In the first stages of my informal research I had no trouble finding information on Disney movies.  There are so many blog posts and opinions on every aspect regarding Disney movies.  The problem came along when I started my formal research.  The databases did not have exactly what I was looking for.  Sure they had a few articles on Disney movies but not enough and not what I was looking for.

I was getting very frustrated and I began to give up on my topic.  I decided to take a look onto Google Scholars and everything changed.  There were numerous amounts of sources!

I was surprised, happy, and relieved to find all of these new scholarly articles!  Who knew I could find these scholarly articles on Google Scholar when I couldn’t on the databases?!  I was happy I could keep my topic but now I had to get down to some serious researching.  I found scholarly articles on Google Scholar that were useful and even brought new ideas to my topic.  I also got ideas of different key words and topics that I was able to type into the databases.  So with the help of Google Scholar I was able to find scholarly articles on the databases as well.

After reading many different sources I have found a lot of great information for my topic.  I have moved away from just focusing on Disney Princesses and am looking more into Disney movies as a whole.  I am writing my paper on the progression of Disney movies, looking specifically to gender and race. From this moment of difficulty I have learned to not limit where I research.  Looking to Google Scholar was a great option for me, and I always plan on using it in the future.  From sources on Google Scholar I also discovered new databases that are available to us at UD.  So in the future I plan to look at many different databases before thinking about giving up.  If it wasn’t for Google Scholar I don’t know where I would be!  Probably still stuck reading blogs!  So thank you Google Scholar!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01147.x/full

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/why-is-disney-still-makin_b_4565482.html

This blog post titled “Why Is Disney Still Making Female Characters With Such Cartoon-ish Bodies?” examines the message that Disney princess’s bodies are sending to young girls.  This author believes that Disney princesses make young girls believe the only way to be beautiful is to be skinny and look a certain way.  “The interesting thing about Disney princesses is that no matter how diverse they supposedly are, they almost all have the same very thin body type with doe eyes and tiny hands and feet,” Kothari.  The blog uses modern movies such as Frozen and Tangled to compare this idea.  A Disney representative made a controversial claim that with animation it is hard to make characters look different while still keeping them pretty.  The author argues what pretty is and why Disney’s male characters can look different but the females can’t.  This article questions why Disney is making progressions within their movies but still can not change the look of a typical princess.

I agree with the author that Disney still has progressing to do.  Although they have made steps towards progression in their recent movies the princesses all still look the same, with their skinny bodies and big eyes.  Something I disagree with the author is how these Disney princesses effect young children.  Many young girls love Disney princesses and want to be them but I do not think that’s because of their looks it is because of their personalities.  Although there is a lot of pressure on girls to look a certain way I do not think that they think they have to look like a Disney princess to be beautiful.  Although this topic brings up something that I can look into while researching, do Disney princesses have a negative effect on children’s view of body image?  This also makes me question why Disney hasn’t made a change in the way they physically portray women since they are changing how the emotionally display them.  This article expands what my research will be in with my paper because I was not thinking about body image when I was thinking about the progression of Disney movies.  Maybe the new recent movies have shown progression in certain aspects but is lacking in others?  That is a question I plan to further examine with my research.

Disney’s portrayal of its female characters in movies has developed significantly overtime.  In old Disney movies female characters have been weak and dependent on men.  In newer Disney movies the females are determined and independent.  In my blogs and research paper I plan to explore and dig deeper into this topic.  I am interested in this topic because I am a huge Disney fan.  Even though I have always been a fan, I am gaining even more respect for Disney as they are producing movies with strong princesses that young girls can look up to.  For background information on the topic, I have seen just about every Disney movie possible.  I have also read articles and watched a documentary on stereotypes in Disney movies.

I first got the idea to write this paper after seeing the movie Frozen and reading this blog http://www.policymic.com/articles/79455/7-moments-that-made-frozen-the-most-progressive-disney-movie-ever .  This blog explains how Frozen is Disney’s most progressive movie due to many different elements.  Some of the reasoning for this conclusion includes Else’s self-empowerment, Anna’s clumsiness and honesty, and everyone’s disapproving response to Anna’s engagement to a man she just met.  A progressive idea that the blog does not cover is the fact that these sisters did not need a man to save them, they just needed each other.  This sends a strong message to young girls and is progressive as opposed to old Disney movies, such as in Sleeping Beauty where Aurora can only be awaken from a true loves kiss.

Here is a video I want to analyze about Disney princesses from Youtube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtyOC6ayKoU. This video shows many Disney princesses singing about their princes and being in love.  They sing “When you’re in love, nothing else matters. Nothing but him.”  On the other hand Elsa sings “I can be the hero and do it my own way… I’m who I am. I don’t need a man.”  The purpose of this video is to show how old Disney princesses were portrayed compared to the new Disney princesses.  Old disney princesses were dependent on their man and were willing to give anything up for them, which is beset shown in The Little Mermaid.  In this movie Ariel completely changes who she is and gives up ever seeing her family again and her voice for Eric.  As opposed to a new Disney movie, such as Princess and the Frog where Tiana is self-determined to open up her own restaurant based on a dream her and her father held their entire lives.

I plan to find out more about Disney princesses stereotypes and how these princesses have progressed overtime.  I want to research more with blogs, videos, and scholarly articles to find more ideas and analyze this topic deeper.  I also want to see if Disney princess stereotypes matched the times the movies were made and other defining characteristics of these movies. 

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