Disney princess faces have been controversial for more than 70 years

Not all female protagonists in Disney movies are Disney Princesses, but viewers have routinely complained that all female protagonists in Disney’s animated features share the same face. You know that face — pleasantly round, with rosy cheeks, a dainty button nose, ginormous long-lashed eyes, and pale pink lips with a perfect cupid’s bow.

The think pieces about the similarities between Disney’s female faces have been done. I’m not here to retread familiar ground. Instead, I want to point out that like many things Disney has been criticized for, the criticisms of the studio’s same-face syndrome isn’t new to the digital age. FrozenThe debate was reopened for contemporary audiences. However, people continue to point out that Disney women have the same boring face since the inception of Disney animation.

Disney launched its animated dominance by introducing Snow White to the world. She is round-faced with long-eyelashes and has cherubic lips. Snow White and Seven DwarfsDisney set an example for others and was criticized for its stories and design for decades. As far as they can remember, Disney’s early protagonists, including Aurora and Cinderella, shared a similar design to Snow White. One Variety reviewer pointed out that Cinderella (and also her bland prince) felt “colorless” and “doll-faced” — but that other characters in Disney’s CinderellaThe wicked stepsisters were and still are more imaginatively designed than the king. It’s telling which characters get to look unique, and which must adhere to that same-face syndrome.

Image: Disney

Image: Disney

2013. Frozen animator’s quote about female characters being difficult to animate because they need to stay “pretty” made headlines. It was controversial, regardless of its true meaning. However it sparked conversation. Jennifer Lee, FrozenDirector and Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios jumped in clarifying that the statement was not about technicalities in CG. Brenda Chapman, co-director of Pixar’s BraveBut, she recounted her difficulties in making the female characters realistic.

Walt Disney Animation’s guidelines for “acceptable” female faces get especially dicey when the movies are about nonwhite characters. To pull from Roger Ebert’s 1992 review of Disney’s Aladdin: “Most of the Arab characters have exaggerated facial characteristics — hooked noses, glowering brows, thick lips — but Aladdin and the princess look like white American teenagers.” That isn’t exactly the same as pointing out that Jasmine has the same face as Ariel and Belle, but it speaks to the uniformity of faces when it comes to certain characters in the Disney canon. Everybody looks the same way except for Heroines.

In the 1990s and beyond, those design choices could be attributed to consistency across Disney’s in-house style. However, the criticisms about Cinderella or Aurora were raised in early Disney days when Disney was still trying to define its own style. In those 1950s movies, the heroes — male and female alike — had generic, unremarkable faces. The design of comedic villains and quirky side characters pushed the boundaries on expression, but the heroes’ faces remained static. They were designed to look beautiful.

Image: Disney

For two reasons, modern criticism is more focused on women characters: The first is the fact that there weren’t many female actors up until recent years. Continue readingMale characters are prominent in Disney’s canon. Disney movies have a lot of pretty princesses. However, for quite a while, they were the only major female characters, aside from the odd matronly old woman or clever villainess. While the princes were often equally bland, there was also a surplus of male sidekick characters to flesh out Disney worlds — and those characters, like Gaston’s bumbling sidekick LeFou in Beauty and the Beast, Prince Eric’s butler Grimsby in The Little Mermaid, and Mulan’s soldier comrades in Mulan are all allowed to be dynamic and different in a way that the hero wasn’t.

In that vein, the male leads of Disney movies weren’t AlwaysRomantic roles that are traditional. Ralph, Ralph Wreck-ItQuasimodo, or? Notre Dame: The HunchbackHercules, or even a Hercules. HerculesThe story of ‘Meganra,’ a man who is more interested in his love life than Megara, and less about her romance, is that of ‘Alison. His quest to be a hero. But until comparatively recently in Disney’s century of moviemaking, the studio’s female leads — at least, the ones who weren’t specifically children — were almost always romantic roles. This meant certain characters that displayed beauty and charm. However, the definition of what that means has been modified with each generation.

Image: Disney

It could also be the reason Same Face Syndrome is so perplexing today, according to some writers. The central characters of Disney movies have become more female leads. Today, two can lead a film. Their bodies and faces remained within Disney’s standard model until recent years, except for surface differences such as hair coloring. Frozen This is the best example. Elsa and Anna look like slightly different versions of the same design. Yes, these three women are related, but they aren’t supposed to be clones.

Slowly but surely, though, animators at Disney are pushing for change — after all, why should the women in their movies look the same way they’ve looked since Snow White? The problem has been known for over 75 years. But, it’s finally being solved. Movies like Encanto It’s time to turn red — which feature multiple female characters in lead roles with more distinct bodies and faces than ever before — are proof that Disney is finally moving into a new era, one where “pretty” doesn’t just mean one face repeated over and over.

Image: Pixar