In 1937, Walt Disney Animation Studio released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  This was the very first movie in the Disney princess franchise.  After the success of the movie, Disney went on to release more princess films.  The gender images in each of these films did not change to match the social norms.  They remained constant and stereotypical to the gender portrayal of the first film. The princesses are also shown to be physically beautiful with very slim waists, while the evil characters are shown to be ugly and fat.  Pixar, another big animation company, has become very famous in the last twenty years.  Ever since Pixar's first film that was released in 1995, Toy Story, they have not had a single movie that had a female character as a lead until the past three years.  The Disney film franchise has shown the stereotypical princesses over the years with little to no change.  This also goes for Pixar and how their movies have always had male leads and not female leads.  A question that many people ask is that how the Disney and Pixar film franchise affects the self-confidence and growth of young girls that watch these movies.  Yes, it does affect them because they start doubting themselves from a very young age.  They start to lose confidence in themselves and this affects all their future decisions.

Disney princesses have often depicted behaviors and characteristics that have been very stereotypical.  They are always shown to be singing or playing with their animal friends or cooking and cleaning.  The males and females have always had very distinct and very different characteristics and behaviors.  Mia Towbin wrote in a study "Men are always depicted as physically aggressive, non-expressive, and as heroic saviors, particularly of women.  Women are portrayed as beautiful, dependent on men and engaged in domestic responsibilities" (Towbin 35).  Females are always shown to be weak, helpless, and their beauty is more important then their intellect.  Towbin found that 15 of Disney's films value beauty more then intellect, four of them were Disney princess movies (Towbin 30).  In another study done by Dawn Elizabeth England and her colleagues, they looked at nine of the Disney princess films and found all the common characteristics that all the males and females shared.  The males were shown to be assertive, brave, and physically strong.  The females on the other hand were shown to be submissive, fearful, and domestic (England 559).  

In each of the films, the male is usually always shown to be helping the female showing that they are ones that are more involved in the action of the film while the females are just sitting back.  Even if the princess does try to take charge and get involved, the prince is always there for assistance (England 561).  England went on to explain "Children who recognized more gender stereotyping in cartoons had similarly gendered expectations for them- selves and others"(England 557).  Children that watch these movies get a false impression and often want to be like these characters.  From a young age, girls are shown to be submissive and weak which goes on to affect any of their future decisions.  Also, girls get a wrong impression by thinking they need always wait for someone to save them instead of defending herself.  They will always think that they are not good enough and weak when in reality they are.  

Girls will also think that their only goal in life is the get married and settle down.  All they Disney Princess movies have had this theme.  In an in-depth analysis done by Buzzfeed, they found that almost 57.1% of the times the female lead is married by the end of the movie (We).  The constant image of marriage in the movies forces the girls watching them to think that they need to get married in life to be happy.  England further goes on to talk about "The prevalence of domestic work is an important theme in the Disney Princess movies ... Disney incorporated over time ... domestic work as a symbol of femininity" (England 563).  In the case of Cinderella, she accepts all the domestic work from her stepmother without any sort of complaint. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs., she tends the dwarf's house while they went out for work.  Even in the most recent film, The Princess and the Frog, the princess is shown to be a cook and her mother was a successful seamstress (England 564).  Both of which are traditionally feminine labor. Children who watch these movies often feel like they need to be doing only feminine labor and lose the incentive to go out and try any other work.  Girls watching these movies get influenced and tend to think that in order to be happy, they need to do this work and nothing else.  

John Walker asked his colleagues about which Disney character they seem to think have the most and least feminine and most and least masculine characteristics.  All the Disney princesses came out to having the most feminine characteristics while the female villains had the least feminine characteristics.  All the heroes of the films were more shown to have masculine characteristics and the male villains had the least masculine characteristics (Walker).  The children watching these movies often draw connections between the good and the bad. 

In an article written by Taylor Pittman for the Huffington Post, she writes about a research that was conducted and found that in Disney princess movies, males are the ones that do most of the talking.  She found that "men speak 68 percent of the time in 'The Little Mermaid,' and 71 percent in 'Beauty and the Beast.' They talk more than 75 percent of the time in both 'Pocahontas' and 'Mulan'" (Pittman).  She goes to say that the older princess films had the females talking more then the males.  This shows that the movies released after the initial Disney princess movies had a more concentration on the male characters then the female characters.  Pittman even says "Disney's hit 'Frozen' features men speaking 59 percent of the time (even with two women as its protagonists)" (Pittman).  Even with two female protagonists, the film still had the males talk more then half of the time.  

The Disney princesses almost always have similar appearances.  Their physical beauty is always valued more then anything else.  Towbin wrote "In many films, both human and animal female characters are portrayed as overly sexual; they typically have unnaturally small waists, large breasts, big eyes, and batting eyelashes (Chyng, 2001)" (Towbin 35).  Cinderella is shown to have a small waist with a beautiful face and big breasts.  She also always has a blushing face and dresses in gowns that represent her wealth (Bispo 7).  These images are always shown in all of the Disney Princess movies as the idealistic body image.  This image affects all the girls and teenagers watching this and they often try to emulate the idealistic images.  Girls often find that these images are unreal and unattainable.  Even with that thought in their minds, they still are unsatisfied with their own body.  Ashley Bispo explains that girls usually think like this because they see that others see the idealized image as desirable.  They think that others evaluate them with keeping the image in their mind (Bispo 7-8).  

In a study done by Deborah L. Schooler, she said "With its focus on exposure amounts, cultivation theory (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1994) argued that consistent representations on television construct a specific portrait of reality, and that repeated exposure to this content leads viewers to adopt this alternate reality as valid" (Schooler et al. 38).  Girls often see many different body images on a day-to-day basis but they have a constant exposure to the idealistic body image by the media.  This forces them to think of these images are in fact real.  Bispo even says "The more girls are introduced to stereotypical images in the media, like Disney princess depictions, the more likely they are to associate these images as the self-image they should seek to attain" (Bispo 8).  

Disney also associates body image with the characteristics of the characters of the films.  The good characters are always kind and nice and shown to be beautiful and thin. The bad and evil characters are shown to be fat and ugly.  For example, in The Little Mermaid, Ursula is shown to be a very evil character that wants to destroy Ariel.  Her physical appearance can be seen as scary and she is fat and nothing like a typical Disney princess.  Sharna Olfman says, "When children repeatedly receive the unchallenged message that physical traits reflect character flaws, we are training them to embrace societal stereotypes that are both wrong and deeply hurtful" (Olfman 38).  This kind of connection shows the young girls that the physical appearances are indicators of personality traits.  In a study done by Hayes and her colleagues, she asks girls, who are shown different images of women, that which of those would be a princess.  Most of the girls said that the ones that are more beautiful and thin are the ones to more likely to be a princess (Hayes 415).  This shows that girls do associate kindness with beauty.  Bispo shows that "in Beauty and the Beast, Gaston claims, 'Here in town there's only she, who is beautiful as me, so I'm making plans to woo and marry Belle'" (Bispo 10).  This shows that beauty is a trait that is necessary for marriage and telling the girls that nothing else really matters.  

Another big children's animation film franchise is Pixar.  Pixar has always created classic movies that no matter what age one is; they can still sit down and enjoy it.  Ever since its very first release of Toy Story, Pixar has not released a movie with a female lead until the last three years.  In fact, when one remembers classic Pixar movies, they always think of the movies with the male leads in it (Nolan).  In the classic Cars movie, there are a total of 27 characters out of which only 8 of them were female.  Edwin Michael conducted a research and how that "the male characters in this animated film show the characteristic of independent, shy, responsible, polite, kind, heartless, arrogant, and selfish. While for the female character, they have the characteristic of independent, responsible, helpful, and kind" (Michael 75). Michael also found that the male characters appear more times in the film then female lead (Michael 75).  In another movie, Ratatouille, he found that there were 15 total characters and 14 of them were male.  The only female character was the other lead of the film.  The only female character of the film appears less then all the other male characters (Michael 76).  In an article written by Gwen Sharp, she writes, "Pixar films ... tend to focus on male characters, with female characters in smaller or supporting roles" (Sharp).  Sharp analyzed three of Pixar's movies, Cars, Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.  All three of these movies showed very strong and independent male characters.  In Cars, there are cars that "swoon" over the main lead expect for the one car that doesn't fall for that.  Sharp believes that a movie with a male lead will attract to a neutral audience and a film with a female lead is always mainly for girls (Sharp).  This shows that many people may believe that females can socialize and learn through a male character's look on the world but the males can not seem to identify with female characters and therefore can not learn anything for their characters.

In the recent years, there has been progress in changing the stereotypical characteristics of Disney Princesses in order to keep up with the social norms.  In Frozen, Anna went out to look for her sister Elsa at first with out the help of anybody. She even ends up saving her sister's life all by herself.  Even though both female leads are shown to be strong and independent, Anna still desired to get married to a prince whom she had just met.  While the independence of Anna shows to girls that they too can accomplish their goals themselves, Anna's eagerness to get married shows that her only goal is to get married.  The Disney princess films that were released after the very first few often depicted many princesses from different cultures like Mulan, Jasmine, and Tiana.  Even with the different cultures that were being introduced, all the princesses still had the same idealistic body image.  They all have the slim waist and beautiful face.  Three years ago, Pixar released Brave, which was their very film that had a female as the main character.  Merida is shown to be independent and courageous and doesn't have a love interest in the movie unlike the other princess movies.  Even Brave, is a film that Pixar created, Disney owns Pixar.  Disney coroneted Merida and made her part of the Disney princesses.  So even though Pixar released a female lead character film, the character was a princess.  Over the years Disney and Pixar have made changes but the changes that have been made are very minor in the big picture.  Even today, when people think of Disney princesses, they instantly think of Snow White or Cinderella.  They don't think of Mulan or Tiana because Cinderella has become the symbol of the Disney princesses.  The same goes for Pixar.  When people think of classics of Pixar, they usually think of Toy Story, Cars, and Monsters, Inc.  Some people don't even realize that Brave was a Pixar film.

Disney princess films have always shown the same stereotypical characteristics of their princesses.  They are always shown to be submissive or weak or in trouble while the males are shown to be strong and independent.  This affects the girls watching these movies because they start to think that they themselves are weak or that they need other to always help them.  The girls also think that they need to get married in order to be happy because that is what they see in the Disney princess films.  The physical appearance of the princesses has not changed a bit in any of the Disney princess movies.  All the princesses share the slim waist and beautiful face attributes.  This causes girls to lose self-confidence in them because they start viewing the Disney princess appearances as the norms.  They also make connections between the good and bad characters of the films with their appearances.  The good are portrayed beautifully and the bad are portrayed ugly and fat.  Pixar has always had a film with a male lead and it did not release a female lead movie until recently.  Even with the other films that they released, a strong female character is always missing or always neglected.  Girls are watching these movies from a very young age.  Girls are affected by how females are portrayed in these movies and tend to lose their self-confidence and start doubting themselves.  

