To analyse the Disney Princess films I created a new film analysis framework to produce a thick description (Geertz 1973) of the film facet of the Disney Princess Phenomenon. Not only will this help scholars in Disney Studies who wish to analyse and create a typology to identify the changes in representation within the Disney Princess Phenomenon or in wider Disney animation/franchises, but due to the transferable nature of the film framework it can be used to explore a variety of popular culture from a feminist media studies perspective. It can also help princess and popular culture fans, parents, and students to critically engage with the media they consume.

Taking a feminist media studies approach to my analysis, I firstly contextualized the princesses, exploring the cultural context each princess film was produced in. Then, I conducted textual analysis of each princess film, examining: plot points; how the princesses are described by other characters; dialogue between princesses and others; who is speaking; how other characters behave towards the princess; what behaviours does the princess display herself; what activities does the princess take part in? Through this I identified patterns within each film where princesses were displaying significant traits through their actions or behaviours and labelled these as ‘character traits’. This allowed me to identify and compare different depictions of femininity, which revealed five clusters or ‘waves’, each of which embodies a significantly different model of femininity. To reflect this, there are five separate chapters in the film section. Although the Disney Princesses have been analysed from a feminist and chronological perspective before (Davis 2006; Mollet 2020), this research provides an analytical framework that helps researchers to situate the Disney Princess Phenomenon into waves based of the models of femininity presented by princesses, tracking the micro changes in their development, and identifying catalysts for behavioural and narrative changes within the phenomenon.

I argue this framework is a transferable structure that can be used to analyse a wide range of franchises and cultural phenomenon within Disney Studies, across popular culture, and can be used to examine different demographics such as ethnicity, sexuality, and disability.