Disney Princess Pictures: Chores, Mirrors, and Chameleons

Disney Princess Pictures: Chores, Mirrors, and Chameleons

At the start of Walt Disney Pictures’ Tangled, a title card cataloging the feature as Walt Disney Animation Studio’s 50th Animated Motion Picture appeared. The studio’s first animated motion picture, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, premiered to audiences in 1937. Over this 73 year gap and 50-movie timeline, how has the Disney animated motion picture changed, or even so, not changed at all?

Both features follow the tale of their respective heroine, Snow White in Snow White, and Rapunzel in Tangled. Snow White as Disney’s first princess is simple. Her high pitched voice allows for a feeling on innocence and naivety. Characterized in her opening song, “I’m Wishing,” Snow White fetches water out of a well while singing to her reflection.

73 years later, the princess has matured. Rapunzel, while still encompassing the traditional traits of a Disney princess, has some edge. She’s an adventure prone 17 year old who is curious about the world outside of her tower. Compared to Snow White’s “I’m Wishing”, Rapunzel’s opening song, “When will my Life Begin,” clearly demonstrates the maturity and complexity that the Disney leading lady now has in a new century. From Snow White to Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, the early Disney princesses throughout the 1930s to 1950s have all focused heavily on cleaning and completing chores. For example, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow Whites main duty and reason for being able to stay in the seven dwarfs cottage is that she will cook and clean constantly for the little men. In Tangled however, the first lines of the film put this stereotypical Princess cleaning pattern in the trash. Rapunzel begins her song, “When will m...

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... purposes, both films achieve different tones for death and marketability. Available technologies during the time of the creation also influence how the picture looks and is represented, but not necessarily how the story is told. This right balance and blend of accepted traditions and drifts from the princess archetype, utilization of technology, and focuses on audience creates a perfect potion, making the Disney Animated Studios a jugunate in children’s animation for years to come.

Works Cited

Disney’s Tangled. Disney Enterprises, Inc., 2010. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Walt Disney Pictures, 1937. Film

Tangled. Walt Disney Pictures, 2010. Film.

Wojcik-Andrews, Ian. Children’s Films: History, Ideology, Pedagogy, Theory. New York:

Garland Publishing, Inc, 2000. Print.