-Disney has announced singer Halle Bailey
is starring in its live action remake of "The Little Mermaid".
This brings even more diversity to the lineup
for its live action princess films
and continues Disney's efforts
to bring its classic stories to new audiences.
But Halle Bailey's Ariel is coming into a world of Disney
that's very different from when
"The Little Mermaid" premiered in 1989.
Before Ariel's debut,
Disney princesses were extremely passive,
reacting to things happening to them.
But Ariel knew what she wanted.
♪ I wanna be ♪
♪ Where the people are ♪
-And she went out to get it.
♪ Souls ♪
-She was supposed to be a modern heroine
for a new generation of girls.
But, instead, researchers at Pitzer College
found that, beginning with Ariel,
Disney princesses begin to lose their voice.
-In the early Disney princess movies,
the female characters talked a little bit more
than the male characters.
In the sort of middle period,
what they often call the renaissance period
of the Disney movies, in those movies,
male characters talk much more than female characters.
In "Aladdin," the ratio is actually 8:1.
-The new age films, or those released
after Disney's 11-year break
between 1998's "Mulan" and 2009's
"The Princess and the Frog," are more equitable.
But Fought and her team found that "Frozen,"
despite being a movie about sister princesses,
gave women less than half the speaking time.
There are a few reasons why the amount spoken
by women dipped in the '90s.
-The very early classic movies,
there weren't as many characters.
In that middle set of movies, with "Beauty and the Beast"
and those, they went to a model that was kind of like a musical,
where you have a large cast of characters,
you have more songs, more musical numbers,
and, in doing that, they added a lot of characters.
-And those newer characters were mostly male.
Aside from the princess, there's very few examples
of women being powerful, useful, funny,
or, really, doing anything at all.
-So kind of what the renaissance period Disney movies
are sending as a message to little boys and little girls
is that, if you're a girl, you can be the princess
or, maybe, you can be the wicked witch;
you can be the horrible, evil sorceress.
But, if you're going to be the guy
who leads the camels across the desert
or the person who runs the sauna
or the person who runs the bookstore.
-Or the baker or shopkeeper or diplomat, you've gotta be a guy.
In the majority of these films, most of the dialogue
and the best lines go to male characters.
And they go to one type, in particular:
the chatty, non-human sidekick.
Flounder, Sebastian, Lumière, Cogsworth,
Iago, Genie, Mushu, Olaf.
There's really not a good reason
why most of these characters couldn't have been female.
Fought's team also looked at the way characters give commands
and found that female characters
are more likely to soften the way they ask for things.
-We call it mitigated directives.
So that's the difference between saying,
"You must have this report on my desk by Thursday,"
and saying, "If it's not too much trouble,
could you please have this report by Thursday"?
-Female characters mitigated their commands,
even when they were in positions of power.
-What? -Bring me my horse!
Please.
-The only exception is if they're evil.
-Clean it. -So, if you're the evil queen,
you can give as many commands as you want
and that's seen as part of your character.
-You will kill her. -But, Your Majesty!
The little princess!
-Silence!
-Fought's team also looked at the types of compliments
that characters received and, here, the trend was positive.
Starting in 2009, with the new age films,
women became more likely to be praised
for their skills or achievements than for how they look.
The relative gender parity we see during this period
might be because of who actually made those movies.
Both "Frozen" and "Brave" were written
and directed by women, or a team that included women.
In 2018, Jennifer Lee, the first woman
to direct a Disney Animation Studios feature, with "Frozen,"
was named chief creative officer
of Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Again, the first woman in that role.
Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger
said that 40% of Disney Studios' upcoming movies,
including the live action adaptations,
are being directed by women.
Disney has been pretty self-aware
about its princesses since at least 2007's
"Enchanted," a movie about what it would be like
if an actual Disney princess found herself in the real world.
♪ How does she know? ♪
-Don't sing.
It's okay, you know? Just let's walk.
-More recently, they even slipped in some meta commentary
into 2016's "Moana".
-If you start singin', I'm gonna throw up.
-And 2018's "Wreck-It Ralph"
sequel "Ralph Breaks the Internet".
-Were you poisoned? -No!
-Cursed? -No!
-Kidnapped or enslaved? -No!
Are you guys okay? Should I call the police?
-Adopting animated films to live action
lets Disney leave the classics as they are,
while allowing them to retroactively change
some of the more problematic parts of those films.
For example, in Tim Burton's reimagining of "Dumbo,"
a crow character from the original movie,
problematically named Jim Crow, was removed.
Fougt's team hasn't analyzed the remakes, yet,
but you can see a difference in the female characters,
just by comparing them to the original versions.
The live action films have stronger,
more empowered heroines and there's just more women,
in general, some of which have actual jobs,
like this female pawnshop owner in "Aladdin".
-Take a bag of dates and get out!
-In another change, Belle kind of has a job
in the live action "Beauty and the Beast".
We see her inventing and teaching,
although that didn't have much impact on the story.
They also introduced a set of characters
that Disney has been criticized
for leaving out in the past: the moms.
-I don't even have a mom! -Neither do we!
-In the live action versions of "Cinderella"
and "Beauty and the Beast," the princesses' mothers show up.
-Have courage and be kind.
-If only briefly, and to explain why they disappeared.
-Quickly, before it takes her, too.
-In "Aladdin," we don't see Jasmine's mother,
but, at least, we learn why she's not in the picture.
The live action "Aladdin" remake had some of the biggest changes.
When Aladdin falls through a roof during a musical number,
this time, he falls into a schoolroom,
not into what looks a lot like a brothel.
♪ Oh, it's sad Aladdin's hit the bottom ♪
-And, now, Jasmine has a human best friend
to talk to, instead of a tiger, and is no longer forced
to seduce a much older, creepy man.
In the remake,
Jasmine still doesn't want an arranged marriage.
-It's not that I don't want to marry.
It's just. -You want to be sultan.
-But, because she also wants to rule.
♪ All I know is I won't go speechless ♪
-Speech is a powerful thing.
Through the language in these movies,
kids learn about occupations
and who can do them, what relationships look like,
and even pick up ideas about their own bodies.
And, since Disney has come to dominate family entertainment,
how it chooses to depict the characters that are so central
to its brand matters more and more.