Starting with Princess Aurora- Well she has a curse on her, and it’s such a beautiful thing for her lover to fight his way and risk his life to save her and break the curse when the lovely fairies inform him about it. So, that’s a pretty odd thing to say about it, especially when he just kisses her doesn’t go any further than that…  
Next Princess Snow White-being almost posined by someone is terrible enough. And it’s not even because of her being beautiful, she portrays inner beauty and outer beauty hints to why she’s so loved by everyone. The women was not mad because of her beauty but because of what she had, and earned for being such a great person.
Princess Ariel-She didn’t make a choice to ‘abandan’ her family forever, she wanted to win her true loves heart and not let anything stand in the way. She took a risk, and worked until she got it. She didn’t change her body she just let her fins go temporary in order to complete goals. The lesson I can see never give up on your goals and always work hard.
Princess Cinderella- She didn’t escape her living conditions from her beauty, she escaped them from showing the Prince who she really is, and he fell in love with her for her. She was such a great person, and that’s what made her stand out from everyone else.
Princess Bell- This one kinda confuses me when you put a comment like that by her picture. It’s funny because she was the girl who turned down a handsome bachelor in the first place, she didn’t like him because he had a horrible “inside” or personality. So looks didn’t matter to a guy anyway. She fell in love with the beast for him, and magically he transformed into a human, a very handsome one. 
Lastly 
Princess Jasmine- She didn’t want to marry any one. She wanted to marry someone that would make her happy and in the end her father changes the rules just to let Aladdin become her husband. So when you say political worth by marriage. Aladdin was anything from royalty. Your honestly just a hater, and need to understand the full concepts of Disney princesses. Don’t insult something you have no businessmen insulting Disney’s a very family orientated brand. I think you could use a few lessons from those movies!

That’s got to be in some way related to the way that I over-prepare for almost every eventuality.

In the end, her father realizes that he was wrong to limit her, she gets her voice back, and things work out pretty okay for her. The moral is more, “Seek your own path in life even if it is hard and eventually you will find love and your stubborn parents will come around.” The “Radically changing your body” bit is ridiculous in this context since a mermaid would have to become a human to function well on land. In that fantasy world changing from a mermaid to a human is the equivalent of moving to another country, not getting radical plastic surgery.

For those who don’t know, in the original story of the little mermaid the little mermaid dies and the moral is basically “Obey your father or you’ll die.” Disney actually put a very positive spin on this story, as they did with Beauty and the Beast by making Belle intelligent and self-directed.

Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all stay very close to the original fairy tales which have been around for a long time. It’s not really fair to hand Disney the blame for the way those stories were written, or for the fact that people continue to want to watch and buy these “Classics.”

I’m not saying Disney is a beacon of feminism, but as time goes on and they adapt more stories they work on updating them to make female characters that are better role models than princesses waiting to be saved by princes. They are not leaders in keeping women down, they are just reflections of the culture at the time the movies are made.

@Nanner: I think the criticism of Belle’s story is just that, a criticism of the story — not Belle herself. The story maintains a double standard: she has to be perfect, but he can get by just being…beastly. Why does she have to be adorable all the time, when Beast does not?

Pocahontas is closer to royalty than Belle is, but she never gets invited to tea with the other girls because she doesn’t have any pretty pretty dresses.

I took more issue with Aurora not SPEAKING for the last bit of the movie, even after she’d woken up. Previous to the “hot princely action”, she had actually met Philip and at least started to form a relationship with him. Jasmine rebelled against the notion that she was not good for anything but political marriage and, ultimately, the film agreed with her. Belle is intelligent and rational and adventurous and bookish and, zounds!, also pretty. As for Ariel, I agree with everything except chastising her for “abandoning her family”. As the film established, she was itching to leave the nest long before she’d even seen “her man”. God forbid she want to be independent.

(Mia Farrow & Jeff Bridges classic)

She explores the unknown and once she learns of the enslavement of her race, fights down the fearsome raging bull to free them all. Then, unsatisfied with her perfect human form, leaves her airhead prince to go back to life as a unicorn, wild and wise.

So any ideas on positive, alternative role models for girls? I read these as a child: healthy, wholesome and fun! Grandma’s Attic Series

i can see how people can interpret disney princess movies as sexist and degrading towards girls but at the same time there are other things that people can learn from them.

If anythings it serves as an escape to an alternate life where everything is happily ever after and dreams do come true.

I grew up on these movies and i still see them multiple times as means of destressing after a long day at university. Yet i still find myself to be a very active person in women’s rights. I am independent of men, i am working on a career towards a doctor so that i can take care of myself. I will be damned if i sit around waiting for prince charming or let a man abuse me.

And still I am perfectly fine with seeing such movies and watching them not to find a deeper meaning but to enjoy and forget about the cold harsh world where things like glass ceiling and motherhood penalties still exist.

If i ever do have children, which will not be anytime soon, I see nothing wrong with letting them see disney movies or going to disneyland. There kids and in the end if adults are going to overreact about every little thing out there then might as well throw tv’s, computers, and radios out because the majority of the media available now a days shows people that are less than role-model material.

If your going to criticize disney movies dont be sexist and attack the females, the guys in these movies are also less than role-model material.

Plus always keep in mind the era these movies where produced in, or the original stories for that matter, and then see the values and the role of women that was common in those times. Obviously things where way different for women back then.

And at the end of the day i feel more than anything its the parents responsibility to act as role models to their kids.

Nancy Drew rocks. Belle too :D

We don’t watch that. We watch Miyazaki and Avatar – the animated series from Nickelodeon. Kitara is freakin’ awesome (and makes a super-cute Haween costume, too), and there are several other strong, dimensional female characters.

There’s an archetype for that: the Good Woman Saving the Bad Man. “He may snarl and yell and throw things, but I know deep down he really loves me and I can save him.”

my daughter is finally out of her princess phase… i may still be suffering from overexposure!! I did want to defend Belle though because i have a gifted daughter that doesn’t fit the mold either and i come from the days when Barbie said “I hate math” :(

I dunno, I think King Triton actually had a pretty reasonable position there…

1) Ariel was 16.
2) The Prince was personally responsible for killing and eating many of the King’s subjects, even as he wooed the girl.
3) The two didn’t really have anything in common anyway. Like compatible genitalia.

Besides, I find it very odd that his dismissed so easily. Yes, he was a dick. But he’s also a victim of entrapment and was punished (his staff, too) in a cruel and unsual way. Somehow I don’t think that dehumanizing people brings the best out of them.

Think about it. Right after Beast fights off the wolves to save Belle, he faints from his injuries.

Yet we see Belle leading the horse back with Beast, still unconscious, *on* the horse.

The only reasonable explanation is that Belle power-lifted Beast onto the horse.

Isn’t that a co-dependent abusive relationship in a nutshell.