Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine

Abstract

This essay examines the way in which the female self is constructed in five Disney films: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas. Standpoint feminist theory and feminist scholarship on the psychological development of the perfect girl are used to form questions about selfhood, relationships, power, and voice. Although heroines have expressed voice and selfhood in some of the later films, Disney's interpretations of children's literature and history remain those of a white, middle-class, patriarchal society.