And why it might be time to rethink the criteria.
What is a Disney Princess?
The criteria used to be simple. Once upon a time, being a Disney Princess simply meant you were the heroine of one of Disney's fairytale adaptations. And with that came some criteria, just because all of these heroines had so many things in common. You were a beautiful young woman in a situation you would rather get out of. You were a dreamer and a romantic, full of ideas for how you wanted your life to look that you had no idea how they might happen, but firmly believed that they could. You were kind, radiating love for yourself and love for others. You loved animals, your kindness and innocence gave you a natural affinity to them, and you were most likely always being followed around by anywhere from one animal friend to a whole entourage. You had a lovely singing voice, which you might use to express your views on the world or your desire to live a different sort of life. You had a beautiful princessy outfit, usually a ball gown, as well as other, more casual outfits for everyday, often including a peasant look. No doubt there was a pure evil villain after you, you fell in love with a handsome man who was devoted to you and willing to protect you from any danger, and eventually you got the life you always dreamed of, complete with a happy marriage. Oh, and yes, you were either a princess the entire time, or you became one when you married. Although for the Disney Princesses, the official title of “princess” never really seemed to matter. Most of the time they weren't living much like a typical princess anyway.
All of these Princesses fit nicely into the same category, and it wasn't hard to figure out who was a Disney Princess and who wasn't. Characters like Alice or Wendy Darling, for instance, just seem to fit into another category: child heroines based on beloved children's books, perhaps. Minnie Mouse or Daisy Duck would fit into the Mickey and Friends category. Tinker Bell used to be included in Disney Princess doll lines, but you can tell she's not really your typical Princess, and eventually she came to have her own franchise – the Disney Fairies – as well as just being used in the openings of Disney films as a mascot of the company. Lady, Perdita, and Duchess are from Disney cute animal films, and probably Faline would fit with them, too.
The Disney Princesses, meanwhile, were a collection of Disney's fairytale heroines. It made sense to put them all in one category because if you were attracted to fairytale princess stories in particular, it was very likely you would enjoy and be inspired by every one of these Princesses. They fit easily together into the same doll lines or in the same colouring books. It's also very easy to imagine these six Princesses gathering together in a magical pink castle somewhere, to meet and discuss ways to spread love, courage, and kindness to the world in the most Princessy way possible. You can see these six ladies uniting under the same world views and mission statement.
This is why I consider the Original Six to be the pillars of Disney Princesses, the foundation on which all other Princesses are built and the benchmark against which they should be measured. Because after Jasmine, the standards started to get a little muddy.
After Jasmine, we got five more heroines before the end of the Disney Renaissance: Pocahontas, Esmeralda, Megara, Mulan, and Jane, all appearing in five consecutive years. That would have been such an impressive feat for the Disney Princesses, wouldn't it, five new Princesses in five consecutive years? But, according to whoever decides on the official lineup, we're only allowed to count two of them in the official Princess line. Now, in the case of Jane, I don't actually know much about her and can't say whether she fits in with the Princess type of heroine or not, so I'm not going to be talking about her as much. But as for the other four – I don't quite get Disney's logic in making Pocahontas and Mulan Princesses but not Esmeralda or Megara. Pocahontas was based on a real person, Mulan was either a real person or a legend (I'm not sure which it was...), Esmeralda's story was a classic French novel, and Megara comes from a Greek myth. Seems to me Meg wins as far as source material goes – Greek myth is the closest any of those stories comes to being a fairy tale!
And in Greek mythology, every mortal character was always royalty. I'm pretty sure the original Megara was a princess, there's nothing in the Disney movie contradicting that, and even if she wasn't royal, she still ends up with the son of the king of the gods. You might say, from that logic, that Meg and Pocahontas should become Disney Princesses while Mulan and Esmeralda don't. But then Disney changed their rules of entry specially so Mulan could become a Disney Princess, saying that you don't have to be royalty if you perform an act of heroism. But why does that qualify Mulan and not Esmeralda? Mulan saved the Emperor of China from the invading Huns; Esmeralda saved Quasimodo and stood up to the corrupt justice system of Paris in front of the whole city. The one possible explanation I have heard for why Esmeralda was fired from the Disney Princess lineup (she used to be included in the doll lines and such too) is because she was too sexy and her movie was too “adult”. Okay, first of all... *deep, angry breath* – since when are the Disney Princesses only for children?!?! Besides, Jasmine's just as spicy as Esmeralda and no one's fired her (they just seem to avoid mentioning her sexy side as much as possible, even at the expense of telling us every strong, brave thing she does in her movie, and to the point where I have heard some people complain she doesn't have enough personality).
All four heroines have “I Want” songs. God Help the Outcasts and I Won't Say I'm In Love would fit beautifully onto a playlist with Just Around the Riverbend and Reflections. Most have animal companions, although Meg doesn't have one of her own and will have to share Hercules'. Meg and Esmeralda's costumes also look a lot more like your typical Princess outfits – though there has to be some leeway here because of course, the costumes also have to reflect the character's cultures. Still, that doesn't change the fact that Mulan spends like three-quarters of the movie in men's battle armour.
Meg and Esmeralda also contribute more in the villain department. Up till this point, every Princess was paired with a fabulously evil villain, but neither Governor Ratcliff nor Shan Yu is talked about that much in the Disney Villain franchise. I can only speak for Shan Yu, and I think that while he is sinister and merciless, he's not a specific enemy for Mulan herself. If he were still around once the movie was over, I think his goal would still be invading China and he wouldn't care about revenge on that one female warrior who stopped him. To the best of my knowledge Governor Ratcliff had it in for Pocahontas's whole tribe and that was mainly out of greed – unless there's something in the movie I don't know about, he didn't have any particular vendetta against her. Hades and Frollo, on the other hand, were very much interested in targeting Megara and Hercules, or Esmeralda and Quasimodo, respectively. Plus, Hades is perfectly iconic, scene-stealing and fabulous, and Frollo is one of the scariest villains Disney has ever created!
And then there's the romances, and, well, in that department, Esmeralda and Meg beat Mulan and Pocahontas, hands down. Oh, I'm totally rooting for Mulan and Shang, don't get me wrong. It's just that their romance is so small a part of the movie, with Mulan and Shang only getting as far as the “getting to know you better” stage by the end of it. It's not what you typically see for a Disney Princess, who usually have romance as a much more major plot point. And Pocahontas – grumble. If there is one thing the Disney Princesses did not need to decide it was okay to do, it was bring a couple together only to make them fall apart in the end. If you can't trust a Disney Princess movie to guarantee you a happy ending for the romance anymore...!
Going through the Disney Princess lineup, it always feels weird and unfinished and bumpy at this point, because it doesn't seem right to have to only count Mulan and Pocahontas. Why couldn't it have been all four of them, or the other two, or none of them? It all feels a little arbitrary, especially as you can read the standards for what makes an official Disney Princess: you must be a human adult female from a Disney animated movie, you must be a princess either by birth or by marriage or perform an act of heroism, and your movie must be a box-office hit but not such a big hit that Disney would lose money by not making you into your own franchise – but never find a clear reason why Meg or Esmeralda were taken out of the lineup. Or, for that matter, why Pocahontas and Mulan were left in, when their images seem far less popular on the merch, are far harder to weave into the pink sparkly aesthetic the Princesses are known for – and with all the controversy Pocahontas stirs up causing her to be so often avoided.
Actually, after the Original Six, almost none of the heroines Disney has put out give us a straightforward answer. Jane is an adult female Disney heroine, but does she or does she not feel like a Princess? Kida is a princess by birth from what I have heard, but her movie was not very popular and I don't know how she would look on the Princess merch. Nala comes from a movie with the same feel to it as all the Disney Renaissance films that gave us princesses, and she's definitely a King's daughter (don't look at me like that; that's just how lion prides work) – but she's an animal, and animals never have been counted. Giselle feels just like a typical Disney princess and was even meant to be one within context of her actual movie – but she says herself that she isn't a princess and won't be until she marries her prince, which then never happens because she falls in love with a divorce lawyer. Nancy does marry the prince in question, but she's a secondary character; no one could refer to her as a “Disney heroine”. Charlotte La Bouff would love to become a Disney Princess and is even counted as a real princess in her movie, but she's a supporting character too. Merida is a real princess, no question about it, but she was made by Pixar, not by Disney itself, and probably wouldn't even enjoy being in a club with the other Princesses and their pink, feminine aesthetic. Elena has the right look and personality to fit in perfectly with the other Princesses – but isn't counted because she comes from a TV show, not a movie. Anna and Elsa fit every criteria for being a Disney Princess but were given their own franchise because of how popular they were at the box office. Moana feels more like an adventure heroine than a Disney Princess, although she does have her dreams, “I Want” song, and animal sidekicks, and is the daughter of a chief. Raya is the daughter of a chief and has a cute animal friend, but the entire vibe of her character and movie feels more “dystopian but make it Disney” than anything to do with a Princess film.
Actually, in all the time that passed between the release of Aladdin and now, we've had only two more additions to the Disney Princess franchise who clearly fit all of the original criteria: Tiana and Rapunzel. Their stories are adapted from fairy tales, they wear pretty princess dresses, they have dreams and animal friends and fall in love while being targeted by an evil villain. Sometimes I find myself wondering if the Disney Princess franchise should really just be Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Tiana, and Rapunzel.
At the moment, much as I have heard the supposed official rules for becoming a Princess, there are far too many exceptions for me to believe Disney is actually sticking to them. Esmeralda performed just as big an act of heroism as Mulan; if Mulan counts, why doesn't she? If popularity matters, how can they even tell which movies are still the most popular? Isn't that partly determined by how well they keep marketing a movie and keep it in our consciousness? How do they know Frozen is more popular now than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was when it first came out? Would Frozen's popularity have lasted as long as it did if Disney hadn't been marketing it all this time as a separate franchise? What will happen to Elsa and Anna years from now, when some other movie becomes Disney's next full-on franchise hit? I never got the sense Raya and the Last Dragon was all that popular – how do they justify deciding Raya counts? Did they just really want a South Asian princess, or (even more likely) another warrior princess, and so declared that she qualified and we had to accept her whether we wanted to or not? If they want more diversity in the lineup, why don't they put Esmeralda back? How can they justify kicking Esmeralda out anyway, if the rules say nothing about “princesses must not be sexy” – which it doesn't, or they'd have to kick out Jasmine, which they can't do because Jasmine is very obviously a princess? Did the rules really never say you had to be a fairy-tale heroine?
I think what we have to do is figure out, once and for all, what the Disney Princess franchise really is, and who it's made for, and what qualifications someone in this club would actually need. Is it just an umbrella category for every animated adult female heroine Disney has ever created, so that we can pick whichever ones inspire us most to carry on the Disney values of courage and kindness and believing in your dreams? Or is it more specifically for those of us who like Princess stories, who are attracted to the romance and the girly aesthetic and the feminine strength the heroines display? Each answer would mean doing something very different with the official lineup.
(Oh, and as a side note, I just want to say: if Disney is, at all, getting away from their original values, and if that includes trying to show us strong, tough warrior women who Don't Need No Man instead of the type of story Walt Disney always championed, then no one new should be allowed into the lineup at all until Disney is back on track again.)
At the moment, I'm pretty sure the criteria for the lineup is actually “whatever will bring Disney the most profit and the least criticism”. Parents complain about Esmeralda being too sexy for their children and she's kicked out. Pocahontas later gets a lot of complaints for how controversial her movie is, but if they kick her out that will be one less culture and ethnicity represented in the franchise, so instead they just kind of push her to the side and act like she doesn't exist. (“Okay, Pocahontas, here's a full year's worth of pay, just don't bother coming into the office at all anytime soon...”) Elsa and Anna are – at this particular moment in time – wildly popular and more profitable to put in their own franchise, so out they go. Raya is more of the action heroine the Vocal Minority claims women want nowadays, so in she goes – but then of course her design won't exactly fit in with the Princess merch or appeal to Princess-loving little girls, so her image is never used anyway.
I think what we have to remember is the Disney Princess franchise exists for us fans, to celebrate and be inspired by, not for the company's ratings. The Disney Princess franchise needs to be filled with whatever heroines we fans most want to see. That could mean losing the list of criteria and declaring that every adult female animated Disney heroine is a Princess no matter what, or it could mean reserving this category for kind feminine fairytale heroines and creating other categories to celebrate the characters who don't fit. It would mean not caring about what the Vocal Minority is saying about the old Princess ways being problematic. They won't be buying this merch anyway.
And, honestly, filling the franchise with the heroines we love the best will probably end up being the best way to create more sales and boost Disney's ratings anyway. It's a win-win.
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