I attended the first lecutre by Lynsey White on the Research proposal and found some inspiration what kind of dissertation I wanted to do.
We learnt about the 5 different types of research reports:
1- The extended essay
2-The Industry Report
3- The Technical Report
4-The Reflective Report
5- The Editorial Report.
I decided to go with the Extended essay as I felt I would be more comfortable with this time of report than any of the other ones.
I have always found it interesting how young girls idolised disney princesses and wanted to research this further to gain a grater understanding of how this would effect them as they got older.
I also wanted to consider this from a feminist standpoint and think about the over feminization in the design of these characters and consider if this could cause problems in preadolescent girls body ideals and if it changed their views of femininity.
The question I have for the time being is:
How has Disney’s
presentation of princesses, impacted on pre-pubescent girls perception/ideals
of femininity and female beauty, and what are the potential implications on well
being?
How Influential Disney is
How it effects prepubescent girls in their body ideals
Race and Ethics?
Gender Roles in Disney
Here is some quick research I did to start my argument:
The Disney Princess Effect on Young Children and Feminist Theory
https://storify.com/sternb13/the-disney-princess-effect-on-young-girls-and-femi
Little Girls or Little Woman? The Disney Princess Effect.
http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/63011174.html
Mommy, I want to be a Princess
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/opinion/magazine-global-agenda-mommy-i-want-to-be-a-princess.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&
Thoughts: The Disney Princess Effect
http://lifeinprogress2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/thoughts-disney-princess-effect.html
Gender Roles Brought to You by Disney
http://blogs.longwood.edu/genderrolesbroughttoyoubydisney/disneys-direct-effect-on-girls/
Are Disney Princess Hurting Your Daughter's Self-Esteem?
http://time.com/4378119/disney-princess-effect-on-girls/
Disney Princesses Have Mixed Effects on Children
http://universe.byu.edu/2013/09/20/disney-princesses-have-mixed-effects-on-children/
The Disney Influence
https://disneyinfluence.wordpress.com/category/influence-on-kids/
The Life of a Disney Child: Are Disney Movies Good or Bad for Children?
http://sites.udel.edu/tfeher/2014/03/11/the-life-of-a-disney-child-are-disney-movies-good-or-bad-for-children/
Disney Movies and Their Effect on Children
https://prezi.com/gvplkov7jlns/disney-movies-and-their-effect-on-children/
Despite Black Princesses, Disney's Race Record Mixed
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122152254
Westernisation of Foreign Cultures in Film
http://www.concrete-online.co.uk/westernisation-foreign-cultures-film/
The Possibility of White Washing Mulan Is Generating an Appropriate Amount of Rage
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-possibility-of-whitewashing-mulan-is-generating-an-1787630922
Bright Like a Diamond, White Like a Princess
http://www.sparkmovement.org/2013/04/17/bright-like-a-diamond-white-like-a-princess/
White Royalty: White Washing from 'Prince of Persia' to 'Sofia the First'
http://search.proquest.com/openview/5c2b0e75371b8a10b98483a4e455c37f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17482798.2010.496917
The Persuasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891243203255605
Disney's Modern Heroine Pocahontas: Revealing Age-Old Gender Stereotypes and Role Discontinuity Under a Facade of Liberation
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362331901001379
Becoming Tween Bodies: What Preadolescent Girls In The US Say About Beauty, The "Just Right" Ideal and the "Disney Girls"
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17482798.2013.805305
The Colour(s) of Perfection: The Feminine Body, Beauty Ideals, and Identity of Post War America, 1945-1970
http://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1157&context=luc_diss
These are all sights which I feel are not strong enough in terms of substance towards my report, however they were really useful when it came to find the general opinion on Disney and it's effect on young girls.
I then went to the UEA library to see if I could find any research, I found a couple of interesting journals and bound them all together
I was unable to look at some of the references I would have liked to due to the Journals being expensive.
The Production of Meaning through Peer Interaction: Children and Walt Disney's Cinderella http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-007-9236-y
Repackaging the Disney Princess: A Post-Feminist Reading of Modern Day Fairy Tales
http://www.promotionalcommunications.org/index.php/pc/article/view/42
Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/lux/vol2/iss1/29/
Body Image, Eating Disorders and the Relationship to Adolescent Media Use
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031395512000181
Disney's The Princess and the Frog: The Pride, and Politics of Being a First
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2010.00753.x/full
The Animated Woman: The Powerless Beauty of Disney Heroines from Snow White to Jasmine
https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchaseopenform&fp=ajs&id=ajs_2001_0017_0003_0197_0215
The Persuasiveness and Persistence of Feminine Beauty Ideal In Children's FairyTales
https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BknNuHmfEq0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA185&dq=Disney+beauty+ideals&ots=djxioNv74o&sig=V_LTgMjgH1X1nijvRcy-TRcr0OY#v=onepage&q=Disney%20beauty%20ideals&f=false
Some of these would have been absolutely perfect for my dissertation question but sadly I am not able to read the whole document.
I found that I wanted to focus more on academic essays and journals for my work as I felt it would give it more substance and would help me argue my point more.
I went to the nua library and picked up a couple of books there:
While I was at the library, I got into a conversation with one of the librarians and she pointed me in the direction of Athens, which allows me to find published journals and read them for free through the university.
Found on Athens:
Disney Childhood:Princess Generation and Once Upon a time- Heathole,Alexandra, Studies in the Humanities; Indiana 43.1/2 (Dec 2016)
The current popularity, then - not only of Ariel and Belle but of Cinderella and Snow White too - is problematic. And the romantic idealization of girlish passivity is not the only problem feminist critics have identified with this franchise.
In recent decades critics have often suggested that Disney princesses further an implicit white privilege in their lack of diversity. Even the pointedly 'ethnic' Disney princesses, such as MuÃan and Pocahontas, rarely feature in the corporate 'lineup' used in marketing Disney Princess products. The ostensible reason is that their attire is less 'princessy' (Orenstein qtd. in Sweeney 69). But, as Hains and others point out, the lesser visibility of the 'non-white' princesses within the Disney Princess franchise, both on screen and in toys and other merchandising, associates beauty and desirability with the skin colors, hair types, and clothing styles of upper class whiteness throughout history, thereby sending a message to girls that these are the only standards they should aspire to (Hains 208).
It is particularly notable, then, that the later princesses of this period, Pocahontas (1995) and MuÃan (1998), are driven by concerns that are less individualistic or even less familial, including their commitment to tribe, nation, or environment. Their storylines also require much more agency on their part to achieve their goals. Pocahontas even eventually rejects her possible romance for her family - a no less traditional ending, perhaps, but still markedly different. While their more personal quests tell stories that differentiate them from the narratives of natural virtue of the 'white' princesses, I would also argue that these two princesses represent Anita Harris' (2004) "can-do" girl of the Girl Power era. Their difference from the unnegotiated Disney princess idea allows them to come closer to the 'postfeminist' ideal of neoliberal empowerment - success achieved through personal choices and self-knowledge - that is only hinted at by the earlier princesses of this period. It's therefore significant, and consistent with the ambivalence critics note in the postfeminist girl idea, that the personal quests of these princesses are closely entangled with heterosexual romance that refers the story back to ideals of female beauty and virtue. They are perhaps less girls that can have it all than girls that must do it all. Notably, their individual heroism as well as their 'diversity' may contribute to the way these characters are often played down by the corporate "Princess" franchise.
Within the brand, old-fashioned, classic princesses like Snow White and Cinderella are on equal (or superior!) footing compared with princesses like Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, Anna and Elsa, who bring more modern values to the franchise. So when little girls love princesses, they become exposed to the princess behavior and attitudes that hearken back to the social norms of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. And in the princess toys and other products that exist beyond the confines of the screen, princess culture's dial is still set firmly on the 'pretty and passive' setting - even for the newest of princesses. (165)
I found Athens really useful but also quite difficult to use in terms of getting the articles and information I was looking for. When writing the rest of my dissertation, I will spend more time looking through different areas of this resource as it is very useful.
I then decided to look at google Scholar as I felt the references I could find there would be more substantial than an average search like a buzzfeed article (haha).
Hayes, S & Tantleff-Dunn, S.
(2010). Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining theeffects of popular
children’s media onyoung girls’ body image. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology . 28,
413-426.
Signorielli, Nancy. “Television’s Gender
Role Images and Contribution to Stereotyping.” Handbook of Children and
the Media. Ed. Dorothy G. Singer and Jerome L. Singer.
Thousand Oaks:
Sage Publications, 2001. 341-358.
Stover, Cassandra . (2013). Damsels and Heroines: The
Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess. LUX: A
Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate
University. 2 (1 ), 1-4.
Bispo, A & Schmid, L. (2012). Fairytale Dreams:
Disney Princesses’ Effect on Young Girls’ Self-Images. Dialogues. 9 (1), 1- 13.
Towbin, Mia Adessa, et al. “Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual
Orientation in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films.” Journal of Feminist
Family Therapy 15.4 (2004): 19-44. Print
Child, B. (2013). Brave
director criticises Disney's 'sexualised' Princess Merida redesign. Available:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/may/13/brave-director-criticises-sexualised-merida-redesign.
Last accessed 19th May 2017.
Hains, Rebecca C. The Princess
Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through the Princess- Obsessed Years. Naperville,
III: Sourcebooks, 2014.
http://landingbook.co/the_princess_problem_guiding_our_girls_through_the_princess_obsessed_years.pd
http://landingbook.co/the_princess_problem_guiding_our_girls_through_the_princess_obsessed_years.pd
Schooler, Deborah, et al. “Who’s that Girl: Television’s Role in the Body Image Development of Young White and Black Women.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 28.1 (2004): 38-47.
Huesmann, R. (2003). Developmental Psychology. Longitudinal Relations Between Children’s Exposure to TV Violence and
Their Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young Adulthood: 1977–1992.
Ozer EM, Brindis CD,
Millstein SG, et al. America’s
adolescents: Are they healthy? San Francisco: University of California, School of Medicine; 1998.
John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism:
A Critical Introduction (London: Pinter, 1991), 41. Cited in 2016
Even though its stories
might be understood by the audience as a pure entertainment, it might include
other meanings.
The one promoted by
Walt Disney himself was its educative element, as he considered himself to be a
moral educator contributing in the preservation of the American culture. Many
scholars suggested something quite different: that the values “concealed”
behind the innocent facade of the Disney pictures actually have an imperialist
nature.
Primary Research
I then decided to conduct some of my own research by going to the disney store and making a list of all the different princess products I could find and then make a table showing my results.
Princesses (in order of film
release)
No. of products at local Disney
Store
Snow White (1937)
10
Cinderella (1950)
9
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) (1959)
8
Ariel (The Little Mermaid) (1989)
11
Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
(1991)
15
Jasmine (Alladin) (1992)
1
Pocahontas (1995)
1
Mulan (1998)
1
Tiana (Princess and the
Frog) (2009)
1
Rapunzel (Tangled) (2010)
18
Merida (Brave) (2012)
2
Elsa/ Anna (Frozen) (2013)
31
Moana (2016) (Most Recent)
15
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