Disney PrincessesThe media plays a vital role in showing society the roles and values ​​that individuals should play. The media is also a very powerful agent in demonstrating racial and gender stereotypes (Matyas 3). Disney plays a major role in showing stereotypical things to young children. Some figures who have long been very important and influential to young children are the Disney princesses. There are many characteristics of these characters that make children love them. However, after researching the subject, it becomes clear that these are not the kind of characters children should idolize. Many young girls spend a large part of their childhood wanting to become a princess. Disney's portrayal of princesses makes this less desirable. A princess is usually a young and beautiful girl who has an unusually thin body. She also falls in love very quickly and her only goal in life is to get married. There are nine Disney princesses between 1937 and 2009. Most films have a very stereotypical portrayal of the gender. Over time, Disney's portrayal of princesses has changed, but overall there hasn't been much improvement when it comes to the portrayal of gender stereotypes. Young women, who shy away from conflict and think they should be nice and pretty, are more likely to be depressed than others. There is a twenty-three percent decline in girls' participation in middle and high school sports. Girls think it's not feminine to play sports. Girls feel like they are being pressured to be perfect, to get straight A's, to become student body president, newspaper editor, and captain of the swim team. But on top of all that, they want to be kind, caring, please everyone, be very thin and dress well (O...... middle of paper ...... the fictional characters that they see in Disney movies Girls are told they are princesses, so they aspire to be like Disney princesses. Instead, why not take real historical role models, like Rosa Parks or Anne Frank, and make them. Princesses?, and Melissa Collier-Meek “Gender Role Representation and the Sexual Roles of Disney Princesses” Tale as Old as Time: A Textual Analysis of Race and Gender in the Disney Princess Films. Print.Orenstein, Peggy “What's Wrong with Cinderella?” The New York Times, Inc., December 24, 2006. Web November 21, 2013.Whelan, Bridget » The Power of the Princess: Disney and. the creation of the 20th century princess narrative » Interdisciplinary Humanities 29.1 (2012): 21-34 Print...