The Patriot Post® · Disney Girl Bosses

It’s official: Disney has forgotten why we fell in love with its princesses in the first place.

Once the hallmark of timeless fairy tales — where grace, love, and imagination ruled — today’s Disney female characters are geared toward hardened, hyper-independent “girl bosses” wielding swords instead of kindness and looking to pick a fight rather than riding off into the sunset with her prince. The idea is that it’s no longer enough for young girls to dream of a castle, a ball, or true love. To stay relevant, a princess must storm the gates, command armies, or deliver monologues about empowerment.

Frankly, everyone is exhausted by it.

We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t demand that every classic tale be rewritten to fit the modern feminist narrative. We’re not clamoring for female leads who reject softness, sacrifice joy, and treat vulnerability as a weakness.

In today’s day and age, average women are already juggling a family with work, paying bills, and trying to keep their heads above water. What they want — or better yet, need — is a two-hour escape at the movies, where they can find peace, beauty, romance, and even a little magic. They don’t want another lesson in how to be more like the men in their lives. As Disney has jumped on board with the modern feminist agenda, the company has spent years slowly abandoning what drew audiences, particularly young girls and their mothers, to their movies and theme parks. We can no longer count on it to bring us the enchantment it was once known for. Disney entertainment projects feel more like DEI meetings than a magical escape from reality.

Columnist Harper Coleman describes just how far the once princess-friendly company has strayed from the years when it stood firmly on imagination and charm. “Before the release of Disney’s ‘Elemental’ in June 2023, no new female protagonist of a Disney kid’s movie had been written with a love story since ‘Frozen’ in November 2013. That’s nearly ten years. Moving away from the age-old Disney princess trope, they began writing strong female characters — independent women who fought for themselves, lived to be leaders, and didn’t need any man to love or take care of them.”

The blandness of these new characters has not gone unnoticed, as Coleman explains that the female leads seem “copy and pasted” from movie to movie, resulting in stories that are hard to believe coming from the same brand that gave us Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. “They’ve become the opposite of what they were originally intended to be — rather than a strong, feminist image, these women have become another way to push the idea of what a woman is into a singular box. In trying to free women, the stereotype created by this inadvertently constricts them even more.”

It’s not that strong female characters are unwelcome. Stories of strong, independent women have become a welcome part of Disney’s legacy. Mulan, Moana, Elsa, and Merida — we love them. But those characters were multidimensional, fighting for something bigger than themselves while staying rooted in love, family, and vulnerability.

What we’re seeing now is something different. The tall tales regurgitated today seem to emerge from a list of checked boxes, including feminism and political activist causes.

Of the girl-boss agenda in general, Tania Ortiz for The Cougar Chronicle put it bluntly: “Making women heads of companies as the new ‘men’ will do nothing to improve the systemic racial and gender inequalities or at least address them in the workplace.” There’s no substance in simply mimicking the behaviors of men and calling it empowerment. All we’ve done is sacrifice the ability to inspire women to be women. Instead, the focus has been on rebranding womanhood and femininity by telling women that they need to be men.

Here’s a truth the modern entertainment industry has forgotten: Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty weren’t weak. They were resilient, which is a form of strength. They showed kindness in the face of cruelty and held on to hope in darkness. And yes, they dreamed of love, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Whatever happened to the mantra of “follow your dreams”? Those original stories weren’t anti-feminist — they were human. They showed that strength can be soft, joy can be courageous, and being gentle doesn’t make you a doormat.

In an article titled “Why EACH Disney Princess is Strong,” Taylor Danielle Castro reminds us of the traits that made each of these early characters popular with their female audience. She asks, “If Snow White is strong enough to remain pure while being exposed to the evilest aspect of human nature, then why is it that she would not be considered a ‘good’ role model for young girls?” Of Sleeping Beauty, she says, “She’s a girl that loves the life she’s been given, although it isn’t much. She’s a girl without any phobia of the natural earth. She’s a girl that is kind to all creatures she encounters.” Castro describes Cinderella’s power in facing adversity, writing, “Cinderella is stronger than any of us could ever hope to be. For Cinderella does the nearly impossible task of holding in her fury for the sake of being kind.”

An increasingly rare occurrence these days.

These weren’t young women who needed saving, as they believed things could get better despite the hand they were dealt in life. Those are the values that we seem to be missing today. It is difficult to find those who regularly express gratitude, face their challenges without claiming constant victimhood, and respond to those with whom they disagree with respect and grace. Women are now speaking out: They want true feminine characters back. We’ve had enough of the endless grind, the pressure to lead every charge, and the expectation that we need to deny our inherently feminine instincts just to feel valid. Many women actually crave the fairy tale and desire to find a prince. Many want to believe that being a nurturing, loving woman is still something to aspire to instead of something that needs to be programmed out of us.

Disney’s attempt to chase cultural trends is just one example of the mindset that is alienating the very audience it once could rely on to bring success to its projects.

We’re not asking for perfection or a return to the past. We’re simply asking for balance. Not every woman wants to be a girl boss. We want characters who inspire because they fight the way real women fight: by caring, enduring, and hoping. We want fairy tales that show the value of love and joy and that it’s even okay to accept help from a prince now and then.

So, Earth to Disney: Bring back the ballroom, the songs, the animals, the castles, and the romance. Bring back the heart you used to have.

Because this “girl boss” thing? It’s not working.

Just ask Rachel Zegler.