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.