Beautiful Belle is a slave to her cruel step mother and her two unruly step sisters, yet her hair always done perfectly and makeup on she is still beautiful. Sleeping Beauty has been asleep for 100 years, yet she looks no older than 20. Every curl in her hair so perfect, and makeup untouched, it’s like she fell asleep 10 minutes before her date with Prince Charming. The mental image of a princess is what most would describe as the definition of perfect. Disney has made these images for years, you can ask any little girl and everyone will tell you about their favorite princess, some even dress and act like them on a daily basis. Yet there is something that draws concern about how these princesses are being portrayed in this film. In Cassandra Stover’s article “Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess” she states, “… the very first Disney princess drew on associations of traditional femininity, indicating the widespread encouragement of these traits within 1930’s American culture. The Great Depression left tens of thousands of people jobless, and the competition for labor combined with Catholic moral reform movements fostered a national desire for women to return to the home, a mentality that was widely represented in 1930’s commercial media” (2). Many women returned home after the war was over because the men needed their jobs back, and with this returned the stigma about how women behave in the home, cooking, cleaning, and preparing the children for when their father would return home from work. These young, female children now are not only seeing how their mothers act and preform, but they are seeing the same type of patterns in the movies that they are watching, you can’t judge them for thinking that this is how they are supposed to act. The movies brainwashes these little girls into thinking that they will always need a man in their life, an example as stated in “Damsels and Heroines” is Snow White. Snow White is a motherly figure to the seven dwarfs that find her. She cooks and cleans all day, and makes sure that when the working men return to home they are as comfortable as ever. But this story doesn’t only show the stereotype of a stay at home female, it also depicts how females are reliant on men. You know the big damsel in destress theory, well Disney time and time again shows how women can’t always do everything and they need a man to help them. All these women eat things they shouldn’t, get pricked in the finger, or even fall into the hands of the wrong person. But don’t worry a prince on a white horse will be there to kiss the beautiful princess awake, and save them from this horror. Females have always been seen as the weaker link of the two genders, but was that because we physically are weaker or is it because since we were children we were taught, don’t look too masculine, do not act too smart, don’t open the door for yourself, and sure as hell don’t act like you are independent. Make sure whatever you do, the man you are seeing knows you need him and can’t ever leave him. Disney has started to take back everything they taught about the princesses and began giving them “a voice and a desire for adventure” (3). These princesses still have a long way to go to become where we want them, yet we are moving in the right direction. The 2013 movie, “Frozen” was a good push in the right direction for feminist movie-goers. The movie was more about a strong female lead, and wasn’t as much of a love story as most expected. The movie is most about a sisters bond rather than a sexual bond between two lovers. The 2009 movie, “The Princess Frog” was another film that pushed back the ideology of what a princess should be like. This was the first time for Disney to ever have a princess of color on their screens. There was, “tremendous female empowerment by allowing the black female protagonist to own a business, the film constantly reminds the viewer that Tiana inherited this dream from her father” (4). Stover states, “until Disney develops and markets its heroines in this fashion, these females will never truly champion the progressive ideals of equality that inspired the women’s movement for decades” (8). Steps forward are a good start, but there is still a long road ahead of us that must be conquered.