1. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
An iconic fairytale and an iconic princess, the main problem with
Sleeping Beauty is the very mixed and damaging gender messages it seems to be portraying and establishing within the film - in the classic film (in case you're unaware of the story), a beautiful princess is born in a kingdom and through being uninvited to the child's christening, an evil witch places a spell on the girl, cursing her to die on her sixteenth birthday. As a protagonist, Aurora isn't exactly the most engaging or brilliant heroine to ever grace a Disney screen - she barely gets fifteen minutes of screen time despite the film being about her and is shown engaging in all the stereotypical female behaviours portrayed in the 1950s such as singing, baking and sewing to name a few. More so, her passivity in the curse raises some eyebrows - her feminine curiosity is seen as being her downfall as she pricks her finger on the cursed spindle. Even her personality is passive and reactive, rather than taking on any agency. The other women in the film are just as conflicted - Aurora's mother doesn't get any significant speaking lines while Maleficient, the only woman with significant power, is an evil villainess whom the prince must slay. Even the good witches are played with largely comedic effect and are seen as homely and benign - their only powers come in assisting the male hero, rather than defeating the evil queen herself. Aurora perpetuates the original Disney princess archetype of a girl who needs rescuing - even when she's the lead of her film, she's left incapacitated and lifeless, the ultimate passive victim who needs rescuing due to her giving into temptation and deviating from the rules. Not a great role model for girls and women to say the least and one that has probably had the strongest negative impact on the way young girls see themselves, something I feel particularly worried about. So! They were my choices for the ten classic movies with worrying morals - obviously, it's impossible to cover every single one, but if there's any out there that are close to your heart, then please let me know in the comments below!