A Dress Does Not a Damsel Make: Disney's Frozen v. Disney's Brave

As I look closely forward to tomorrow's class presentation on the Disney princess franchise, I am happy to have come across a piece on the subject that resonated with me at the women's lifestyle website HelloGiggles.com. I'd love to hear what tomorrow's teaching group would think of this piece. Mia Galuppo's piece entitled "Disney's Newest Princesses Aren't Afraid to Wear a Dress" expressed a sentiment I've always been a fan of: that there's no right or wrong way to create a strong female character - and in turn, there's no right or wrong way to behave as a strong female role model. In Galuppo's eyes, sure, Disney's most princesses may don dresses and pine away for Prince Charming. But none of this gets in the way of these characters ability to behave as strong female leads.

I have yet to view Frozen, Disney's latest animated feature and likely would have no interest whatsoever if not for Galuppo's piece. My interest in Frozen dissipated even further after reading a questionable comment that the film's head animator Lino DiSalvo made on the task of animating female characters: "Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty and they’re very sensitive to — you can get them off a model very quickly." Not only did DiSalvo's comments feel tasteless to me but it also led me to have preconceived notions about the quality of the animation. It made me wonder if the craft here would be less respectable and "lazy" in terms of creativity (especially since one of Frozen's female characters looks almost identical to Rapunzel in 2010's Tangled).

However, Galuppo raises an intriguing aspect of Frozen's storyline that definitely piqued my interest towards the film: "It understands that a dress does not a damsel make.  Its protagonists can rock some updos and still be dynamic characters. They can long for true love but this search does not wholly define them. Frozen exemplifies that femininity and strong female leads are not meant to be mutually exclusive."

The term I'm a fan of here? Mutually exclusive. I feel as if common dialogue when it comes to discussing the definition of a strong female characters or strong female "role models" in the public eye often involves a "mutually exclusive" variable of some sort. Apparently, when creating last year's film Brave, Disney felt the same. Galuppo also mentions last year's Disney release Brave, which featured "a push by Disney to offer strong female-centric story lines. Brave's female lead may have been meant to defy Disney's traditional standard of "the 'princess' archetype" (according to Galuppo "she ate with her hands, refused to wear a tiara and was pretty proficient with a bow). But in her piece, Galuppo commends Frozen's sway towards featuring the more traditional ideal of the Disney princess without sacrificing strong, admirable characteristics. To Galuppo, "Brave seemed forced, [while] Frozen is effortless."  After reading this article I'd love to view both of these films and contrast both sets of female leads.

View both articles here:

"Disney's Newest Princesses Aren't Afraid to Wear a Dress"
http://hellogiggles.com/disney-newest-princesses-arent-afraid-to-wear-a-dress


"Frozen" Head of Animation Says Animating Women is Really Difficult
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/frozen-head-of-animation-says-animating-women-is-really-really-difficult-89467.html

-Marisa Okano