and they can back to the fact that ever
since I was a kid I was nuts about film
and it is in that spirit that I’m in
going to introduce you to a very good
friend of mine today
what sizzling or technically the Walt
Disney Company and it’s dozens of
subsidiaries it is the second biggest
media conglomerates in the world by
revenue it made about fifty five billion
dollars last year alone in revenue and a
smart net worth stands at about ninety
six and it is the Walt Disney Company
that gave us these very special ladies
they are the Disney Princesses they are
an official lineup and some may be
wondering where these over but I guess
that in just a second I promised you a
talk on power and problems so those are
the betterment power the power of the
Disney Princesses there are two respects
in which either you can better measure
this that’s revenue and reach and in
terms of revenue there are two main
sources of that for the Disney
Princesses the first being films now
aside from the fact that for us a bit
early one think of a highest-grossing
Disney films the years they came out
there has also been a number of
live-action remakes both in film and TV
in the years after but you know what the
most recent one took it to a whole other
level frozen is the highest-grossing
anime
hitfilm ever maintenance it took 1.3
billion dollars at the global box office
and just behind it a few years later mr.
live-action remake of Beauty and the
Beast
starring the beloved Emma Watson that
made 1.2 billion these are incredibly
successful films but they’re not the
most successful aspect of the Disney
Princess franchise for that you really
have to look for the merchandise and
when we look at the global merchandise
revenue of 2016 we see a really
interesting picture now just to put this
in context these are the merchandise
sources owned by the Walt Disney Company
just to give you an idea of how big they
are these it’s hot burning merchandise
sources in the entire was these are the
Disney Princess franchise and frozen the
film of those final two princesses
respectively in one year alone in
merchandise revenue the Disney Princess
franchise makes 2.7 billion dollars
frozen made 1.6 billion just those two
princesses on their own and many have
speculated and I agree that this is why
honor and a so the frozen princesses
won’t introduce you to the official
Disney Princess like quite frankly they
don’t need to be that those stars
Freaknik and plenty of dollar along
their own because they were going to be
introduced to line up event Disney never
quite dead and this is basically the
reason why but the even more interesting
thing obviously may be provision they
perform very well but if you do consider
the frozen sisters to be part of the
official wire which basically everyone
does
then the Disney Princesses are without a
doubt categorically the most profitable
merchandise source in the world in 2016
and they remain that today just to put
that in perspective they made four point
three billion dollars in one year alone
that is over 8% of Disney’s entire 2017
revenue it is four point five percent of
entire Park Network they are an
incredibly powerful tool but just for a
bit of fun let me show you what this
merchandise actually looks like
currently make this much money from
these guys you have obviously the
classic dolls and they’re numerous
variations and whatever form they come
in you have the famous costumes and
pretty much anything else you could
possibly imagine I’m talking cheddar
monopoly sets deodorants underwear it’s
all there and love to be left out the
frozen sisters have their own versions
of all of these as well with some even
more hilarious pieces and products I
might favour here are the food products
you have like three different types of
cheese turkey sausages satsumas
champagne little immigrants you can put
on your toast all with other announces
spaces just employees window breaks but
if they don’t want to remember about
merchandise it’s that it is it’s just a
measure of profits it’s a measure of
exposure this start with in our homes
it’s very prominent and particularly
young women’s lives and so when I talk
about the reach of these characters
mutter Weis is partly a measure of that
but so make it even more permissive even
more tangible put your hand up if you
have ever heard or see any of the news
no right Cinderella Sleeping Beauty
you’ve seen any of these pictures before
aware of any of these stories know any
of these women hands nice and high have
you ever heard any of those words any of
those names take a look around
is there anyone simply the side someone
who doesn’t have a hand up it’s not a
single person in this room who doesn’t
know these characters and I would
challenge any of you to find anyone in
your lives who isn’t aware of them so
having hopefully convinced you just how
powerful these characters are I now have
to introduce you to a notorious test
together what the problem with we might
be it’s called the Bechdel pair you
really argue
analyzing the depiction of women in film
without mentioning it it’s taken to be a
really rudimentary measure of depicting
women in films and for any uni goers
here like myself don’t worry it’s really
easy to pass this test there are only
three things you have to do do you have
at least two verbal leaves women who
talk to each other about everything
other than men that is literally all you
have to do to pass this test is fulfil
those three practical seems like pretty
obvious right I don’t know if the woman
here he’s ever gone a day in her life
without talking to another woman who has
a name
and speaks about something other men and
yet when you go to the Bechdel test comm
where there are over seven and a half
thousand movies analyzed for these
criteria you will find that actually a
startlingly high proportion of them fail
vector-based 44% to the insights terror
census those go one attack 22 percent of
them fail to of the test and the
remaining 10% fail every single test on
that very very rudimentary yes now
although this picture has improved
definitely the pass ray is definitely
going up the thing I really want you to
take home from the Bechdel test in
addition to thinking differently about
some of your make favorite movies maybe
is that it makes us pay attention to
what is seen and what is hurt in a film
who is seen who is heard unless I want
to use to structure the discussion I’m
going to give on the Disney Princess
films because in all of those respects
they have undeniably
improving as the years are right the
narratives that these incredibly
powerful heroines engage in have been
getting a little aggressive
you’ve been seeing them take charge of
their lives more right from Snow White’s
and the Sleeping Beauty who just laid in
Mobile waiting to be saved up to Merida
honor and Elsa who saved their people
fights and defender that they love but
what are the remaining needful knives
well let’s think back to the Bechdel
test let’s think about what we hear in
these cells I’m gonna be talking about a
really interesting piece of
sociolinguistics analysis by two really
cool linguistic important Eisenhower who
extracted and digitally analyzed all of
the audio from the Disney Princess films
and this is some of the information
advanced if you look at the percentage
of male female speaking roles in these
films which are almost exclusively led
by women there are always more male
speaking roles and female with one
exception now the lowest is obviously
Aladdin but as the name kind of gives
you a hint you’re like well that’s the
one that’s led by male star allowed of
himself so we’ll just we’ll brush that
off actually the highest performing at
Cinderella the only one to achieve
parity between male and female speakers
and all the rest of them have fewer
female speaking roles of man but why do
you say as you have said these are still
possessed by women presumably the female
characters speak way more than all of
the smaller ones and so if you look at
the percentage of lines soakin not the
dispenser percentage of speaking roles
you’d be a real different picture maybe
not so much of a different picture as
you can see on average men still talk
three times more than women in these
films even though they’re led by females
is the lowest sister the ladder but
we’ve made a peace with that the start
of the drop actually comes with a little
moment before that there were equal or
greater number of female sloping lines
in films for those of you familiar with
the storyline of the Little Mermaid’s
you might think well Ariel loses her
voice right at the start
sorry she gives up her voice right as
the star I’ll brush over the question
allottee of that so maybe that’s why
there are so many fewer female sleeping
lines in that film but as you can see
that trend continues on and it’s not
until very recently that it gets better
and actually the reason why Fortin
eisenhower think this drop happens it’s
because it was at this time that the
Disney Princess movies entered their
release on air as its so called really
influenced by the popularity of Broadway
musicals that have this big ensemble
casts that triple groups and movies
where they class size huge increase and
as it did the genuine of points increase
to because when they added a shopkeeper
or a librarian or an inventor it was
male by default
male was the norm all of the sidekicks a
notoriously male and that means that
even when you get up to the most recent
film the first one to have not one but
two female leads it still only has 41
percent of its line spoken by women and
also what you might think but these
girls are watched by very young very
impressionable young people myself the
Clinton and what happens when you don’t
have nearly as many women opening their
mouths as men you later the impression
clean our speech isn’t as common this
assignment isn’t as important as male
speech and in a while what we’re trying
to get rid of it’s beep up more at work
to open their mouths and meetings to
have a voice this is definitely
problematic in fact the best-performing
film is another very recent one brave I
don’t want you to remember it because
I’m going to come back to it in just a
second for now let’s get on to the
second part of the program here we’re
now asked what is the theme okay so we
ran into something kind of funny and
definitely cute called the baby-faced
overgeneralization effects and what this
is it’s a phenomena tend to perceive
those who have childlike facial features
as having childlike tricks and we treat
them accordingly you don’t need to look
at a baby to understand what these
traits might be you have the large
whites their eyes the high eyebrows the
really big forehead the shrunken nose
moving large mites their eyes high
eyebrows big forehead within those
drunken show oh yeah sorry
if everything the one of the Disney
Princesses right he’s supposedly strong
unique characters that all look like
babies once you feel it you can’t unsee
it I promise and although you might
think there hasn’t been a lot of work
done on it there was a lot of work on
the line analysis support tonight and
holidays there has been a lot of
research done on the baby phases over
generalization effects so what are these
sweets that we associate with people
with more babies features well weakness
submissiveness lack of intellectual
students I know you might think you know
what these are actually all pretty
appropriate rates to associate with
babies like it’s understandable that we
instinctively correlate those traits
with those facial features because
that’s what babies are like right yeah
it’s even fine for some of the early
Princesses but the more you go on
through the lineup the more you realize
that actually these are really
inappropriate characteristics for a lot
of these characters Elsa isn’t within a
million miles of any one of them so why
is it that the veil looks like babies so
no and just I like you the absurdity of
some of these proportions rebecca
Haley’s notes so even though the
narratives the most of the recent
princesses are and have improved their
eyes are still bigger than their wrists
it’s an yeah it’s true our analysis eyes
are bigger than numerous but you know
what they don’t like
there are every single princess had eyes
almost white speaker Flores it’s an
absurd proportion and a similarly absurd
one is our very popular movement the
waist-to-hip ratio now a larger ratio
means a larger difference between
someone’s waist circumference in their
hip circumference and for any woman or
man in the US you will know that often
that’s not a very big difference right
unless you’re Kim K I suppose but Lauren
Bronx Kylie acid some of the Disney
Princess Sophia stories to show us just
how these girls that look with real ways
how it makes realize how absolutely
absurd some of the original proportions
are look at Jasmine the way she’s about
this Rick of her I thought over it’s
absolutely insane and this isn’t just an
artifact of when you transform something
into a class uniform because as we saw
in 2015 when Linda James say the
live-action remake of Cinderella she had
an absolute minister waist there was a
lot of journalists and social media
commentary people would freak out they
criticize there there was talk of the
courses confirmed Photoshop denied it
wasn’t this just two years later when
Emma Watson was in the live-action
remake of beauty in the piece there was
no constrictive posits and there was
definitely no corset and no Photoshop in
real life she has very similar
proportions to Lily James and she
appeared just that way in the films and
you know what she was described as
having reinvented the Disney Princesses
having brought them into the modern age
thank God Thank You Emma thankfully we
can question the violence and the people
who listens to the commentary from the
Cinderella felt and thought you know
what we’re going to do something a bit
better now there was actually one of the
cartoon character princesses but also
have really realistic proportions but
she ran into her own problem this is
Merida the lead character of grapes the
film I’ve lied to you earlier
a really great Center to female spoken
lights this is how she appears in the
film as amazed by Walt Disney Pictures
this is how she appears in merchandise
as sold in the Walt Disney Store she’s
had something to put on she’s got some
hair extensions in her dress hissing and
transform into a slinky off-the-shoulder
number her wasted almost halves
like practical utility belt has become a
source of sash she’s completely lost her
go I’m just sharing things like stuff
and to anyone with eyes you can see that
these two pictures even without knowing
what the characters stand for or
represent some very different things
Merida is brave feisty
that does not convey those sadness to me
and to know our eight digits to the
co-director of the film either she was
appalled at what Disney marketing had
done to this character Mickey the sexy
and skinny and she won’t appoint Sal
that it reflects a really narrow mind
view of what’s gonna make money
clearly Disney marketing didn’t think
that the real Merida was marketable but
this princess eyes version of her would
and she’s not alike think of if you will
an adventurous reader and a courageous
warrior Disney has created such
princesses Florence
thank the Lord Belle and Rulon
respectively now this is how they appear
in the films when they’re in these modes
Rita
warrior but they also appear in the
films in very different modes Belle as
their glamorized hostage Mulan as a
matchmaker reject who doesn’t feel like
she’s going to get a husband and a clear
she don’t really like to wear makeup now
which of these versions do you think
Disney marketing chose to put into dog
form when they were selling these
characters this is what you get
installs when you try and buy a barrier
dog or in lieu lands all for your little
girl who wants to grow up to be just
like her it seems as Elizabeth cults
rightly points out that for Disney
marketing personality is secondary to
appearance just let us think in what you
look like is more important than who you
are and nowadays they’re very much
trying to push against that kind of
message right and I must say – I said to
a group of yarns but as a number of
years ago people are going to tell you
that your principles will cost you
believing that women should look like
real people
and not like cartoons it’s gonna cost
you you’re not going to be able to sell
that well if something is priceless like
your principles should be figure out how
to make it earn what it deserves not
cost what it doesn’t just to drive home
the personal resonance of this whole
personalities and more less important
memory seven years ago the Guardian came
out with an article entitled was our
promises young apprentice victory down
to her dress I’d won a national
televised competitive business show the
first another year at won a BAFTA and a
well-respected newspaper chose to make
their only commentary on it’s about what
I was wearing in all the boardroom
scenes never mind my skills they said
what people really cared about suicide
tracks
apparently it threatens to usurp me of
it and even the Lord Shiva himself felt
that the only thing worthy of commenting
on when he tweeted about my victory
later but just as it was a deserve to
prioritize my parents over my
personality at that moment it’s absurd
to do it with the princesses as well as
David Trumbull shows in his real life
princesses photo series where he takes
real-world female heroines and
criticizes them
you’ve got political activist Malala
yousufzai Gloria Steinem Rosa Parks he
got presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton he got scientist Mary Kiran
you’ve got Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg and not that you know max
from looking at these pictures because
they’re unrecognizable there is nothing
about what those women stand for or what
their personalities are about that comes
across in the way they look nothing at
all he was trying to show how necessary
it is to paint women with a specific
models a superficial brush and limited
templates is ridiculous
those papers there are recognizable he
rightly notes the fiction is the lens
through which young people first
perceived role models and if he’s right
but I think he is then the Disney
now yes they have improved leaps and
bounds in previous years but the reason
why I highlight these things they could
still improve on is because I like
millions of people around the world love
these characters love these films
remember their stories so this isn’t
really a talk about the power and
problem of princesses it’s a talk about
their potential thanks very much [Applause]