Introduction

Dr. Martha Rampton, a social historian with a focus on women’s roles in society, defines the third-wave of feminism as the presentation of women as “strong and empowered, eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy” (Rampton 2014). These characteristics are incorporated widely, today, in children’s movies, books, and television shows. Kara Kulpa, a scholar at the Southern Connecticut State University, connects “strong wills, clever minds, and self-sufficient capabilities” to the identity of strong female characters, which can be seen in the Disney Princess Label’s third-wave feminist movement (Kulpa 2008).

The 1980 to 1990s Disney Princesses represented a whole new spectrum of character types. The animated films such as Aladdin, Mulan, and The Little Mermaid feature princesses who strongly embody the new-age shift to third-wave, liberal feminism. The third wave of feminism promotes the equality of men and women, while preserving the traditional female attributes such as sexuality, creativity, and intellect (Kulpa 2008).

In the 1990s, the Walt Disney label brought the traditional stories of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, Andrew Lang’s Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and the traditional Chinese tale Mulan back into the public eye with the release of the full length animated films The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), and Mulan (1998).  The Little Mermaid sparked an era now considered Disney’s renaissance.  From 1989 to 1998, Disney cherry-picked “mythologized favorites for the screen” and “fanatically endeared generations to Disney’s accounts of happily ever after” (Tattoli 2014). Each film from this time is an American interpretation of a classic tale with added features meant to attract an American audience.

Our project intends to study the feminist movement of the 1990s and connect the ideologies that originated from this time to themes in the Disney movies The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Mulan.  We will explore how female characters were portrayed in these movies as strong, yet feminine characters, and compare this to how the characters were presented in the original tales.