Disney Princess Archetypes

This article discusses the third generation of Disney princesses (The Princess and the Frog’s Tiana, Tangled’s Rapunzel, and Brave’s Merida) and how their roles and characteristics change the archetype of the stereotypical female. Stephens begins by providing a summary of The Princess and the Frog. Discussing Tiana’s mindset of working hard, she introduces the main goal of Tiana: to own a restaurant. The entire movie is based around Tiana’s motive of “obtain[ing] her restaurant” and not about her finding true love, even though she eventually does (Stephens 96). Stephens leads into mentioning how “her goal determines every path she chooses” in the movie, unlike previous Disney princesses whose dreams were there but not acknowledged (97). She

discusses how Tiana is the first Disney princess who is African-American and that previous princesses were either white or had whiter skin than their ethnicity should have (98). Stephens continues on to analyze Tangled’s Rapunzel. She provides an example of a musical sequence to portray how Rapunzel has her own power to decide her life, rather than the previous wave of princesses who obeyed every command given to them. Mentioning Cinderella’s story of the female lead becoming passive when locked away in the tower, Stephens declares that Rapunzel is Cinderella’s antithesis. She goes on to say that unlike former Disney princesses, the third generation of princesses have goals that are the opposite of falling in love (Stephens 101). Next, she summarizes Brave. Including the scene of Merida shooting arrows, Stephens claims that Merida is an “able-minded, independent female lead” who stands apart from the normal archetype that the Disney princesses possess (101). Stephens continues to provide examples of how Merida redefines the image of a princess. After summarizing the three movies, she discusses the ways that the princesses “challenge the common motion” of women and the need for men to provide for them (Stephens 104). Noting that audiences have to relate to popular films, Stephens concludes with the fact that these movies represent an evolution of the stereotypical princess as well as society’s version of a female.