Disney Does Not Market To Guys

I enjoy Disney films. I think Beauty and the Beast is one of the best animated films, if not one of the best films ever. However, most guys, especially in this generation would not admit or actually say that. I cannot blame them. Disney has built its empire on the Disney Princess franchise. They just added the two new princesses from Frozen, so it is no secret they plan on expanding the Disney princess line up. The more I thought about, the more I realize how Disney does not market to guys to the same extent.

Disney's last three recent films that stuck with the traditional Disney musical were The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen. All three of these films have a female lead. All three of these heroines are active and progress their own story. No more princesses like Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. These princess sat around and had things happen to them. Their princes came in and solved the conflicts of the movies from them. Sleeping Beauty did not kill Maleficent. Snow White did not wake up herself. Now that society has allowed women to have more active roles, Disney is creating a network of princesses around the strong, independent woman picture.

Ariel was the first "modern" Disney princess. While it is true that Eric kills Ursala and saves the day in the end, Ariel took action upon herself to make her dream come true. Yes, selling her voice to an obvious villain was stupid, but at least she brought herself there. She is adventurous to a fault. The movie does teach girls that in order to achieve their goals they cannot sit around and do nothing. They have to go out there themselves. Since The Little Mermaid we have had similar females such as Mulan, Belle, Pocahontas,  Tiana, Rapunzel, Anna, and Elsa, play similar roles in their films. Some females like Jasmine and Megara are given a personality to not make them bland, but they do not do anything in their movies to make them active. They are a damsels in distress.

The reason why I brought that background up is because we are going to look at the relationship between Disney and guys. We have already established that Disney's main market is the princess line. Now there are Disney movies with male protagonists such as Peter Pan, Hercules, Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan, and The Hunchback of Notredame. However, looking at the elements of some of these films, it has the same style as a Disney princess movie.

Girls might dream of becoming princesses, but I have never heard a man say he wants to be a prince. When you look at how the Disney males are drawn, they are drawn in an attractive way. They appeal to girls. Look at Hercules for example. If a regular guy were to draw what he thought Hercules would look like, he would draw Hercules with huge muscles, rigid lines, a scar, hair; something like the Hulk. However, Disney draws Hercules as an attractive young teen. Point being that even in their guy movies, Disney still markets more towards the females.

Love is not what guys want to see in a movie. Yes, there are popular guy films like Iron Man, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, that have a love plot line in the movie, but guys do not care about that. No guy cared about Aragorn's love to Eowin or Han Solo's love to Princess Lea. Guys like action. Disney's Aladdin, is centered around love. Aladdin is trying to have Jasmine fall for him. Yes, there are elements such as the fight at the end to appeal to guys, but the romance is the main theme of the movie. For instance the most famous song in the movie, A Whole New World, is a love song. Aladdin is who girls want guys to be like, not who guys want to be like.

There are always exceptions though. Tarzan and The Hunchback of Notredame also have love as a major theme, but those movies have protagonists who are not the feminine prince. The leads are rough, and tough. Tarzan is more of the brawny figure guys look up to and The Hunchback of Notredame has a serious adult tone to it, which separates it from other Disney films.

The reason The Lion King was the highest grossing animated film at the time was because it had the right balance. The main theme of the movie was not love, but personal growth. Simba's relationship with Nala is a side thing while the movie focuses on Simba's return to become a king. It had comedy, tragedy, family morals, and an intense villain. It was not targeted towards a specific gender.

Disney has primarily marketed itself towards a female audience. This has led to the reputation of guys find it too girly. This has led guys to move away from Disney and as a result, Disney makes more movies with female protagonists. While in recent movies such as Tangled and Frozen contain a male and female protagonist, for example Rapunzel and Flynn, both figures are made to attract females. The girl is a beautiful princess and the guy is a handsome prince figure. The main theme of love in those movies does not appeal to guys. Keep in mind that I am mostly looking at the films that are the traditional Disney musical, so I excluded films like Bolt and Wreck-it Ralph.