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Artist Puts Disney Princess Filter On 10 Real Life Female Role Models


Stashed in: Women, Disney!, Awesome, Clinton, Princesses!

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Artist David Trumble says:

This was a response to the furor kicked up over the glossy ‘princessification’ of Pixar’s Merida character, both in image and doll form. I drew this picture because I wanted to analyze how unnecessary it is to collapse a heroine into one specific mold, to give them all the same sparkly fashion, the same tiny figures, and the same homogenized plastic smile.

My experience of female role models both in culture and in life has shown me that there is no mold for what makes someone a role model, and the whole point of Merida was that she was a step in the right direction, providing girls with an alternative kind of princess. Then they took two steps back, and painted her with the same glossy brush as the rest. So I decided to take 10 real-life female role models, from diverse experiences and backgrounds, and filter them through the Disney princess assembly line.

“The result was this cartoon, which earned equal parts praise and ire from readers. Some didn’t get the joke, some disagreed with it, others saw no harm in it at all and wanted to buy the doll versions of them… it was a polarizing image, but I suppose that’s the point. The statement I wanted to make was that it makes no sense to put these real-life women into one limited template, so why then are we doing it to our fictitious heroines?

“Fiction is the lens through which young children first perceive role models, so we have a responsibility to provide them with a diverse and eclectic selection of female archetypes. Now, I’m not even saying that girls shouldn’t have princesses in their lives, the archetype in and of itself is not innately wrong, but there should be more options to choose from.

So that was my intent, to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to paint an entire gender of heroes with one superficial brush.

Below I'm cutting and pasting the ones that made me stop and pause.

Rosa Parks looks alarmingly like Tiana in Princess and the Frog:

Rosa Parks princess Disney meme

Susan B. Anthony may as well be Belle:

Susan B Anthony princess Disney meme

You can tell that Marie Curie is a Disney scientist because she has a love potion:

Marie Curie princess Disney meme

Jane Goodall showing legs and cleavage?!

Jane Goodall princess Disney meme

Harriet Tubman has sparkles in her dress?!

Harriet Tubman princess Disney meme

Anne Frank as Alice in Wonderland...

Anne Frank princess Disney meme

Malala Yousafzai brings new meaning to "A Whole New World"...

Malala Yousafzai princess Disney meme

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