1. Angelina Satarose
Sociology 101
Essay 1
February 7, 2016
Sleeping Beauty: How Disney Distorts Relationship Realities
I sat there and watched my favorite Disney movie once again, this time to analyze how
it’s perceptions on love are unrealistic. I knew as a child it was just a book, long before I
watched the movie, and still I wanted a long-lasting love like Princess Aurora and her Prince
(“Sleeping Beauty,” Disney; 1959). I remember when I was five years old, and I had just planned
my life out after watching this movie. I still smile, I sing along with all the songs, including the
one where she finally meets her prince, and look back on how it made me believe in soulmates
and love at first sight. Destiny would bring us together and we would live happily ever after, or
so I thought. Now, I realize that was a very unrealistic view on love and relationships, but at the
time you couldn’t convince me otherwise.
When my own daughter came along, I was hesitant to let her watch these Disney princess
movies. I insisted on watching them with her and discussing how the movie gave unrealistic
ideas on love, relationships and how women and men should actually act. She still grew to love
the movies, but with understanding they were fantasy, not how love was supposed to happen. I
feel like Disney has caused a lot of us to think relationships are a certain way. When it doesn’t
work out the way we think it is supposed to, we blame the other person for being wrong. We
don’t look at our unrealistic views on love and where those views came from.
Nicole Sawyer wrote a paper in where she explained that Sleeping Beauty manages to
wake up and instantly be in love (“Feminist Outlooks at Disney Princess’s,” Sawyer (p. 8) –
JMU.Edu), and indeed I remember watching Aurora wake up after her ‘true love’s kiss’ and

2. instantly fall in love with her prince, living happily ever after in true Disney fashion. But this
isn’t the way real life works. You need to compromise and work together. I believe when I
realized love wasn’t always ‘happily ever after,’ was my first real relationship after high school.
I thought he was perfect. I saw the world through rose-colored glasses and threw caution into the
wind, while falling head over heels for him. I had thought he felt the same for me, but as soon as
the hard decisions started, I felt him pulling away. I realized rather quickly that I had such high
standards that he couldn’t possibly meet them. I was still that little girl sitting in front of the
television watching Sleeping Beauty, dreaming of how perfect my first love would be, and how
we would live happily ever after. It was a very rude awakening. I thought I was an intelligent
woman, but in some ways, I had more to learn.
These movies teach girls that their true love will find them, save them from some peril or
boring life, taking them in their arms and live happily ever after. Alice Neirkirk writes that
“Sleeping Beauty is a fairytale that illustrates the biases of stereotypical gender roles,” (“Happily
Ever After, or What Fairytales Teach Girls about Being Women,” Neikirk, (p. 40); University of
Hawaii). Women who grew up watching these movies have had a distorted idea of a woman’s
role in love is and who initiates what. We are to believe that the man will make the first move,
and we are to be grateful for them saving us from an otherwise dismal existence. After my first
boyfriend and I broke up, I felt like I was torn to shreds, my life was over and how was I ever
supposed to pick up the pieces of this ‘fairytale gone wrong?’ I was a smart girl, and I looked at
this experience rationally like I did everything else. I realized how deeply this Disney movie
affected me as a child. It taught me to view love in a way I was not brought up to view it. That’s
when the fairytale was put back in the box and I grew up.

3. In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora is kept away from everyone and pure as she grew up. She is
then put to sleep as soon as she is sixteen years old. She would have been child-bearing age and
in a way, she was kept pure until her true love claimed her. A lot of Disney movies instill
pureness and chastity in girls. Aurora was not allowed to experience a teenage life and possibly
be sexually active. I grew up thinking that I would save myself for my true love as well. Granted,
I had crushes on boys, but I wasn’t allowed to date either, just like Aurora. I grew up in an old
school Italian family. It was education first, graduate, and then think of having a family. Theresa
Tonn makes a good point when she says, “such heroines have their freedom restricted at a time
in life when heroes are discovering independence,” (“Disney’s Influence on Females: Perception
of Gender and Love,” Tonn (p. 10); University of Wisconsin Stout).
In conclusion, Disney Princess movies have single handedly taught young girls how to
behave around men, how love works, and has given them an unrealistic views of how it’s
supposed to happen. I’m sure I’m not the only one who had a rude awakening as an adult when it
came to their first relationship. We bought into the whole idea of how our Prince would one day
come and we would live indeed ‘happily ever after.’ I’d like to say though, Disney has started
making movies that teach young girls differently. A few great examples would be Mulan,
Frozen, and Brave. I believe these are a start to a brand new world of strong women figures
where they will have a better view on how love works.
Works Cited
“Sleeping Beauty,” Disney; 1959

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoFcNNsl8D0
“Feminist Outlooks at Disney Princess’s,” Sawyer, Nicole; James Madison University.
http://www.jmu.edu/commstudies/conflictanalysis/wm_library/SawyerFinal.pdf
“…Happily Ever After,” (or What Fairytales Teach Girls about Being Women) Neikirk, Alice;
Hilo, University of Hawaii.
http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/documents/Vol07x07HappilyEverAfter.pdf
“Disney’s Influence on Females: Perception of Gender and Love,” Tonn, Theresa, 2008,
University of Wisconsin Stout.
http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2008/2008tonnt.pdf