What if There was Never Once Upon a Time But an “Unhinged Representation of the Disabled Womanhood Journey?

The Walt Disney Company released its first feature animated film in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; little to their surprise, this film initiated the princess phenomenon (Muir, 2023, p.2). The Disney Princess films portray two representations of females: the naive, young, beautiful princess and the older, cruel, feared by all, independent villain. Using Critical Disability Studies, Feminist and Feminist Disability Studies paradigms will analyze how the ideology of cure is embedded in the Princess and Villain’s journey to overcome the curses cast upon them and change the trajectory of their current life. The implications of the representations for the Princess and Villain journey to disabled womanhood and if there has been a progression in the depiction of disability and femineity in the Disney Princess animated films. A mixed method was used to uncover the findings for the qualitative study: reflective thematic analysis and autoethnography.