LOS ANGELES (AP) – A Disney princess no longer needs a prince to experience true love.
Sisterhood saves the day in “Frozen.” Motherly love breaks an evil spell in “Maleficent.” A little girl’s love of her own life is a focus of Pixar’s next film, “Inside Out.”
Where romance was once the goal of the cinematic princess (think “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty”), Disney – long a key purveyor of princess ideology – is shifting its lens toward independent female protagonists defined by broader criteria than how they relate to men. Filmmakers, inspired by their daughters, hope the shift might change some real-life perspectives, too.
“All these Disney heroines, the princesses, they’re a product of their time,” said Linda Woolverton, who wrote “Maleficent,” released on DVD Tuesday. “The princesses that were created in the 1940s and ’50s, they were the best of what a woman should be then: You’re the good girl. You took abuse … and through it all, you sang and were nice.
“But we’re not like that anymore. We kick ass now.”