We talk about this a lot in my Disney classes, but so often, it's the female characters who are the focus of at best discussion, at worst criticism in Disney films. (With the exception of Pixar. Because Pixar has this weird obsession with male leads. And just when we think they're making progress with films like Brave and Toy Story 4, which feature Merida and Bo Peep & Jessie, we get Onward. Don't even get me started on Onward. I am...not impressed by the trailer.)
And while the heroines (and, to some extent, the villains) of Disney Princess movies aren't necessarily fully-fleshed out characters, they're at least better than the Disney Princes. After all, Snow White's prince doesn't even have a name (I refuse to believe it's "Florian"), and Cinderella's love interest is known simply as "Prince Charming". It's not until we get to Sleeping Beauty that the prince even has a name and actual dialogue.
This is, of course, something that's changing in more recent films. Speaking of the 2015 live-action Cinderella, screenwriter Chris Weitz says,
"Prince Charming is something of a cypher in the animated (1950) version and the Grimm and Perrault talks. I felt that whereas it was acceptable and even useful to have him be essentially symbolic in earlier versions (it was just enough that he was rich and important and handsome), an audience today demands a bit more in terms of identification."Kristoff isn't technically a prince (yet) -- I'm hoping for a Frozen III where Kristoff and Anna get married and Elsa brings Honeymarren as her date -- but the ideas are the same: it's not enough that he's Anna's True Love, we have to know more about him to understand why Anna loves him. (Frankly, his relationship with Sven is enough for me: he's goofy and good with animals.)
And, as Kristen Bell points out to Jimmy Fallon, it's equally important to know why he loves her and to see him loving her. It's not something we get enough of, and can go a long way in changing the narrative that leads to Toxic Masculinity.
