Even though I'm not a little girl anymore... *ahem*... I still love a good Disney animated film. That said, I've taken some issue with how the company chooses to market itself ("If you don't go to Disneyland, your childhood is incomplete and your parents hate you"). I've been most fascinated by the recent emphasis on "princesses," long a staple of Disney's stories. Now, Disney Princesses are a brand unto themselves, marketed towards little girls' romantic fantasies - and I have to say I'm not sure these ladies are the best role models a girl could have.
My family's full of Disney fans, so the shows often pop up in conversation. My brother and I just had a discussion about the Disney Princesses - we tried to figure out which ones were dynamic characters who grew over the course of their story and which were static and unchanging. Going one step further, I've decided to take a look at the "official" Disney princesses, one at a time, to figure out which ones I'd want my hypothetical daughter to adulate.
Specifically, I'll look at whether these animated young women are convincingly empowered protagonists ("Heroines") who fail and overcome in true heroic fasion, or whether they're passive players in their own stories ("Damsels") who wait for someone else to solve their problems for them.
Note (and this really should go without saying): I make no claim to impartiality. I am, as always, EXTREMELY biased. 
Snow White (Snow White) Arguably, Snow White's one of the more passive Disney princesses. Her problems are out of her control almost entirely - it's not her fault that she's so pretty. Her jealous stepmother tries to kill her a couple of times out of jealousy - nearly succeeds, too, thanks to that poisoned apple. Poor, trusting Snow White never learned to be wary of ugly strangers...
The closest Snow White comes to actively participating in her own fate is through the service she provides the dwarves - they protect her, and, in return, she cooks and cleans for them. Is that proactive? Maybe, but it's hardly progressive.
Greatest Strength: Domesticity
Greatest Weakness: Gullibility
Verdict: Damsel
Cinderella (Cinderella) Again, we've got the classic fairy tale trope - evil stepmother inflicts hardship upon a beautiful and undeserving child. Now, I find Lady Tremaine's favorable treatment of her natural children over her adopted child an understandable impulse from a stepmother (not sympathetic, perhaps, but understandable). So, again, it's not really Cinderella's fault that the world's so cruel to her.
...except the world's NOT cruel to her. Everyone loves her - dogs, mice, princes... Heck, she even has a laws-of-nature-breaking fairy godmother come in to salvage her big prom night. A "bibbidi bobbidi ex machina," if you will. I doubt I'd do much for myself if I could convince birds to do it for me.
Greatest Strength: Animal Charisma
Greatest Weakness: Poor Familial Relations
Verdict: Damsel
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) The poster child of passive princessdom actually gets a bit of a bad rap. True, Aurora spends at least half the movie asleep, literally waiting for a man to "bring her to life," as Amy Lee would say. She does absolutely nothing to avoid her fate.
I tend to be a bit more sympathetic towards Aurora, though, since she is kept in the dark by everyone around her. The fairies who look after her never bother to explain where she came from, and her parents didn't so much as write her a note.
I feel bad for Aurora. I hate to call her a "Damsel" - "Victim" is more like it, although that term's not big on dignity, either.
Greatest Strength: A Mean Three-Step
Greatest Weakness: Chronic Fatigue
Verdict: Damsel
Ariel (The Little Mermaid) The most sexualized of all the Disney princes is also the most under-aged. Shame on you, Disney.
Going chronologically, Ariel's probably the first of the Disney princesses to take any real action on her own. She decides on what she wants (a man) and does everything she can to get him, up to and including making a deal with the devil. So, in an almost refreshing change of pace, Ariel's actually the cause of her own problems.
Unfortunately, Ariel's never really called upon to change as a result of what she's done (well, I guess she changes from a mermaid to a human, but... shut up). She doesn't really atone for her mistakes, and her father and boyfriend are the ones who wind up fixing everything. Ariel's just a flighty teenage girl who falls in love with a boy her dad doesn't approve of. All Eric needs is a leather jacket.
Greatest Strength: Daddy's Girl
Greatest Weakness: Hormones
Verdict: Damsel
Belle (Beauty and the Beast) At first glance, Belle appears pretty helpless. She can't keep Gaston from courting her, she can't run away from the Beast without getting attacked by wolves, and she can't break out of the cellar to run and rescue her love. So, really, it seems like she belongs right smack dab in the center of the "Damsel" camp with a guitar singing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore."
However, Belle's not powerless just because she can't bust through an oak door. She bravely offers to trade her life for her father's, amd she refuses to put up with the Beast's anger and childishness. I'd call Belle a "Heroine," even though she's more Florence Nightingale than Xena, Warrior Princess.
Greatest Strength: Literacy
Greatest Weakness: Weak Arms
Verdict: Heroine
Jasmine (Aladdin) Jasmine's the only Disney princess I have no strong opinions about. Let's see if I can change that...
Agrabah's princess undergoes SOMETHING like character development, I guess - she runs away from home because she's dissatisfied with palatial life, falls for a homeless guy, and... umm... eventually gets to marry him? Like so many characters from romances, Jasmine doesn't seem to actually grow out of her weaknesses as much as she forgets about them because she's so "in love."
Still, Jasmine does come off a bit more confident and self-assured than a lot of the other princesses on the list. She stands up to Jafar, even when threatened with death and... other discomforts (Jafar basically threatens to rape her - intense crap for a kid's flick). Oh, and her singing voice is done by Lea Salonga, which is pretty cool.
Greatest Strength: Stubbornness
Greatest Weakness: Stubbornness
Verdict: Heroine
Pocahontas (Pocahontas) Say what you will about the movie itself (and there's a LOT to be said), the titular character herself ranks among the strongest, most selfless of Disney women. True, she's dissatisfied with life for no real reason. I guess deep down she was waiting for her great white prince to come...
Awkward.
Well, in any case, literally throwing yourself in harm's way to protect someone you love earns you hero points on just about any rubric.
Greatest Strength: Selflessness
Greatest Weakness: Historical Innacuracy
Verdict: Heroine
Fa Mulan (Mulan) It'd be too easy to look at Mulan, imagine her swinging a sword, mark down "Heroine," and be done with it. However, that's only half the story. While it's true that Mulan becomes a great soldier (she's perhaps the only Disney princess who can actually fight), it's important to remember that Mulan's story is kicked off when SHE SCREWS UP.
Mulan makes mistakes - a lot of them. She embarrasses her family, runs away from home, and impersonates a soldier. She breaks a lot of rules, and a lot of laws.
She also does her best to make things right on her own, rather than waiting for someone else to fix everything. That, to me, is what sets her ahead in the grand tally.
Greatest Strength: Transvestism
Greatest Weakness: Eddie Murphy
Verdict: Heroine
Tiana (The Princess and the Frog) You know, for a movie set in colorful New Orleans, I found
The Princess and the Frog to be a bit... bland. Tiana's perhaps one of the least well-rounded characters on the list, including the girl who spends the entirety of her own movie ASLEEP.
Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh. I'm just bothered by the fact that Tiana's main goal (to open her own restaurant) is stalled by her magical transformation into a frog - an obstacle that has NO thematic relation to her character arc.
As a character, though, I think Tiana's great. She works hard to be the best at what she loves to do, and she turns that into her career.
Also, there's an alligator or something in there.
Greatest Strength: Culinary Genius
Greatest Weakness: Umm... she works TOO hard?
Verdict: Heroine
Rapunzel (Tangled) Man, I love this character.
Rapunzel is one of the few Disney heroines whose growth actually FEELS like growth. She starts off the film naive, immature, and unsure of herself. Eventually, she matures into a self-sacrificing yet strong young woman. She makes the difficult decision to leave the only mother she's ever known and sacrifice the thing that makes her special to get out from under Gothel's tyrrany. Yeah, the AUDIENCE knows Mother Gothel is evil, but Rapunzel clearly doesn't. So the audience gets the privilege of watching everything her life is built on crumble.
To her credit, Rapunzel handles it all well - mostly. She comes out in the end a little sadder, a little wiser, but still the same cheerful young woman she was when she started.
Greatest Strength: Follicle Fortitude
Greatest Weakness: That ^#$%in' Horse!
Verdict: Heroine
CONCLUSION It looks like Disney has made an effort to make their female leads more proactive as the years go by. In years past, the princesses themselves were almost completely devoid of personality, standing in the center of their stories while the plot happened around them.
Disney's come a long way since then. The most explicit efforts to make strong female leads in Disney films (especially Mulan and Tiana) feel a bit insincere, almost like pandering. Still, the women have stepped further into the vortex of action, influencing the plot and being influenced by it - which is probably the way things should be.
