Look closely at this movie's poster...

everythingdiz

Do you see Raya, Disney's newest princess, standing directly in the middle of this film's final poster? It actually took decades to get to this point and is a quiet milestone. The theatrical Disney princess movie "one sheets" of the last 30  years tell an important story of cultural evolution...

Let's start with The Little Mermaid in 1989, effectively the birth of the modernized Disney princess. There were two major posters: in the teaser, Ariel's shrouded in darkness, swimming toward the ocean's shimmering surface. In the other she's smiling, seated right next to her future husband. Beauty and the Beast? Two posters, same deal. In the Aladdin one sheet, Jasmine's barely there. Pocahontas' is better, but she's looking away from the viewer and only taking up a fraction of the image.

Mulan's poster, while admittedly iconic, is effectively her in silhouette and looks vaguely like the movie's ultimately about her horse. Then we have to wait over a decade for The Princess and the Frog, whose teaser makes the male villain larger than Tiana and cloaks her in shadow. The final one sheet is an interesting quasi-homage to '90s Disney animation posters like Hercules and Hunchback, and Tiana's very prominent, but ultimately she's looking into her future husband's eyes.

Next we have Rapunzel, a film so worried about its main character appealing to boys it was awkwardly renamed Tangled. Despite the teaser burying her in hair to the point of near-invisibility, the final one sheet does put her front and center. She's surrounded by implicit male protectors and an animal is wielding the sword instead of her because, well, you know. But at least she's not shrouded in darkness or demurely looking away from the proverbial camera. Brave's posters, to their credit, only feature Merida alone. In one she's looking at the viewer, but her hair is partly covering her face. And in another she's small, surrounded by nature and looking upward, but we're inching closer.

Then there's Frozen, a barn burner of a film and I'd argue the most influential Disney princess movie since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but ultimately very little progress poster-wise. Frozen II improves on the situation quite a bit: Elsa's featured not once but twice, and she's taking up plenty of space, effectively half the poster. Between Frozens we have Moana, where's she's always next to and arguably overshadowed by Maui.

Which now brings us to Raya and the Last Dragon. Yes, in the teaser most of her face is covered, but she also takes up nearly the entirety of the poster, a Disney princess first. We end with the film's final one sheet, which positions Raya unmistakably in the dead center. She's lit clearly, looking directly into the viewer's eyes. The sword's there, but not in that canned "strong" way where she's about to swing it at the viewer. And everything else - literally everything - is implicitly peripheral.

Disney, and the world, have a very long way to go before baked-in misogyny is completely erased. But the marketing materials for this film, especially the final one sheet, I believe represent a quiet watershed. Welcome to the world, Raya. You're long overdue but, thankfully, here nevertheless.

score 8/10

everythingdiz 4 March 2021

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6658640/