What if Disney princesses had realistic waistlines? Well, they would look pretty fab. No doubt about it.
Buzzfeed's Loryn Brantz decided to digitally edit six famous Disney ladies -- Ariel ("The Little Mermaid"), Pocahontas ("Pocahontas"), Jasmine ("Aladdin"), Belle ("Beauty and the Beast"), Aurora ("Sleeping Beauty") and Elsa ("Frozen") -- to show what the cartoon heroines would look like if they had more realistic physical proportions. After all, since these characters are supposed to represent people in films made for children, they should probably look more like real people, right?
"As a woman who loves Disney and has dealt with body image issues, it has been something I've always wanted to comment on, particularly after seeing 'Frozen,'" Brantz told The Huffington Post in an email Thursday. "While I loved the film, I was horrified that the main female character designs haven't changed since the '60s. The animation industry is historically male dominated, and I think that contributes to how these designs became so extreme in their proportions — their necks are almost always bigger than their waists!"
Calling to mind the argument for a more anatomically correct Barbie doll, others have also highlighted the impractical proportions of Disney's princesses by comparing them to real-world bodies.
Last year, artist Meridith Viguet got some press for a tutorial she created on how to draw a Disney-friendly version of a princess. Disney's animated female figures, she noted, typically have long, slender necks; "demure" shoulders; B- or C-cup breasts and "soft but very defined" waists. But don't look for hips, because Disney princesses tend not to have them, Viguet pointed out in her tutorial, using Meg from "Hercules" as an example. "[H]er curves DON'T come from having really round hips, but from connecting the top of her legs (which are at their widest) to a slim waist," Viguet writes of Meg.
A real woman, however, has a thicker neck, wider shoulders and a less defined waist with actual hips.
"As children we may not realize these images in the media affect us, but they definitely do," Brantz told HuffPost. "Media outlets with the opportunity to change the way women are viewed and view themselves should start taking responsibility. It only took a couple nudges of a line to make those princesses' waists less extreme, and they still looked beautiful and magical."
Check out Brantz's original piece on Buzzfeed.
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