Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films

No Longer True

The recent reading Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films reminded me of those Disney animation films I used to watch in my childhood. Snow White & the 7 Dwarves and Cinderella were my favorites that I have both watched them in the movie version and book version. The one thing that fascinated me all the time was that being a prince could be omnipotent; using a sword and riding a horse, I could beat up all the bad guys in this world to rescue the beautiful princesses. We would fall in love at the first sight and live in the castle happily together. In the article, these kind of stereotypes are characterized into four themes, which is “family relationships are a strong propriety”, “families are Diverse, but diversity is often simplified”, “fathers are elevated, while mothers are marginalized”, and “couples are represented based on traditional gender roles” (Tanner, 355). However, behind Disney feature-length films, the current Disney feature-length animation films are no longer sticking to the old tradition, but creating an entirely new theme. Therefore, current Disney pop culture runs against the old stereotype in the article, Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films.

The old traditional Disney feature-length animated films have stereotypes of two people that easily fall in love at first sight.  In the article Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films Tanner, who agrees that “The idea that love is ‘easy’ and requires no work is most clearly illustrated in Snow White & the 7 Dwarves; Snow White manages to fall in love while sleeping (it does not get much easier than that). Furthermore, when asked if it was hard to fall in love, Snow White replied, ‘It was easy’. Although Snow White is an old film, there has not been much change in this message in more recent movies” (Tanner, 355).  Like lots of old classic Disney animation films like Snow White & the 7 Dwarves, when Snow White’s Prince arrived and awakened Snow White with Love’s first kiss. The spell on Snow White was broken, and both the prince and Snow White returned to the castle and lived happily ever after. Furthermore, “In Pocahontas, John Smith and Pocahontas fell in love based on appearances, as they did not speak the same language. Lucky for them their love gave them the ability to overcome this language barrier as Mother Willow told Pocahontas to “listen with your heart and you will understand,” and she suddenly understood what John Smith was asking her” (Tanner, 355).

However, the beautiful falling in love at first sight story does not exist on the current popular movie, Frozen. The ironic setting of the film occurred when Princess Anna thought she fell in love with the visiting Prince Han from the Southern Isles when she first saw him. After Princess Anna was accidentally struck in the heart by her sister, Elsa who was able to possess power to produce ice, frost, and snow at will, Anna had to be cured by the “act of true love”, or she would be frozen solid forever. Princess Anna then went back to her castle to ask her fiancé for a kiss, which turns out the purpose for Prince Han to marry her is to become the King of Arendelle. The confrontment of the new settlement of pop culture goes against the stereotype in Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films. The claim by Tanner, “Images of love at first sight in the films encourage the belief that physical appearance is the most important thing when entering an intimate relationship” is no longer true in Frozen. (Tanner, 355) Consequently, Frozen stands as a pop cultural text running against the idea of falling in love at first sight. It proves love is not the one it used to be in old Disney feature-length animated movies; princes and princesses are able to fall in love at first sight, and step foot to marriage and live happily together ever since. Love requires tons of challenges and tasks to verify it. Like the one in the real life, the two might have a crush on each other at first sight, but that is not love. Couples have to hold their hands to encounter and go through all the missions and problems in the real life.

...