[Image Description: Author Jillian Curwin is wearing a stunning yellow dress and holding a red rose. She is dressed up as Belle and looking straight at the viewer. They are holding the skirt of their dress in their right hand with a stoic expression.]
Ask most little girls what she wants to be when she grows up and I would be willing to bet that one of her answers includes the words “Disney Princess”. Ask any little girl which Disney Princess is her favorite and I would be willing to bet it is the one who looks most like them. At present, there are twelve Disney Princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida and Moana. They all follow their dream of love, independence, honor…or a combination of the three.
Since being established in 2000, the Disney Princess franchise has grown and become more diverse: Jasmine is Arabian, Pocahontas is Native American, Mulan is Chinese, Tiana is African American and Moana is Polynesian. While the OG princesses had similar, straight bodies, the newer Princesses have curves, have freckles, have personalities. Most young girls can look at the Princess line-up and see themselves in their ranks.
I was born during the height of the Disney Renaissance. Disney was re-releasing their classic movies such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty on VHS (there was no Disney+) along with the newer films The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, and Aladdin. The first movies I saw in theaters were Pocahontas and Mulan. I quickly fell in love with each and every Disney Princess, singing their “I Want” anthems at the top of my lungs. Yet, I never dressed up as one for Halloween and when applying for the Disney College Program I never even considered auditioning to play a princess. The closest I came to wearing a tiara was when I played a narrator in my summer camp’s production of Aladdin Jr.
Why did I never aspire to join the ranks of Disney Princesses? Why did I not identify with Belle, a fellow brunette and bookworm? Why did I not dress up as Ariel? After all, I loved that she was a free-spirit that was never afraid to follow her heart. The truth is that I never identified with or aspired to be a Disney princess because they all have bodies that I, as a disabled and proud little person, could never attain. They are all average-height and able-bodied.
It was not until relatively recently that I made this realization. It was when Halle Bailey was announced to be playing Ariel in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid. Members of the Black community were proud, exclaiming they finally were getting their real-life (rather than hand-drawn) Disney princess. At the same time there was backlash, people arguing that Ariel should be played by a white actress because she is white in the animated version. Who says The Little Mermaid has to be white? It’s not explicitly stated in the fairytale. When drawing up the character of Ariel, the creators, in this case predominantly white men, made the choice to have the character be white. I remember reading the Twitter arguments when suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks: I, and the dwarf and disabled communities, are still waiting for our Disney Princess.
With their current roster of Princesses, with their perfectly able bodies, Disney is reinforcing the idea that disability is not beautiful, that those with disabilities cannot be powerful, and that those with disabilities are not aspirational. They are telling little girls that if they are a dwarf, if they are disabled, that they could never be royalty. Who says a Disney Princess can’t be a little person? Who says a Disney Princess can’t be disabled? In the case of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, the supervising animator, directors, writers, and producers were white men. If a Disney Princess can be a mermaid, talk to mice, or have hair with magical powers, then I say a Disney Princess can be a little person. So, this year I decided to challenge Disney’s definition of a princess.
October is dwarfism awareness month. Every year members of the little community, myself included, post everyday and use their platforms to educate their friends, family, and followers about what it means to be a little person in an average-height world. This year I wanted to show that a little person, standing tall at 3’11”, with disproportionate arms and legs, a stomach she was told could never be flat, and scars from surgeries past could grow up and be a Disney Princess. Reaching out to Project Runway finalist Nancy Volpe Beringer, along with hair and make-up artist Addie Thompson, I styled myself as four of the Disney Princesses: Snow White, Ariel, Belle, and Merida, putting a modern interpretation on their iconic outfits.
Each princess was chosen for a reason: Snow White because she always finds the positivity in her trauma; Ariel because she unquestionably trusts her own heart; Belle because she understands that you are your most beautiful when you are being your true self; and Merida because she is unafraid to break with tradition and fight to follow her own heart. I must confess that it was not until I saw the images in the monitor, raw and unedited, that I truly felt and looked like a Disney Princess.
I must confess that it was not until I saw the images in the monitor, raw and unedited, that I truly felt and looked like a Disney Princess.
If I can look and feel like a Disney Princess then YOU can too. Share a photo of yourself dressed in your royal best with the #DisabilityIsRoyalty, write to Disney and let them know that the next princess you want to see in their line-up is one that is disabled. Show every little girl (pun slightly intended) that they CAN be a Disney Princess.
