Revolution of women's roles in cartoons throughout the times

Disney princess cartoons-how the message should
be sent correctly to the public.

As we know cartoons have various effects on all ages and it is crucial to look at how women characters have been placed as different roles in the cartoon movies. Within that, I came up with the idea of making a video on how did women characters in Disney movies and other cartoons change throughout times and mainly focus on their revolutions on becoming stronger and more independent. Going through the details, I will start from the old times Disney cartoons like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty on the how the main characters were always seemed as vulnerable figures to rely on guys and males seemed to be the sign of power and wealth whether females were told to dress pretty in order to attract the males’ attentions and beauty is the only thing that matters. We see the prince fell in love with the princess because she seems the prettiest one among the others and didn’t really care about her inner beauty. This so called “fall in love at first sight” stereotyped many Disney cartoons and looked so idealistic that what if Snow White is not skinny and pretty so will the prince still fall in love with her at first sight? This rises up the concern even more among young girls, according to the online article that criticizes the effect of those Disney cartoons, it says how young girls are learned to have the “Disney Princess Effect”(Sternberg 1) which portrays female should stay as vulnerable as they were and doesn’t need the power to change themselves because there will always be a “prince” waiting and taking control on them.

I will also interview some of my friends and young girls(if I have the chance) about how did the Disney movies and cartoons affect the way they think about themselves and their everyday lives. Moreover, I’m going to find some good examples in the later on cartoons to prove the idea of how females have been seen more independent and concentrate more on what they are capable of doing instead of showing their weaknesses throughout the entire movie. Some of the well-known examples are princess Merida from “Brave”, Korra in “The Legend of Korra”, Hua Mulan from “Mulan” etc. Besides, some overseas example will also be added like the Japanese cartoons made by the Studio Ghibli, most of the works they made are putting female as the main character and many of the strong and positive personalities can been seen from them because the movies are tend to show the adventure and how those main characters can overcome the problems(ex: Princess Mononoke, Chihiro Ogino from “Spirited Away”).

Some great examples from Ghibli studio that shows how female
are capable of showing 
what they can do and their strong personalities.

Right now I am still on my way of finding the cartoon clips that are trying to show the female role in both positive and negative sides and preparing the questions to ask my friends about the impact they got from the Disney cartoons they used to watch. I found some online and youtube clips on criticizing the women’s roles in Disney cartoons and the impact and I will probably take some of the useful clips and information and insert into my video(including citations and copyrights of course). After all, this topic might seem a little too broad and common but I will incorporate some new ideas and different examples to address my opinion about reconsidering women’s roles nowadays and remove the stereotype of those “princess effects” on children.