Deconstructing Disney’s divas: a critique of the singing princess as filmic trope

Abstract

This article contributes to the discourse of the body and the voice in feminist psychoanalytic film theory by exploring the currently under-theorised notion of the singing body in particular, as this notion finds manifestation in Disney’s Singing Princess as filmic trope. Analyses of vocal musical coding follow her trajectory across 13 Disney princess films to reveal deeper insight into what she sings, how she sings, and why she sings. In this manner, it is argued, the Singing Princess gradually emerges from her genealogical roots as innamorata, a position of vocal corporealisation and diegetic confinement, to one wherein her voice assumes a position of authority over the narrative, and from one of absolute submissiveness and naïve obedience to a greatly enriched experience of her own subjectivity.