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.