Register Login

Journal of Promotional Communications

Search
PDF

Published

2014-08-30

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

Policy for Journals That Offer Open Access


Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

    1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Repackaging the Disney Princess: A Post-feminist Reading of Modern Day Fairy Tales

Sarah Wilde

Bournemouth University

Abstract

This paper examines the repackaging of contemporary Disney princess fairy tales in a post-feminist era and explores the extent to which these princesses are portrayed as post-feminist. Undertaking semiotic analysis and utilising Propp’s (1968) character theory it examines the initial UK marketing material of Disney’s most recent princess animations Tangled (2010), Brave (2012) and Frozen (2013). Drawing on the evolution of fairy tales and historical Disney princesses the analysis focuses on romantic love, the positioning of protagonist relationships and gender ideologies. It revealed that contemporary princesses, especially Brave surpass many traditional notions of gender. Evolving from a tale of a “heroine of life who has no story†(Tatar 1999, p.293), to one of an empowered and autonomous heroine.  Yet some of the initial promotional material overshadows strong post-feminine ideals and thus subjects the princesses to the traditional resolution of romantic love. Keywords: Post-feminism, Disney, semiotics, feminism, princess

References

Andersen, H. C., 2013. The Snow Queen [online]. New York: Dover Publications.

Bacchilega, C., 1997. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press.

Banyard, K., 2010. The Equality Illusion: The truth about women and men today. London: Faber and Faber.

Barley, S.R., 1983. Semiotics and the Study of Occupational and Organizational Cultures. Administrative Science Quarterly [online], 28 (3), 393-413.

Batchelor and Hammond: The Cult of Cute, The Disney Princess and American Girlhood. In: Batchelor, B. ed., 2012. Cult Pop Culture: How The Fringe Became Mainstream. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 101-113.

Barchers, S., 1988. Beyond Disney: Reading and Writing Traditional and Alternative Fairy Tales. The Johns Hopkins University Press [online], 12 (2), 135-150.

Bell, E., 1995. Somatexts at the Disney Shop: Constructing the Pentimentos of Women's Animated Bodies. In: Bell, E. Haas, L. and Sells, L. 1995. From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 107-125.

Berger, J., 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Classics.

Bettelheim, B., 1975. The Use of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage Books.

Booker, K. M., 2010. Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films. California: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Bottigheimer, R. B., 2009. Excelsior Editions: Fairy Tales: A New History. New York: SUNY Press.

Bradford, C., 2012. Where Happily Ever After Happens Everyday. The Medievalism’s of Disney Princess. In: Pugh, T. and Aronstein, S. eds. The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy-Tale and Fantasy Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 171 - 189.

Brave, 2012. [DVD]. Directed by Brenda Chapman. USA: Walt Disney Records.

Brothers Grimm, 2013. Rapunzel and Other Tales [online]. London: Sovereign.

Browne, B.A., 1998. Gender Stereotypes in Advertising on Children's Television in the 1990s: A Cross-National Analysis. Journal of Advertising [online], 27 (1), 83-96.

Buikema, R., and Van Der Tuin., 2009. Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture [online]. London: Routledge.

Bulter, J.,1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.

Byerly, C.M. and Ross. K., 2006. Women & Media: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Byrne, E.J. and McQuillan, M., 2000. Deconstructing Disney. London: Pluto Press.

Brzuzy, S. and Lind, A., 2008. Battleground: Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Volume 1 & 2. London: Greenwood Press.

Carter, C., 2012. Sex Gender and the Media: From sex roles and social constructs and beyond. In: Ross, K. ed. The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.

Chandler, D., 2002. Semiotics; the basics. London: Routledge.

Cheu, H., 2007. Cinematic Howling: Women's Films, Women's Film Theories. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Craven, A., 2002. Beauty and the Belles: Discourses of Feminism and Femininity in Disneyland. European Journal of Women's Studies [online], 9 (2), 123-142.

Danesi, M., 2002. Understanding Media Semiotics. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

De Lauretis, T., 1984. Alice Doesn’t: Feminism Semiotics Cinema. London: Macmillan Press.

Disney, 2012. I am a Princess [video, online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUGnu0gXtn4 [Accessed 20 April 2014].

Disney, 2014. Disney Princess- Rapunzel [online]. London: Disney. Available from: http://www.disney.co.uk/princess/princesses/rapunzel.jsp [Accessed 15 March 2014].

Disney Pixar, 2014. Brave [video, online]. Available from:

http://www.disney.co.uk/brave/videos/index.jsp?content=official-brave-trailer-1#/content/trailer [Accessed 19 April 2014].

Disney, 2014. About Frozen [online]. London: Disney. Available from: http://www.disney.co.uk/movies/frozen/ [Accessed 18 April 2014].

Disney, 2014. Latest Tangled Trailer [video, online]. Available from: http://www.disney.co.uk/tangled/videos/latest-trailer.jsp [Accessed 17 April 2014].

Do Rozario, R. C., 2004. The Prince and the Magic Kingdom: Beyond Nostalgia, the Function of the Disney Princess. Women’s Studies in Communication [online], 27 (1), 34-59.

Duff, D., 2000. Modern Genre Theory. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Dyer, G., 1982. Advertising As Communication. New York: Routledge.

Edgar-Hunt, R., Marland, J., and Rawle, S., 2010. The Language of Film. Switzerland: AVA.

England, E. D., Descartes, L. and Collier-Meek, M., 2011. Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses. Sex Roles [online], 64 (7/8), 555–567.

Forbes, 2012. The Problem With Success: 'Brave' Box Office Disappoints Some Analysts [online]. Available from:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2012/06/25/the-problem-with-success-brave-box-office-disappoints-some-analysts/ [Accessed 10 March 2014].

Forbes., 2014. Walt Disney [online]. New York: Forbes. Available from: http://www.forbes.com/companies/walt-disney/ [Accessed 10 May 2014].

Frozen, 2013. [DVD]. Directed by Chris Buck. USA: Walt Disney Records.

Frus, P. and Williams, C., 2010. Beyond Adaptation: Essays on Radical Transformations of Original Works. London: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Gauntlett, D., 2008. Media, Gender and Identity: An introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Genz, S., 2009. Postfemininities in Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Genz, S., 2010. Singled Out: Postfeminism’s “New Woman†and the Dilemma of Having It All. Journal of Popular Culture, 43 (1), 97-119.

Giles, J., 2002. Narratives of Gender, Class, and Modernity in Women’s Memories of Mid-Twentieth Century Britain. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society [online], 28 (1), 21-41.

Gill, R., 2007. Gender and The Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Giroux, H.A., and Pollock, G., 2010. The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence [online]. Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

Goffman, E., 1976. Gender advertisements. London: Macmillan.

Haase, D., 2004. Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches. USA: Wayne State University Press.

Haase, D., 2008. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: Q-Z, Volume 3. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Henke, J., Birnie, D., Zimmerman, U., and Smith, N. J., 1996. Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine. Women’s Studies in Communication [online], 19 (2), 229-249.

Hollows, J., 2000. Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Holtzman, L., 2000. Media Messages. What Film, Television and Popular Music Teach us about Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation. London: M.E Sharp.

Humm, M., 1997. Feminism and the Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

IMDb, 2010. Tangled [online]. Seattle: Amazon.com Inc. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm798852608/tt0398286?ref_=tt_ov_i [Accessed 3rd March 2014].

IMDb (2012). Synopsis for Brave [online]. IMDB. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1217209/synopsis?ref_=tt_stry_pl [Accessed 3 March 2014].

IMDb, 2012. Brave [online]. Seattle: Amazon.com Inc. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2980492800/tt1217209?ref_=tt_ov_i [Accessed 3rd March 2014].

IMDb, 2013. Frozen [online]. Seattle: Amazon.com Inc. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3873693440/tt2294629?ref_=tt_ov_i [Accessed 3rd March 2014].

Jhally, S., 1995. Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture. In: Dines, G. and Humez, J.M., eds. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader. London: SAGE, 199-205.

Joosen, V., 2011. Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales: An Intertextual Dialogue between fairy-tale scholarship and postmodern retellings. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Kress, G.K. and van Leeuwen, T., 2002. Colour as a Semiotic Mode: Notes for a Grammar of Colour. Visual Communication, 1 (3), 343-368.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen., 2006. Reading Images: The grammar of Visual Design. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.

Lacroix, C., 2004. Images of Animated Others: The Orientalization of Disney's Cartoon Heroines From The Little Mermaid to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Popular Communication. The International Journal of Media and Culture [online], 2 (4), 213-229.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M., 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lieberman, M. K., 1986. ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’: Female Acculturation through the Fairy Tale. In: Zipes, J., ed. Don’t Bet On The Prince. Contemporary feminist fairy tales in America and England. New York: Routledge, 185-201.

Macdonald, M., 1995. Representing Women. Myths of Femininity in the Popular Media. New York: St Martin’s Press.

McRobbie, A., 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: SAGE.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly, 2002. [DVD]. Directed by Miguel Picker. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.

Mulvey, L., 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen [online], 16 (3), 6-18.

Mitchell, C. and Reid-Walsh, J., 2008. Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Pilcher, J., 1999. Women in Contemporary Britain. London: Routledge.

Propp, V., 1968. Morphology of the Folktale. Texas: University of Texas Press.

Rollin, L., 1987. Fear of Faerie: Disney and the Elitist Critics. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly [online], 12 (2), 90-93.

Rose, S., 1992. Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth Century England. London: Routledge.

Rowe, K., 1979. Feminism and Fairy tales. In: Zipes, J., ed. Don’t Bet On The Prince. Contemporary feminist fairy tales in America and England. New York: Routledge, 209-223.

Sellers, S., 2001. Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women’s Fiction. New York: Palgrave.

Shields, R.V. and Heinecken, D., 2002. Measuring Up. How Advertising Affects Self-Image. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Shifman, L. and Lemish, D.B., 2010. Between Feminism And Fun(Ny)Mism. Information, Communication & Society [online], 13 (6), 870–891.

Sperry, B. L., 2007. The Production of meaning through peer interaction: Children and Walt Disney’s Cinderella. Sex Roles [online], 56, 717-727.

Sperry, B. L. and Grauerholz, L., 2003. The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children’s Fairy Tales, Gender & Society [online], 17 (5), 711-726.

Stam, R., Burgoyne, R. and Flitterman-Lewis, S., 2005. New Vocabularies In Film Semiotics: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and Beyond. New York: Routledge.

Stewart L. P. Cooper, P. J. Stewart, A. D. and Friedley S. A., 2003. Communication and Gender. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Stone, K., 1975. Things Walt Disney Never Told Us. The Journal of American Folklore [online], 88 (347), 42-50.

Stone, K., 1980. Fairy tales for adults: Walt Disney's Americanization of the Marchen. In: Stone, K., 2008. ed. Some Day Your Witch Will Come. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 24-36.

Storey, J., 2012. Cultural theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 6th Ed. Essex: Pearson Education.

Stover, C., 2013. Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess. Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University [online], 2 (1), 1-10.

Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L., 2001. Practices of looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press.

Tangled, 2010. [DVD]. Directed by Byron Howard. USA: Walt Disney Records.

Tanner, R. L., Haddock, A. S., Zimmerman, T. S. and Lund, L.K., 2003. Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films. The American Journal of Family Therapy [online], 31 (5), 355–373.

Tatar, M., 1999. The Classic Fairy Tales. London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

The Guardian, 2013a. The fourth wave of feminism: meet the rebel women [online]. London: The Guardian. Available from:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/fourth-wave-feminism-rebel-women [Accessed 2 February 2014].

The Guardian, 2013b. Disney retreats from Princess Merida makeover after widespread criticism [online]. London: The Guardian. Available from:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/may/16/disney-princess-merida-makeover [Accessed 13 February 2014].

The Telegraph, 2014. Disney’s Frozen a phenomenal success [online]. London: The Telegraph. Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/disney/10782089/Disneys-Frozen-a-phenomenal-success.html [Accessed 28 April 2014].

Thornborrow, J. and Coates, J., 2005. The Sociolinguistics of Narrative. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.

Toolan, M., 2001. Narrative: a critical linguistic introduction. 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge.

Towbin, M.A. Haddock, S.A. Schindler, T. Zimmerman, Lund, L.K. and Tanner L.R., 2004. Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 15(4), 19-44.

Ward, A.R., 2002. Mouse Morality: The Rhetoric of Disney Animated Film. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Wasko, J., 2001a. Understanding Disney. Malden: Blackwell.

Wasko, J., 2001b. Challenging Disney Myths. Journal of Communication Inquiry [online], 25 (3), 237-257.

Welter, B., 1966. The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860. American Quarterly, 18(2), 151-174.

Whelan, B., 2012. Power to The Princess: Disney and the 20th Century Princess Narrative. Interdisciplinary Humanities [online], 29 (1), 21-34.

Whelehan, I., 1995. Modern feminist thought: from the second wave to “post-feminismâ€. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Whelehan, I., 2000. Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: The Women’s Press Ltd.

Wood, J.T., 2009. Gender: 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook. California: SAGE.

Youngs, G., 1999. The Ghost of Snow White. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1 (2), 311-314.

Zipes, J., 1983. Fairy Tales and the art of Subversion. New York: Routledge.

Zipes, J., 1986. Don’t Bet On The Prince. Contemporary feminist fairy tales in America and England. New York: Routledge.

Zipes, J., 1994. Fairy Tale As Myth/myth As Fairy Tale. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.

Zipes, J., 1997. Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. New York: Routledge.

Zipes, J., 1999. Breaking the Disney Spell. In: Tatar, M., ed. The Classic Fairy Tales. London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 332-353.

Zipes, J., 2007. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. New York: Routledge.

Zipes, J., 2012. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.