Inadequate Role Models
On the surface Disney Princess films appear to be innocent tales about happy endings. Upon closer inspection, they are almost always stories about damsels in distress that are hardly sufficient role models for young girls. Impressionable youth delve into these movies while their parents are unaware or uninterested of the implications these movies have. In some cases, one can find violations of women’s basic rights as human beings. These rights are outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and John Locke’s Of Civil Government. For example, Disney Princesses almost never have the right to their own property, much less ownership of their own bodies. They are also portrayed as obedient wives with offensive flaws that are later corrected by their husbands. Disney delineates a helpless, subservient role for women in society that undermines the work of feminists such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and all those involved with the Seneca Falls Convention; this portrayal encourages young women to put up with violations against their basic rights as human beings.
In Disney Princess movies, women hardly ever have the right to their own property and in some cases, have no right to their own bodies. According to John Locke, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “One Woman, One Vote”, and the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, these conditions violate their basic right to their property as human beings. In the film Aladdin, all of Jasmine’s suitors were after her power and wealth. Then when she married, her kingdom and assets were given to her husband, Aladdin, who knew only of the glamorous details of royalty and not how to run a kingdom. The ideals represented in these movies are severely outdated. For example in the 19th century it was common that when a woman married she was, “in the eye of the law, civilly dead”