Eighth Blogpost

The source is called “The Disney Influence on Kindergarten girls” by Tanawan Asawarachan. This source is on an article by Asawarachan about an experiment she did using kindergarten age girls to see if Disney Princess movies had any effect on how the girls viewed themselves. The results of this is after seeing the films eighty percent of the girls felt that they were fat, while thirty six percent of the girls felt that they were too slim. Next the girls were interviewed, and asked questions about how they felt about their bodies. Most of the girls said that they were too fat, or their friends had called them fat. One of the little girls responses that I felt was particularly upsetting was one little girl named June who said, “I want to lose weight. My friend told me I can be a princess if I am slimmer because Cinderella is slim and beautiful. I want to be a beautiful girl so I cannot be a fat girl.” She felt that in order to be a princess like Cinderella that she needed to be smaller. A little girl felt that she had to lose weight in order to be beautiful, from that young age little girls are already feeling that they have to be thin in order to be pretty. I feel like this source is very important to my research paper because it only supports even more that Disney princesses are not helping young girls with their self-views, its harming them. These are the same little girls who later on may develop eating disorders because the princess that they idolized as a little girl was unnaturally slim.  

Seventh Blog Post

My source is called “Disney Princesses have mixed effects on children”. It is on a speech given by Sarah Coyne. Coyne decided to research if Disney princesses effect children. Three hundred seven children from three schools were tested to see if they identified with a Disney character, how often they watched Disney movies and played with the Disney toys. This was done to see how much exposure the children had to Disney princesses. Coyne found out through her research that while the movies helped the children to have better body image and have higher “pro-social behavior”, at the same time they caused children to have gender stereotypes. In conclusion, Coyne decided while it was okay for children to be exposed to the Disney princesses, it shouldn’t be frequently, no more than once a week. This article helps with my research paper because it supports the ideas that Disney princess films aren’t all good for children. It enforces the idea that there are gender stereotypes inside these films. This source is not as helpful as my other sources because it does not really have a lot of information inside it. On the other hand the information that the source does provide is quick and straight to the point, preventing me from reading a lot of useless information. I feel that this is a reliable source. It has not really changed my opinion on how I feel about Disney Princesses; I still feel that the princesses movies are not the best thing for children to be watching, even with the two benefits that Coyne mentions.

Sixth Blog Post

The name of my source is called “Disney Princess ‘2.0’: A feminist critique of Disney’s newest generation of princesses”. This article was written by Jennifer Rome. This article focus on how Disney is re-imagining its traditional ideals of the Disney princess. This is seen in the more recent Disney princesses: Tiana, Merida, and Rapunzel they are referred to as the “2.0” Disney princesses in this article. These modern princesses are “celebrating agency, empowerment, and disruption of the patriarchy through their performances”. The author saw how helpful the newer movies were firsthand with her own daughter. She decided not to expose her daughter to the Disney Princess franchise. But, her husband let her daughter watch Tangled, Princess Rapunzel’s movie. She saw that Rapunzel made her daughter feel empowered. Her daughter wanted to be like Rapunzel, going on adventures and “rescuing” her stuffed animals. Throughout the movie her daughter kept commenting on how strong and brave Rapunzel was. They are not like the past princesses who were seen as weak, and even though some of them were a bit more progressive they still adhered to the strict gender roles of the first princesses. I feel like this source is helpful to my essay because it supports both sides of the argument of whether or not Disney princesses are helping or harming their young viewers. The only problems with the article is that it is over two hundred pages long, and does go a bit too in depth into certain issues.