Is there any merit to Disney animation bias, or just whining over imagined bias?

The article is very very interesting. It made me think about real life women who are over botoxed.

I have no problem with Disney princesses being pretty. The girl in Brave was not the same pretty type as most of the female Disney animation characters. She seemed to have more expression too.

As a disclaimer, I don’t actually feel that this issue is a super big deal (I don’t have a big gripe with Disney), but what I’m about to say will kind of make it sound like I do:

You want to hope that Disney cares about a little more than just its bottom line. I know that’s optimistic, but their movies are hugely influential on kids, especially young girls, and you like to think that they’re taking that into account along with what will sell best.

But young girls are bombarded from birth with images of women who are perfect. Disney princesses have to look good even when they’re crying, but we all know how ugly real crying can be. It leads to a distorted self-image.

I think a lot of people would feel better about their kids worshiping Disney movies if there wasn’t this incongruence between how they animate men and women. Men’s faces look unique and express emotion in a more realistic way; the women in Disney movies all look the same and are apparently only allowed to express “pretty” emotions. This is giving really young girls a weird message: men can be individuals, and they can be themselves, but you have to be a coy, pretty princess.

^ This is giving really young girls a weird message: men can be individuals, and they can be themselves, but you have to be a coy, pretty princess.
If Disney had more ”real looking” heroines that had personality but were plain to homely, would girls buy the costumes of the homely heroines as much as they would Ariel, Rapunzel, Vidia, etc? If they would not, should Disney make the heroine homely anyhow?

I never felt like girls can only be coy according to Disney. Cinderella spited her stepmother and went to the ball anyway. Snow White wasn’t breathing when the Prince found her, she was sealed up in a coffin.

@Hypocrisy_Central:

“You want to hope that Disney cares about a little more than just its bottom line. I know that’s optimistic…”

I realize Disney is a corporation but (again, optimistic) it’d be really nice for them to have a social conscience given their influence on young girls.

Interesting timing, just last night I stumbled on an article in which a pro graphics person had taken photos of real women and then used Photoshop to manipulate their bodies into the proportions of Disney princesses. The women were then interviewed and some of them said “originally, the altered photo looked ridiculous to me, but the longer I looked, the more it seem normal and my original photo seemed fat and ugly.” And these were grown women who are fully aware that Disney standards are unrealistic. Not impressionable children.

@Mariah That bothers me much more than the expressions and behavior of a cartoon. The photoshopping is out of control. I don’t have a problem with a pimple being photoshopped out, not even on school photos, which has become controversial, but distorting people so their waist is two inches smaller, nose is thinner, bust is bigger, and zero wrinkles can be found really bothers me.