The Perfect Princess Paradox

Image Source: Tumblr user imagitory

Disney’s 2021 release of the film Encanto has made its rounds among internet critics and viewers alike. The movie garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews for its depictions of Colombian culture and themes of love, outcasts, and the meaning of family. One running thread throughout the story was the relationship between sisters Mirabel and Isabela. Isabela in particular goes through her own character arc where she learns to step outside of the picture-perfect box she’s been stuck in her whole life in order to let herself be free. She shows audiences that it’s okay to be the person outside of who others want you to be. Juxtaposed with Mirabel, who lives with the burden of being inherently inadequate given her family’s expectations, Isabela is under constant pressure to be perfect. She’s weighed down by it, and it’s shown at the end of the movie how much happier she becomes when she admits to herself that she’s miserable. She can let go of unreachable predispositions that keep her trapped in a false mirage of perfection.      

Isabela goes from this:    

Image Source: Disney Fandom

To this:

Image Source: Encanto Fandom

When this movie came out, it resonated with a lot of people. Now, of course, every Disney film, big or small, gets its merch. But when Isabela’s merchandise came out, they made a doll based on her look in the movie that wasn’t her fun, colorful, post-self-acceptance image with flower pollen in her hair as she smiled with her sisters. The doll Disney made took her back to her pre-character development look or the exact thing that the movie itself was using Isabela’s character to advocate against.

Image Source: Amazon

Personally, I believe that the film does a great job at subverting stereotypes and using them to tell a deeper story of empowerment. But despite that, the company that made the movie still fell into the same trap that the film had managed to subvert. The reason Isabela is a powerful character is that, while she wasn’t the main character, she showed a very relatable perspective for many kids, especially those who are the oldest in their families. The need to be perfect in your parents’ eyes in order to set an example for your siblings is something that so many kids go through, and Isabela embodies that role in order to break through it and show that you can be stronger when you don’t have those pressures weighing you down. But, while the film Isabela is a good example of that for the kids watching her, they were only given a perfect Disney princess doll to play with. This sends the message that even when someone goes against the princess mold, they’re still put back into it because in the industry it’s considered more marketable to be perfect than to be real.