Disney Princesses: Empowering, or Just Really Pretty? — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Disney Princesses: Empowering, or Just Really Pretty?

Name: Michelle Litwin
Major: Religion
Hometown: Downers Grove, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Course project

Abstract

Disney Princesses: Empowering, or Just Really Pretty?

This project explores the question: “Is the Disney Princess franchise promoting empowering princesses, or pretty princesses?” The Disney Princess Franchise was created in 2000 and has since become an important phenomenon with a huge impact not only on its target audience of young girls but with people of all ages. The franchise is based on the characters and movies, selling merchandise to go along with it. While Disney is providing an ideal message of empowerment and strength through these princesses, there seems to be a disconnection with the reality of what is being sold and consumed, products focus on the outward appearances of a princess. My study is important because of its greater significance to promoting healthy role models for girls and women of all ages by looking at what is really going on within the franchise, rather than what is being portrayed to the public. These questions are answered through a content analysis of the advertising and marketing strategies in which Disney portrays this brand, compared alongside to the statistics of popularity of products that are being sold by Disney and purchased by the consumer. Through these methods, I expect to see the popularity of products based on the ideal of being ‘pretty’ and ‘feminine’ rather than the empowerment that Disney is trying to portray.

Poster file