What does Disney tell you?

The discussion which interested me most was the representation of the characters in Disney.
There are many ideology Disney films reveal if we see them with critical eyes.
For example, in the Lion King, the villain, Scar, has remarkably darker complexion. Think about the little Mermaid. The villain, Ursula, is darker than any other creatures in the sea and even when she becomes a woman she looks darker with black hair and clothes. When it comes to evil characters, they almost always have darker complexions, hair, and voice.It is not only because of Disney films, but we can say that since our childhood, we are exposed to the ideology that black or dark is evil.


Many children grow up with Disney. I also watched a lot of Disney movies in my childhood. Disney movies have strong influence on children. I think I learned what the princess should look like from Disney films. Even though Disney count 9 female characters as princesses officially (Snow white, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana) , when we look up "Disney Princess" brand, many times those first 6 princesses appear.They are called "six princesses (六姫）" in Japan. And only the six princesses appear in Disneyland in Tokyo. Therefore, when I was a child and I thought about "princess," I always associated it with those women who look like the six princesses in Disney : white women with long hair, sexualized bodies, and beautiful dresses.I think the most popular and typical animations Japanese children watch with parents are Disney or Ghibli films (whose most famous film might be Spirited Away). But since Ghibli films do not depict romance so much, many children in Japan might learn what love is from Disney films. Disney's princess stories do not only teach us how the princess look but also how women gain happiness: meet a soul mate and live with the man. Women are always rescued by men and cannot have happy lives without men's help.
There are many girls who dream of the happily- ever- after lives like those in the Disney stories. There is a syndrome called Cinderella Complex among women, who has unconscious desire to be dependent on others, usually men. Disney movies might have strong influence on children and they grow up with the ideas that they have from Disney films even though they are not conscious of it.
I remember when I went to Tokyo Disneyland and watched the parade. All performers were Japanese and they danced to the Disney songs in Japanese but all characters including princesses and princes on the floats were white, Caucasian, people. This told me that the princesses and princes have to be white women and men: Japanese employee cannot play the roles of them because Japanese are far away from the look the princesses and princes have in Disney. I wonder Disney could be one of the reasons for many Japanese who long for Caucasian look.