Female Disney characters- Role models or bad examples?

[kurtadisneyite]

The question here gets hazy when you look at the original heroines, and their sequels.
warning: This is for information purposes only.

For example, Cinderella and Aurora were heavily influenced by 1950's culture.
Marc Davis said that Cinderella (1950 model) wasn't weak, but was shaped by her untenable situation, while Ollie Johnson said she had spirit. Within the limits of the story as defined by Perrault, she showed an unusual amount of spunk.

Cinderella III, by comparison, is a unique sequel built on the personalities created in Cinderella I , but restyled towards today's feminism and greater expectations for the ladies to take more active roles. As a side bonus, III expanded the prince's role (which was minimal in the old fairy tales and as a result in C I). In III, Cindy expands her personality (something many successful sequels do), and almost becomes an action hero by story's end. Yet she manages to retain the appealing qualities she had in C I.

Unfortunately, Sleeping Beauty by design was more focused on splendor and spectacle than character development, so the sequel folks had less to work with.
Aurora II ( on the recent Enchanted Tales I release) makes Aurora a more modern heroine, but here the story is not as strong and Aurora's new personality's more of a mutation (active teenager) than an evolution of her original character.

Wrt the evil characters, by being evil they can ignore many conventions and end up being more consistent. Lady Tremaine showcases her cold, cruel nature equally well in C I, II, and III (also credit Susanne Blakeslee's excellent job succeeding Eleanor Audley's vocalizations).

That's my 2 cents.
An interesting footnote is the artist who drew the books for Cinderella III watched the film 10 times.

[toonaspie]

Cinderella III, by comparison, is a unique sequel built on the personalities created in Cinderella I , but restyled towards today's feminism and greater expectations for the ladies to take more active roles. As a side bonus, III expanded the prince's role (which was minimal in the old fairy tales and as a result in C I). In III, Cindy expands her personality (something many successful sequels do), and almost becomes an action hero by story's end. Yet she manages to retain the appealing qualities she had in C I.

Ugh, I did not like what they did with Cinderella and the Prince's characters in C3. I thought the both of them turning into action heroes (and making the Prince a bit comical) was way OOC in comparison to the original. Sure they were very watered down in the original but I hate how some of these fairy tale adaptations want to go for the butt-kicking Buffy-like heroine. I'm female and I even find that very annoying.

[jimdotbeep]

First of all you have to remember that all the Disney Princess' thus far have all lived in eras long since past. In medieval times women were expected to be like that. And Yet, Disney has taked some progressive stances in their movies. In Aladdin Jasmin says "I am not a prize to be won" a stance no ancient middle eastern women would have been allowed to take. Pocahontas actually comes to her lover's rescue at the end of the movie. In Mulan pretty much all the action and daring do in done by the female in the story.