in addition to what pea vine said:

i would also like to see a young woman in popular media that enjoys wearing pink and frilly clothes and dresses, but is more than capable of taking care of herself! let the whimsical, cottage-core/coquette girls be tough and strong while still being beautiful and loving soft things. i don’t see a problem with female characters being tough and not wearing pink (take susie and dess from deltarune), however i do truly enjoy seeing soft, warm characters (frills and all) being able to defend themselves and just kick butt.

although there’s nothing wrong with a character needing saving, it gets old fast when it’s the young woman being saved by the big strong man multiple, multiple times. i like it when there’s a healthy balance of being saved and saving others.

this is not meant to discredit anything that pea vine said, i agree with all of it! this is in addition to what they said. (also, representation in media is absolutely terrible. disney is especially notorious for this. a great show to watch if you’re looking for good, tasteful representation is The Owl House–although it’s a disney cartoon, it’s wholesome and fun, and even touches on serious issues.)

Yeah, some people do just like wearing pink and wearing frilly stuff and are very strong and brave, and that’s fine. Company’s need to understand that not everyone is like that though. And thanks for telling me about the Owl House, maybe I’ll watch it sometime! 😊

I think Disney and Hollywood movies are, in general, absolutely terrible at putting in good female characters. In fact, most American movies seem to be bad at that – it’s one of the reasons why less-popular foreign movies can be much nicer to watch. Disney’s fairytale movies are, without doubt, irritatingly silly on the women front; to be fair, though, it’s hard to adapt a fairytale without being stereotypical and insulting. I’m of the opinion that fairytales in themselves are definitely not fit reading for children, or even for anyone. When one thinks about it, what is it with all these princes kissing sleeping princesses and parents deserting their children?? I liked how Frozen reversed all those stereotypes, though of course there they had to make Anna snarky and Elsa completely unfeminine…

In fact, I feel like movies and books and general Popular Culture don’t value real femininity. Women are either silly and weak, or overly pushy and mean. No one shows the strong but loving and caring side of women, who can look at things from a more humanitarian viewpoint than most men. Of course, there are many different kinds of women irl, including opinionated, leader-type ones – and they can obviously be amazing too – but there is a side of general femininity that’s ignored. We have our own unique strengths, but those are never shown in pop culture; instead, we’re pushed to be tough, uncaring, and individualistic – “heroic” from the point of view of macho men. In reality, though, I would argue that the tough women protagonists are the least strong, while the real heroines are the ones who channel their own natural best side.

Oh, and also – I completely agree that it would be nice to see more balance in the saving/being saved! Jane Eyre comes to mind; Mr. Rochester gives off moody-hero vibes, and then Jane has to get it together and actually save him instead :P I’d say it’s fairly realistic, besides…

I agree with what everyone has been saying about Disney and such! And just an extra thought, what about Moana? I mean technically she’s not a princess but she’s a fairly strong female character who doesn’t fall in love (that I’m aware of) or need rescuing (errrr I think I haven’t seen the first movie in a bit) and she goes out and discovers things herself? Pretty decent overall, I think
@Amethyst you make good points there though about women in general, it’s true that they don’t often show ‘the strong but loving and caring’ as you put it. They definitely should :/

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this! We really need better representation! And yes, Moana doesn’t fall in love with anyone! Which is nice, I just wish more movies were like that.
And Amethyst, I also don’t understand why people think fairy tales are good children’s stories!  I have this book of feminist folk tales, that is much better and has more interesting stories, in my opinion.

Wow, when this thread was created, I was still Climate Girl. I’ve switched gender identities about 5 times since then, and I landed on basically the same one. Full circle!

I don’t know if someone said this already, but, you have to except the princess in a Disney movie. That’s like, what Disney is known for!! If you’re gonna watch a princess Disney movie, you have to bear in mind that 1, she will fall in love (except among few) 2 she will probably not be hated but, not understood? Like in Jasmine. And 3, cause it’s a princess, she’s likely to be imagineered how you would imagine a princess, with frills, pink and everything else. 
Yeah, princess movies have frilly, lovey, pink princesses.