These women did a body-positive Disney Princess photo shoot, because some heroes wear gowns

Hello Giggles

Updated December 16, 2017 at 5:11 AM

These women did a body-positive Disney Princess photo shoot, because some heroes wear gowns

We love the Disney Princesses, and we love that Disney attempts to make its heroines as racially inclusive as possible. However, Disney Princesses are perhaps the least body positive group of animated characters ever. Disney Princesses are size zero, tall, and lithe and yet somehow also have hourglass proportions. Yes, they are cartoons, but it’s baffling that they couldn’t draw their heroes with more realistic body types. This is why we are celebrating these two women who did a body-positive Disney Princess photo shoot.

Two body positive bloggers, Michelle Elman and Amy Wooldridge, came up with the idea for the photo shoot after spending their lives feeling less-than in the shadow of Disney Princesses’ perfect bodies.

“WE NEED A FAT PRINCESS. Growing up with Disney, my heart hurt a little,” Elman wrote on Instagram. “Disney princesses are seen as the epitome of beauty and even as a young girl, I quickly learnt that meant I wasn’t beautiful. This was emphasised even more when we shopped for princess birthday parties. There were never any in my size. Things haven’t really changed. It was sooo hard for @amyeloisew and I to find these in our sizes. I actually wanted to be jasmine so I could be a Scarred princess but no surprises that people still continue to assume fat women don’t wear crop tops. How incredible would it be for little kids to grow up and instead of saying ‘I want to look like her!’ they could say ‘wow she looks like me!’ How incredible would it be if the epitome of beauty and the envy of many little girls wasn’t so equated to thinness?”

How amazing would it be if there was more representation in media? If children were able to watch cartoons with diversity in? How much more would we achieve if we didn’t spend so much time hating our bodies? I’ve lost days of my life fantasising about being smaller, counting calories and obsessing over any bit of me that wobbled. Like it or not, our perception of ourselves is tied to how we see people like us being treated. We see fat being treated as undesirable so we assume it is. We see being desired as a goal, and so we do whatever we can to reach that goal - regardless of how detrimental it may be to our mental health. And when we fail on whatever diet we put ourselves on, we feel worse about ourselves. It’s a vicious cycle. That’s why I want a fat princess. Not a princess whose story is about being fat. A princess who has all of the amazing adventures that her predecessors had while being fat. We need representation of all the magnificent and wildly different bodies there are, and stories that don’t primarily focus on that. Sure, show the struggles that different bodies may face, but don’t reduce these vibrant and brilliant characters to their bodies. My princess companion is the amazing @scarrednotscared and the photo was taken by the glorious @the_feeding_of_the_fox
A post shared by amyeloise (@amyeloisew) on Dec 14, 2017 at 10:01am PST

As a little girl I would stare, wide-eyed at the princesses on the screen and when I first met Jasmine at Disney World I was stunned into silence because I had never seen anyone so beautiful. In my head I am, and have always been, part of the unofficial Princess Line. It didn’t escape me that all the princesses were a very small dress size and were considered absolutely beautiful. And that the fatter (and thus “uglier”) characters were the villains or the comic relief. Ursula or LeFou. Queen of Hearts or Philoctetes. In fairytales it seemed that the thin and beautiful got the happiest ending, and the fat and unconventional, for the most part, didn’t. Disney has such a special place in my heart, but it’s undeniable that it sells a very particular beauty ideal, and we place a lot of value on that ideal. Then we grow up and realise they’re just cartoons and not real people, but we’re still fed a more human (albeit unrealistic for many) version of that ideal. In all honesty, I’m tired of seeing the same bodies represented again and again. It’s time we had a fat princess. A princess with scars. A trans princess. A princess with a disability. A princess that hasn’t had her body drawn from the same stencil as all the others. And so, with that in mind, I give you @scarrednotscared and myself. A fat Rapunzel and a Snow White with scars, looking cute as heck. : @the_feeding_of_the_fox
A post shared by amyeloise (@amyeloisew) on Dec 12, 2017 at 10:00am PST

So there was an article written about us being fat (and a Scarred) Disney princesses on a health website, posing it as a question up for debate. It makes me think why every other article written about me has been written as a statement but this was a question. But there was something else that got my attention, throughout the article, they called us “fat” even in the title, they called us “fat” princesses. Amy @amyeloisew and I are not “fat”. We are fat. Fat is not a dirty word. I want to address the fact that people will assume a fat princess will promote obesity? It’s going to come since people also think fat people existing promotes obesity. A BIG FAT NO. Representing bodies is simply that, representation. Fat people deserve representation because fat people exist and pretending in your cartoons and tv shows that we don’t exist has never helped anyone. We don’t need more shame and silence around fatness, we need to be seen, heard, represented and destigmatised. I also believe everyone deserves to feel beautiful. Yes, beauty should not matter but in our world it does and I personally believe people stop caring whether they are beautiful, when they feel beautiful so I want to make it a priority that everyone FEELS beautiful. Yes, even fat people. Yes, even unhealthy people. And no, those two are not equivalent. It’s this whole health debate right? First of all, let’s stop with this thin = healthy. Second of all, would it be so bad to have an unhealthy princess? I wish I felt beautiful lying in a hospital bed. It’s not glamorising illness. Instead, it’s telling young kids everywhere that their worth and beauty is defined so much more than simply their health. I think that would make a remarkable Disney movie. Health is not a choice remember, it’s a privilege. And it’s frankly a toss of the coin that I ended up with 15 surgeries before the age of 19, and you didn’t. All surgeries were not weight related and all surgeries caused weight gain. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Life saving surgeries that made me live longer, also made me fatter. #ScarredNotScared • : @the_feeding_of_the_fox
A post shared by Michelle Elman (@scarrednotscared) on Dec 14, 2017 at 10:05am PST

Elma has surgical scars on her body and feels like body positivity should go beyond size. All we see are Disney Princesses with beautiful unblemished skin, making young girls with scars, acne, or freckles feel as if their unique bodies aren’t beautiful.

Wooldridge summed it up as such:

“How amazing would it be if there was more representation in media? If children were able to watch cartoons with diversity in? How much more would we achieve if we didn’t spend so much time hating our bodies?”

Damn right!

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These women did a body-positive Disney Princess photo shoot, because some heroes wear gowns