THE EVOLVING ROLE OF DISNEY PRINCESSES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
Using content analysis, I examined how Disney princess movies from 2010 to 2016 portrayed leadership to children.
Disney films have influenced the children for the last few decades in various ways. But few have tried to see how leadership is portrayed. I wanted to see what leadership qualities were shown most in each movie and see what conclusions I could draw. Based upon a framework from a published in The Leadership Weekly, I measured confidence, empathy, creativity, and judgement.
Disney Princesses are becoming leaders of judgement.
I analyzed Tanged (2010), Brave (2012), and Moana (2016) to see how leadership was portrayed over the course of each movie. Tangled’s storyline focused on how you should develop social skills with others. Brave focused on developing empathy and forgiveness for others. Moana took a sudden turn by how judgement (analytical thinking and hard skills) were extremely important. The sudden change between Brave (2012) and Moana (2016) is a possible indication how society desires a different type of leadership.
Disney is shifting their princess brand to show that the qualities of a leader are diverse.
Disney have been criticized in the past for how they portrayed their female leads. 2016 showed a shift from developing empathy to judgement. Being a successful leader does require emotional intelligence and communication skills. But this change highlights how analytical thinking, hard skills, and rationality are valuable. Most importantly, Disney was showing the world that females are not confined to a sector of emotional leadership. Leadership and the qualities that make someone a successful leader is diverse. Disney has begun to shift their princess brand to properly reflect that.
APPENDIX
Please refer to the paper for a detailed explanation of these figures.
I analyzed three Disney princess films and marked every occurrence of a particular quality. Figures 6 to 8 show the distribution data of leadership qualities and which ones were developed over the course of each respective movie. Figure 9 shows the total scores for each movie. ANOVA and chi-square was used to see if there was any practical or statistical significance between scores. There was not enough data to show if one of the movies was stronger in one quality. But there is enough data to show that Disney princesses did try to teach some aspect of leadership over the course of a movie. This can be seen in the trend lines of figures 6 to 8.
Leadership Qualities Measured (Also known as Figure 1)
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Definition: overcoming certain odds despite the circumstances. This quality can also be defined as being able to suppress or surpass ones’ own fears to finish an objective.
Other keywords: assertiveness, courage and resolution, decisiveness, eagerness, achievement, perseverance, self-confidence. -
Definition: being able to connect with others emotionally. This quality can also be defined as utilizing emotional needs to finish a task.
Other keywords: people skills, emotional stability, understanding, capacity to motivate, trustworthiness, counseling -
Definition: finding solutions that are not so apparent to solve an issue. This quality can also be defined as being open-minded.
Other keywords: creativity, adaptability, flexibility -
Definition: using rational means and judgement to complete an objective. This quality can also be defined as being extremely proficient in a skill(s).
Other keywords: intelligence, action-oriented judgement, task competence, analytical thinking, teaching skills