Why Disney Promotes Unrealistic Expectations for Girls

I'm angry.

I've been watching Disney movies more than usual lately. I'm not really sure why, but probably because they're all over Netflix right now and I'm feeling nostalgic. It's smart marketing to appeal to children and then later appeal to adults, but that's not the point. (Deep breath.)

The point is, I want to have daughters who are intelligent. I want daughters who are clever and witty and smart enough to understand the relationships between actions and reactions. And, quite frankly, Disney does not promote understanding the correlation. At least, for girls. I'm glad that I (somehow) turned out okay despite this. But I still can't help but feel like I've been taken for a ride.

While I'm sure I'm not the first person to point this out, I want to add that I love Disney movies. I grew up with them as a child, and I still love many of their movies to this day. But I can't help but wonder how differently more susceptible children may have fared had they not watched these movies on a regular basis. Let's quit being wordy and get to the point: kids are naive, which makes them easily manipulated. They believe what they see because they don't know better. To illustrate my issue perfectly, let's discuss one of my favorite Disney movies of all time: "The Little Mermaid."

In this movie, the leading lady Ariel falls in love with a human prince. Because she is a mermaid, she understands that her relationship with him would be tricky, which is quickly further compounded by her father's reactionary, irrational parenting. Ariel decides to act out and turns to the "sea witch" Ursula, who promises Ariel that she can stay human permanently if she can get the prince to fall in love with her in three days. The only thing Ariel has to do is figure out how to do that without her voice. While Ariel nearly completes her task (after being sabotaged by Ursula herself), she ultimately fails. And this is my whole problem with the setup of these movies. Because Ariel doesn't end up having to deal with the consequence of her actions--at least, not really. Because when push comes to shove, Ariel's father, King Triton, insists on bailing her out. Ariel was supposed to become one of Ursula's "poor, unfortunate souls" for her garden. When Triton sees Ariel turning into a seaweed creature, first he tries to destroy the contract that Ariel signed. Once he realizes that won't work, he signs over the contract to take her place. This king is willing to put his entire kingdom at stake--into the hands of the outcast sea witch--in order to free his rebellious sixteen year old daughter. Ariel and her prince end up killing Ursula in order to reset the ocean, but that just leaves Ariel at square one again, being away from her prince. But because King Triton has had a change of heart, he then allows his impulsive teenage daughter to marry this man she's spent three days with, leaving her entire underwater life behind. Moral of the story? If you find someone you're attracted to and you run away from home, if you kill the person who your contract is with, you can get out of it and still end up with the man of your dreams....

Maybe I'm reading into this too much. Or maybe not all Disney leading ladies share these same attributes. But some of them do. In Ariel's case, the sea kingdom ended up a better place, but only because she committed murder. And how did she even know that would work, anyway? I like the way women are portrayed in the movie "Mulan" better. At least her rebellion was so that she could save her father from having to serve in the military in his old, decrepit age. And she saves China too. NBD. Although, to be fair, if she were to be punished for her actions, she would have been executed. Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" also takes the place of her father so that he is not subjected to a cold prison by an enchanted beast. Yes, she happens to find love there (don't get me started on the dynamics of that relationship), but her intentions are to save her father. If she had really had to suffer the consequences of that decision, she probably would have just lived out her days with a horrible beast, not one who wanted to wine and dine her. UNREALISTIC!

Anyway, it's late, and I've been rambling, I guess. My moral of the story is: don't act without realizing there will be reactions. There always are. Life isn't like a Disney movie where someone will always bail you out. Sometimes they will. But usually, they won't. And that's why I'm frustrated with the Disney movies of my childhood. They set up unrealistic expectations for the masses. I've always been fairly logical, so I haven't been disappointed with life yet, but I pity those girls whose hopes were riding on that prince.