clothes with Princesses on them; games ranging from puzzles to complicated games for the Nintendo DS; Princess books–sticker books, coloring books, actual books with words in them; backpacks; ballpits; makeup; cameras; motorized bubble blowers… That’s just from a quick skim of an Amazon search for “Little Mermaid”.
Maura has the Polly Pocket Disney princesses–she has all of them except Mulan and Pocahontas, and (to my distress) they’re her favorite toys. I picked the first five of them up for a few bucks at the drug store or the supermarket. For about five bucks, I could get a doll and two dresses; for about twelve, there’d be six dresses and, usually, some sort of adorable bird or dwarf or whatever it was that featured in that film. Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Snow White, Cinderella, and Belle were all purchased this way. I caved and ordered Tiana online for, I think, about $25. She’s new and popular, I told myself. There’s a premium on that.
I started looking for Mulan, Pocahontas, and Jasmine. Jasmine is nearly impossible to find in stores–I finally happened across the doll in a closeout store, just her and a single dress, for seven bucks. I snapped it up, of course. To get the bigger set of her, which has the doll, the tiger, and half a dozen dresses, I was going to have to order it online for something like $30. (Remember, I can buy the other large sets for twelve bucks.) Mulan is just as hard to find–you can buy her, but only online, and only in a $30 set with about six dresses. Pocahontas can’t be had for love or money. She just doesn’t exist.
After the ridiculous success of the Polly Pocket Princesses, Disney apparently figured that hey, one set went well, so two sets would go twice as well! So now there are an additional six “favorite moments sparkle bag” dolls. They’re the exact same thing, only they have painted-on shoes and sparkly clothes. Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, and Belle got bags. (Jasmine’s bag is only available–you guessed it–online.) Pocahontas, Tiana, and Mulan didn’t get sparkle bags at all.
It’s weird, right, that while I can find the white princesses in every damn store I walk into (and believe me, I can, because Maura has a homing instinct that leads her straight to the Pollys,) but I can’t find any of the non-white dolls? That to buy the non-white dolls, I’ve had to order online and pay twice as much?
The same holds true for other Disney products–the princess tea set has Belle, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. The tiara has Ariel and Belle and Cinderella. Bookbag? Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Underwear? Mostly Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, though Tiana can be bought on her own (instead of with other princesses) and it’s possible (though difficult) to find a set of Belle, Cinderella, and Jasmine. These aren’t examples I had to hunt down, either, it was just the first few things that I plugged into Amazon. It goes on and on. The only place I’ve ever found Jasmine is on Valentine’s cards, in one of the Princess movies, and as a Barbie. Mulan can be had as a Barbie, as can Tiana, but that’s about it. They’re not in the princess movies, and they’re not part of the merchandising. Pocahontas, so far as I can tell, isn’t on anything at all.
The message that Disney’s sending is clear: real princesses are white. You other people might be allowed to show up in the background, or as guests at a tea party, but let’s face it–you’re just not as pretty or interesting as those other princesses.
The kicker, of course, is that of the Princess line, the only ones who have any sort of personality are the ones who are excluded. We don’t really know a lot about any of the Princesses–Belle likes to read, Ariel likes singing and collecting forks, Sleeping Beauty likes to dance in the forest, Snow White is apparently a great housekeeper, Cinderella isn’t afraid of mice, Jasmine is tired of staying at home and would like to go explore the world, Pocahontas is an environmental activist, Tiana would like to own her own restaurant, and Mulan’s strong enough to head off to war to save her dad’s ass.
So…yeah. Of those characters, which ones should be the interesting ones? The ones who like to play house, obviously! Looking at it laid out like that, though, it’s also striking that any character who’s darker than skim milk isn’t in this for herself, she’s in it for good, noble reasons. Jasmine’s teaching us a very important lesson about arranged marriages, Pocahontas wants to save her land and her people, Mulan wants to save her father, and Tiana’s both fulfilling her father’s dream and working for a living.
It’s interesting to me, too, that while the vast majority of the princesses have endings that are very clearly meant to be read as happy (and then they got married and rode off in a beautiful carriage pulled by white horses, and they lived happily ever after, the end,) the only two who don’t have that ending are Pocahontas–remember, John leaves at the end of the movie and goes back to England, and Pocahontas stays with her people–and Tiana, who ends up married to a guy she loves, but is going to be busting her ass in that restaurant for the rest of her life. Both of these are certainly more realistic endings than Snow White and company, but am I the only one who finds it a little problematic that the one princess who’s going to spend her life working is the black one?
And then we have Mulan and Jasmine. Neither was all that interested in getting married, but by the end of the movies, they’ve gotten any sort of adventurous spirit worked out and they’re ready to settle down and be good wives. Jasmine was so bored, but hey, now that she has a husband, she’ll never be bored again! And Mulan was failing at all the proper girl things that she was supposed to be doing. Then she went off to war and met Shang, who, when he realized she was a woman, was clearly bothered by her lack of womanliness. Eventually, the Emperor’s like, “That Mulan, eh?” Then Shang follows her home, and hey, now she’s apparently ready to settle down and behave correctly.
Disney could very easily make all of the Princesses part of their Princess merchandise, and they’ve chosen not to. The message is clear: real princesses are white and appropriately feminine. The Princesses of color might be more interesting and more realistic, but they don’t fit this ideal, so they’re going to be second-class merchandise forever.
Man, this is an excellent, if depressing, post. You rock.
Also, the bit that is derailingly unrelated, but keeps tripping me up is the fact that Polly Pockets are not the ‘houses that can fit in your pocket’ (well, admittedly they were never that small, but they were *entire play landscapes* that folded together in clever ways!) anymore, but *dolls*. When did that shit happen? *is old and grumpy :P* <3
I also find that weird about Polly Pockets. I think that about twenty years ago, they were that–I remember the ads–and then in 2000, they were redesigned as 10cm tall dolls with little plastic clothes. You can sometimes still find tiny Pollys, but they’re sort of…I don’t know. Awkwardly sized? Not really small enough to actually put them in your pocket, and not really big enough that they can be played with on their own, I think.
I think that one consideration of any corporation is “What will sell?” “What will make money?” That could be an alternate reason for the white princesses being more widely available.
It may also be that people want to buy the white princesses because they are the more fun fairy tale: in the end everyone loves them, and they have it easy. Why idolize someone who HAS to work if they know there is an alternative?
That the Asian character has expectations placed on her, rebels, works her butt off, and eventually settles down to what’s expected does not surprise me. Some “ethnic” cultures (not generic, white, American) have a lot more expectations and pressure on the children. This would not be an uncommon scenario. I’ve seen multiple people of darker skin rebel against being little dolls for their parents, and then wind up as the doctors that were sought. (Yes, doctor is not exactly housewife, but the expectations are there.)
Just random thoughts.
I sure thought that Tiana was going to be one of the main princesses from now on. It makes me sad to know she’s not considered one of the big ones. I guess all the marketing I was seeing was just because the movie was so recent. She’s my favorite of all the princesses now. I like that she has to work for a living. Her character clearly wouldn’t like to have everything handed to her on a silver platter like her BFF, the plantation guy’s daughter.
Personally I think they need to ditch Snow White. She’s like the most annoying person ever. She sings in like a little girl octave which makes you wonder just how old she is and what’s wrong with a prince wanting to smooch on her dead body anyway… I mean clearly there are two problems in that statement right there. She’s like 13 and she’s DEAD! Now I can understand kissing a dead relative goodbye, but some strange girl you find in the woods who may or may not have died under the circumstances that these seven little dudes claim.
I’m actually looking forward with great anticipation to the Rapunzel movie that’s coming out. She looks like a booty kicker! She is white…hmm…you may have a point here.
I agree that this happens, but not as to the cause of it. It’s about money,and because of that, it’s kind of our fault. If you look at toy commercials, is a toy is ‘uni-sex’ they have boys, or a boy and a girl playing with them. The logic behind it is that girls will listen to boys, but boys don’t listen to girls. They couldn’t easily change their merchandise, because maybe they’ve got a lot of money but it does cost a lot to make new. But aside from that it wouldn’t be cost effective. They sell what sells, not what’s ideologically ideal. That’s not their job to do, you wouldn’t expect your neighbor to cater to individual demographics with her hand made doll business, ask the same of a large corporation. Also, have you ever considered that Tiana and Mulan cost more not because they’re less popular, but because they’re more coveted? I mean, most likely not true in a lot of cases, but Tiana’s marketing seems to me to be her being left as a single because they want people to spend extra money to get her as shes’ new and therefore a novelty. Mulan’s just…forgotten. I think that might have to do with the fact that she’s not really a princess, and obviously doesn’t have any pretty movie based outfits.
Also, I’d like to mention that I was at a party today and there was a balloon with Tiana, Ariel, and Rapunzel on it.
I’m sorry but do you expect Disney to change their skin color just to please you??? Remember as I said in a previous comment these are based off grim fairy tales and ballets. I hate to say it but blacks, Hispanics, etc were not really written about. Jasmine isnt white by the way. Tiana seems to have went over pretty well in my opinion. I see a lot of her stuff at Disney and in stores. My niece loves her. I for one am sad that these kind of dolls did not exist when I was a child. I am curious about one thing. How in the world can your husband stand you? I don’t know you and I’d like nothing more than to tell you how depressing of a person you are. I imagine if you’re not all ready you’ll become one of those psycho soccor moms I loath!