The Disney theme parks are known for giving us the opportunities to meet our favorite princesses; from classic Cinderella and now even Anna and Elsa. But it’s about time some of the more independent and less feminine characters get the chance to show their faces.
When you see an ad for Disneyland, Disney World, or any Disney theme park around the globe you’ll notice that characters play a huge part in their daily entertainment and attractions. Check out the ad below for an example of what we mean:
You’ll notice that every single female face character in that ad is almost always the perfect embodiment of what a stereotypical princess should be: sweet, feminine and flowery. Granted there are the more recent additions of Princess Merida from Brave, and Anna from Frozen that don’t make an appearance, but that’s still extremely limiting.
When you look at places like Disneyland, you might notice (if you go there often enough) newer additions of characters like Captain America and Thor from the company’s acquired Marvel line of films and comic books. While these characters definitely make sense with the newer films coming out, what doesn’t make sense is the missed opportunity to have a more diverse set of characters in their parks: The women in the comic book world.
It’s about time that the Walt Disney Company looks at the list of strong, independent female characters they now have the ability to include in their parks, and start shaking up the character meet and greet world by including people like Lady Sif from Thor and Black Widow from The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and several other Marvel projects.
While the Walt Disney Company has definitely gotten slightly more progressive over the years, it seems that they’ve forgotten that women don’t always have to be princesses in order to be role models to children.
Lady Sif and Black Widow are both fantastic examples of modern movie women who can be looked up to by girls and boys alike. They exude confidence, respect, and the ability to defend yourself without so much of a second thought regarding their gender and what they’re “supposed” to do.
While we love the additions of Thor and Captain America to the theme parks, we’re sick of all the male heroes getting the attention while their female counterparts (who are actually in a fair amount of their movies) never get equal representation; this isn’t 1955.
If the Walt Disney Company wants to really be progressive, then they must start representing women in their parks just like they’ve been representing men for decades: They come in all shapes and sizes, and they are all capable of being independent and strong. To exclude characters like Black Widow and Lady Sif while continuing to introduce characters like Anna and Elsa is equivalent of telling the young girls at the parks: This is who we love more, this is who you should aim to be.
And even if they didn’t include Marvel characters like Lady Sif or Black Widow, there’s still gigantic missed opportunity with Mulan! In all of her meet and greets at Disney theme parks Mulan is wearing a hanfu dress, which completely ruins the point of the whole movie. Mulan is not the matchmaker dress type of girl (we learned this in the first 10 minutes!), she’s the battle fighting, sword wielding type. Changing feminine dress to the robes and/or armor she wore for the majority of her movie not only makes more sense, but allows girls to look up to her in a whole new way while visiting the theme parks.
We’re truly disappointed in the way that the Walt Disney Company has chosen to represent its female characters at their theme parks around the world, but we hope that they realize the impact they could have by diversifying their list of characters to meet, and we look forward to being able to take our children to see more than the stereotypical princess when we take them to Disneyland.
Would you visit Black Widow or Lady Sif at Disneyland?
Let us know in the comments below! Would you be open to the idea of seeing more female Marvel characters at the Disney theme parks, or should all female meet and greet characters stick to the princess stereotype?