Disney Princesses

Summary: Paving the way for the Disney “princess” culture, Andy Mooney, Disney Consumer Product’s chairman, saw little girls generically dressed as princesses at a “Disney on Ice” show and was inspired to produce a new identity (Johnson 1). In 2000, he oversaw the Disney Consumer Products’ project, which focused on Disney Princesses, a recently growing franchise with $4 billion in worldwide retail sales (Disney Consumer Product 1). All of the Disney’s princesses—Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Tiana—are banded “together in a comprehensive collection of fantasy-based girls’ entertainment and products called the Disney Princess brand” (Disney Consumer Product 1) Now, that same group has everything from costumes and toys to bedspreads and home ornaments. Disney’s ultimate marketing strategy is to target their prime customers: girls.

Analysis: All the princesses, save for the aberrant few, have to some extent sold themselves in order to obtain the happy ending. In the end of every Disney princess movie, the girl must end with her counterpart. This gender distinction and joining are substantiated on a moral desire to preserve heterosexuality, a social construction founded on marriage—union with the opposite gender. Thus, the female and her fiancé’s performativity to the roles of the princess and prince respectively additionally stresses heterosexuality as a predefined social “normalcy.” So these girls are encouraged to buy princess bridal gowns through marketing strategies that exploit their childhood fantasies (Disney Bridal). The girls are becoming the wrong kind of princesses, ones who persist in the traditional feminine roles that give way to men and their values due to an ever-growing base of consumers. At least the girls have created their own mark: the Disney princess syndrome (Johnson 1). Disney has successfully influenced the girls to drive their parents to buy their products all in the ambition of raising their total revenue. While the girls may dress, look, and on the surface act like princesses, they fail to recognize that there is no special difference among their homogenized identity—a typical, consumer-orientated princess fanatic.

“Disney Consumer Products.” Disney Consumer Products. Web. 6 Nov. 2011.
Disney. Advertisement. Disney Bridal. Disney. Web. 06 Nov. 2011. .
Johnson, Matthew. "The Little Princess Syndrome - Natural Life Magazine." Natural Life Magazine - Green Family Living. Natural Life Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 2010. Web. 06 Nov. 2011.