“It’s Called a Hustle, Sweetheart”: Zootopia, Moana, and Disney’s (Dis) empowered Postfeminist Heroines

Abstract

Throughout its long history, the Walt Disney Company has repeatedly relied on a patriarchal idealization of femininity to craft its animated female protagonists. In Disney films, male interests, expectations, power, and leadership are consistently valued over those of female characters, who must submit unquestioningly to male direction. Internet reviewers and respected news sources alike claimed that Judy Hopps, Zootopia’s bunny cop protagonist, and Moana’s royal Polynesian title character, are independent, “feminist” heroines who counter this patriarchal narrative template. While critics argue that Judy and Moana defy Disney’s patriarchal template, these two films actually represent a postfeminist, rather than a feminist, reimagining of Disney’s template which resigns both protagonists to narratives that celebrate and center male power. Judy Hopps and Moana act independently, but each woman is relegated to a tenuous relationship with a domineering male character whom she must defer to and emotionally nurture. Intentionally or not, Disney empowers Judy and Moana only to the extent that both women manage and control themselves, rather than allowing them to exercise power to contest the relationships and societies which oppress them. Thus, these films offer a tepid acknowledgment of the problems with Disney’s traditional depiction of femininity, but they ultimately reveal that female empowerment exists in the Disney Co.’s narratives only when incubated in a toxic, platonic relationship with a male character.