Growing up, Belle from Beauty and the Beast was my favorite Disney princess. With expansions into more and more products, from dresses to dolls to lunchboxes and backpacks and plastic dishware, their influence only continues to grow and inform culture. The princesses both reflect and perpetuate standards of beauty in Western society, and have done so for decades.

In response, Disney has removed the sexualized image from its website, and hopefully will pursue a more accurate representation of Brave’s heroine moving forward.ĭisney princess have a history of representing thin, sexualized, and often white beauty (the first princess who was not white was Jasmine, introduced in 1992). Recently Disney released a redesign of their most recent princess, Merida, from the film Brave, which sexualized her image and placed her more in line with the Disney princesses who came before her.īrenda Chapman, writer and co-director of the film, and a host of parents expressed their distaste with the re-design of Merida through a petition that garnered over 200,000 signatures.

Merida brave backpack