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As Sarah Banet-Weiser put it, “.female ‘empowerment’ became the buzz word – not in marginalized political communities, but squarely within main-stream commercial culture (9).”īy the next decade this trend had begun to fade. During the nineties “girl power” became trendy and marketable. In the first decade, from 1993-2002, there were 13 female primary protagonists, 1 co-protagonist, and 41 male primary protagonists. To put the princess trend and lack of female primary protagonists into a larger context we can look at two decades of family-targeted animated films released in the U.S. Fairy tales are a popular animated film genre. It’s worth noting that this isn’t unique to Disney. Not that there is anything wrong with princesses, of course, but when in 79 years there have only been a handful of movies that break this mold, it creates a very narrow look at viable opportunities for a women hero (6). This leaves Alice in Wonderland, Return to Never Land, Home on the Range, Inside Out, and Zootopia as the only films not part of the Princess Franchise. Eleven of them feature protagonists that are marketed as part of the Disney Princess line (6).
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Looking at the Disney films with a female primary protagonist, nine have a female royal as the main character or a woman whose love interest is a royal. Comparatively there have been 60 films with a male primary protagonist, and five with male/female co-protagonists (5). Including all mainstream Disney animated features theatrically released in the U.S., from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Zootopia (2016), there have only been 16 films with a female primary protagonist. There are relatively few female primary protagonists in American animation, and a large number of them have either been royals or women whose love interests are royals. Outside of the aggressive marketing and product pushing, in most cases, it’s not the individual protagonists or films that are the issue, but the trend. One might wonder why these kinds of characters are criticized so harshly. Peggy Orenstein’s book Cinderella Ate My Daughter, is a good example of this. Animated princesses, especially those of the Disney Princess variety, often fall under critique. To really understand what makes Zootopia so unique, it’s important to take a look at female primary protagonists in theatrical animation, particularly the royalty. This dovetails nicely with its treatment of primary protagonist, Judy Hopps, a female character that stands out in a figurative sea of princesses. It also deals with complicated issues of intersecting privilege and systemic prejudice in a way that is accessible to children (4). Zootopia isn’t just a family-friendly police procedural with an anthropomorphic twist. Zootopia has received rave reviews (1), beating single-day animation records in China (2) and topping Frozen for the biggest domestic opening of a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film (3).