Slide 1: Disney title and Title of Presentation
- Good Evening, and welcome to this presentation based around an investigation into how wider perceptions of Disney princesses have been influenced by historic and modern cinematic representations of Princess Characters.
- Disney was founded on the 16th October 1937, by the brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney.
- The first Disney princess to appear on our screens was Snow White in 1937, this was the first full length feature that Disney had created. Based on the traditional fairy tale that was written in 1823.
- Disney's Snow White set up, the fairytale genre Disney is now continuing to produce from 1923 to the modern day.
- Disney's films are not the only the only thing branded by Disney. The brand has increased to a worldwide company, through its opening of numerous theme parks, shops and a huge range of merchandise.
- The main three films I will focus on during this presentation are: Sleeping Beauty (Item 1), Pocahontas (Item 2), Frozen (Item 3) and Mona (Item 4), these films are from the classical, middle and newest era, and show the change of the how Disney portrays women has strong and independent.
- The presentation will explore how the image of Disney princesses has changed over time, from being dependent of being rescued by a Handsome Prince to being independent.
Slide 2: Visual of Sleeping Beauty being awoken by the Prince (Item 5)
Play Clip of Sleeping Beauty being awoken. (Item 6)
- Sleeping Beauty was released in cinemas on 29th January 1959, it was the 16th animated Disney film to be released. It was one of the first American animated musical to be released by a worldwide company.
- Sleeping Beauty is the main motion picture that sparked the main stereotype amongst princesses. The stereotypical princess who does housework, but who meets a handsome prince and falls in love with him.
- This representation of the princess, lives up to the stereotype of women needing a man in her life as a necessity.
- Within the first 3 Disney films, each princess has been shown and subject to a mass amount of house work, Sleeping Beauty was the last Disney film to show the representation of women.
- Sleeping Beauty was one of the films that began the frenzy of young girls being attracted to Disney films. This was because Sleeping Beauty became an idol for young girls.
Slide 3: Visual of Sleeping Beauty doll. (Item 7)
- Since it's release the Sleeping Beauty doll has contributed to the $5.5 billion made from the sale of Disney's princess dolls over the years.
- However, the Sleeping Beauty doll may have some negative impact on young girls, as the princess are supposed to be the perfect role model for young girls.
- This creates a negative effect as young girls may think that they need the blonde hair, blue eyes and skinny waist to become a perfect girl or a princess.
Play interview, Sleeping Beauty (Platinum Edition) The Making: The Voice and Model of Aurora. (Item 17)
- Within this interview, we see how the ideas for Sleeping Beauty came about from all different angles. We see comments from a range of people, who helped create Sleeping Beauty.
- In the interview we see how Disney and the producers label Mary Costa as the ideal voice of a princess, in vocals and dialogue.
- The clip gives us snippets of the film Sleeping Beauty, helping us to see how Disney princesses started off and where they are today in the most recent Disney film. We also see how and understand why Mary Costa was chosen to become Sleeping Beauty.
Introduction to next film.
- Our next film in the investigation, is our first glimpse of a Native American princess in the world of Disney, Pocahontas.
Pocahontas (Item 2)
Slide 4: Visual of Pocahontas and animals (Item 8)
Play Clip of Pocahontas and John Smith Kiss (Item 9)
- Pocahontas was released on 23rd June 1995. It was the 33rd Disney film that was released, Pocahontas was the first coloured princess to appear in the world of Disney films, and in a animated musical.
- The film was the first, where the Princess had two love interests, up until the film Frozen in 2013 was released.
- The musical/film contains songs which carry many important messages that wanted to be conveyed to the audience, songs such as: Colours of the Wind, Just around the Riverbend and Steady as a Beating Drum.
- The film is set in 17th century America, where the conflict between English colonialists and Native Americans is in full force. This gives the back ground story to why the love between Pocahontas and John Smith is so frowned upon.
- The princess of Pocahontas opened up a new world of Disney, a whole new set of audiences and merchandise opportunities.
- Opening up the world of coloured Princesses to audiences, gave younger audiences a wider view on society, it gave the message that anyone no matter who they are can be a Disney Princess.
- Pocahontas breaks every stereotypical princess ideology formed by Disney, other than falling in love with a handsome prince. She becomes the heroine of the film, breaking the ideologies that the princess is always the victim.
- This film also breaks many of the happy endings that are stereotypical to Disney films, as the ending of this film is not happily ever after, or a marriage between Pocahontas and John Smith.
Play interview, Judy Kuhn on Pocahontas. (Item 18)
- From this interview, we see Judy Kuhn talk about where the idea for Pocahontas came from and why it was created.
- The interview allows us to see on how the film was created, and how the casting of the characters was done. This shows how Disney were given the ideas for Pocahontas, and how they developed them to create the film we all know and love today.
Introduction to next film.
- The next film, we will be focusing on in this investigation will be the film based around everyone's favorite sister duo of Anna and Elsa, in Frozen.
Frozen (Item 3)
Slide 6: Visual of Elsa and Anna (Item 11)
Play clip of First Time in Forever Reprise (Item 12)
- In Frozen we see the unbreakable bond between the two sisters of Elsa and Anna.
- In the film we see the challenge of stereotypes towards women, and how this has changed over the past 90 years of Disney films.
- Elsa and Anna have an independent presence within the film. This differs from many of the past Disney films, as within many of the past films women have always relied one a man in order to be able to survive.
- However, in Frozen it is shown that Elsa and Anna do not need men to survive, they just need each other and their independence.
Play clip, Anna turns into ice. (Item 13)
- From this scene we see how Disney has adapted the damsel in distress from being a female to being an entire kingdom.
- In this film, Disney has created the heroine as being a female instead of being the stereotypical male hero.
- This scene also shows the unbreakable bond between sisters and family, that isn't always shown within Disney films.
- This draws away from the typical Disney ideologies on how females/princesses are portrayed in the films, as Anna is portrayed as the hero and saves the kingdom. Also, within this film there is now handsome prince which comes to the rescue, it is the handsome prince which turns out to be he villain, differing from other films where there is usually as wicked witch.
- From this interview, Indina Menzel tells us how she found playing the role of Elsa and the turmoil's the character faces during the film.
- From this interview, we see the way that Idina Menzel has played the character of Elsa in order to portray messages to the audience through the way the character is played and the messages that are portrayed throughout the song.
- Indina Menzel feels that the use of the song Let it Go, in the film sends out a very powerful message to the films audiences, about not being afraid to show who you really are to people.
- Frozen has won a range of awards since it was released. Frozen won the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year, twice at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes in 2014.
Introduction for next film.
- The next film, that will be focused on during this investigation is Disney's newest and soon to be most popular film, Moana.
Moana (Item 4)
Slide 7: Visual of Moana film poster. (Item 14)
Play clip of How far will I Go. (Item 15)
- From this we see the complete change Disney has experienced, we see that we now have a Princess of colour.
- This Disney film, has also adapted its focus to show the main female character to be the hero, along with the the special power to control the water, which in past Disney films the only character who would have a special power would be a a witch.
- This Disney film is one of the first to be set in Hawaii, however the second to show tribal life behind Pocahontas.
- This film is one of the first Disney films, to have a coming of age story as it's base story. This film shows the story of Moana from when she was essentially a baby, up until she is a teenager.
Slide 8: Play clip of Moana Trailer. (Item 16)
- From the trailer, we see how Moana changes the stereotypical representation of pretty much all Disney Princesses that have been created.
- Moana is the complete hero of the film, she works in a duo with Maui to save her island. She works alongside the mystical God and combines his power over the earth with her power over the sea.
- This film is very much a coming of age tale showing Moana in her baby and adolescence years to becoming a teenager.
- This co-insides with Frozen's story line, but both very much vary from all other Disney princess films, as they all show the Princess' from their teenage/adult years instead of showing their progression from their baby years.
- From this interview, we see how Auli'i Cravalho is not afraid of Moana being compared or measured against Frozen.
- They both may be coming of age stories, but they all include different story bases.
- They both include a female hero, as both Moana and Anna save their kingdom island from evil. Differing from other Disney films as they show females in a new light, as they show females as independent characters.
- We also see how Auli'i Cravalho believes in the film and believes that every animated Disney film has it's time, just as Mulan had its time, and so has Frozen.
- Auli'i Cravalho tells the interviewer how she feels she can relate to this character, as Moana essentially represents her life growing up on the island of Hawaii.
- This year, Moana has been nominated a range of awards and has won a range of awards also. The film was nominated at the Academy Awards for the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year, also Auli'i Cravalho won the Best Animated Female at the Alliance of Women Film Journalist Awards.
