In the end, Ariel lives on land, but by tying herself to a man Belle never gets adventure in the great wide somewhere and instead marries the Beast Jasmine goes beyond the palace walls for the duration of a song and then returns to her royal lifestyle to be with Aladdin. Instead of the heroines fully getting what they seek, they fall in love.

All three movies, ultimately, are love stories. Today, these princesses fall short of where modern female audiences want them to go. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, budding bookworms, would-be collectors, and little rebels found themselves drawn to the new princesses, earning them special places in the hearts of nostalgic fans. These were not the classic Disney princesses. And both took active roles in making that change happen: Belle made the agreement with the Beast to take her father’s place Jasmine snuck out of the palace in order to see more of the world. Jasmine despised the idea of an arranged marriage and longed for life outside the palace walls. Belle sang a whole song about wanting adventure. Both expressed desire for something more.

The ultimatum that saved The Little Mermaid’s iconic ‘Part of Your World’īelle and Jasmine followed Ariel’s lead. With Disney’s history littered with passive princesses, Ariel, a 16-year-old defying her father for true love, going after her dreams, and getting her happy ending, felt revolutionary. Every plot point is something done to her. By contrast, Snow White wished for a prince, but most of the movie is the Huntsman chasing her, the Queen pursuing her, and the prince kissing her. She sought out the sea witch, and she made the deal that cost her her voice. Whether viewers today interpret that as living with humans or getting with Eric, Ariel was still active in her own story. Things happened to them they reacted.Īriel was the first Disney princess character who unapologetically went after what she wanted. While they had some wants of their own, they didn’t pursue those goals. Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora, the princesses of Disney’s Golden Age, were passive. The Disney heroines from the early Disney Renaissance - Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine -represented a new type of Disney heroine. Disney Why the Disney princesses meant so much, but don’t hold up It stays true to the character and what made her appealing, but also gives her more agency and a story that is not entirely reliant on Aladdin. In comparison, Aladdin, Disney’s latest live-action remake, gets the “fix” right, giving Princess Jasmine an arc that doesn’t feel like set dressing. Unfortunately, hobbies are not the pillars of a character arc. Disney sought to update her to make her more of a heroine of the 2010s than a heroine of the 1990s by giving her more to do. Belle’s “empowerment” missed the mark of what made Belle such an appealing heroine in the first place: she was a heroine with specific interests and wants, who played an active part in the movie. Emma Watson’s version of Belle wasn’t just a pretty bookworm in the new version, she also invented things, and without a corset. On the heels of more female-focused movies like Frozen and Moana, it would appear that Disney also felt the need to update Beauty and the Beast. There’s a reason why the Jim Crow scenes are absent from the latest Dumbo and why Maleficent gave a twist to ol’ true love’s kiss. As Disney continues to give every beloved animated classic a shiny live-action remake (or in the case of The Lion King, photorealistic animation wash), the company has taken the opportunity to correct the issues of the originals that don’t stand up under a modern eye. The recent Beauty and the Beast reimagined the animated classic in live-action - and hoped to redraw its heroine in the process.

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