My magical childhood was composed of watching Disney movies all the time, pretending with my sister that we would Disney princesses living in our magical castles, getting as much Disney paraphernalia that my parents would allow, and of course countless trips to Disneyland to get my pictures with all the Disney princesses and ride the attractions. Every time I watched any Disney movie, I would know all the lyrics to all the songs in the movies and sing along. Also growing up I would say, I want to be just like Belle, Mulan, Ariel, or Cinderella, but the conception that I do not remotely resemble any of the Disney princesses was a fact that occurred to me when I was a child. I was disappointed that I would never grow up to look like any of these princesses who got their happy ending and found their true love. As I grew older, I realized how much gender, race, and culture bias there is in the Disney films. Even though I love these stories, they are not as perfect as I remember them when I watched them as a child.
One of the main reasons I took Decoding Disney is to discuss and learn about these biases about gender, race, and culture because many young girls such as myself have their hopes and dreams crushed because we do not resemble Disney princesses. In the later years, recent films have been made to diversify the characteristics and races of Disney princesses. Disney has had a huge impact on so many young children's lives and enraptures these susceptible minds to ideas of fantasy and magic. But these children by watching these movies define many characteristics and what they should value by Disney's standards. For example to be beautiful for a child may mean having blonde hair, blues eyes, and is white because so many of the earlier princesses had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was white. I really am excited to analyze this Disney world, which I still love despite its flaws, in a new light.
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