
This Artist Decided To Show What Disney Characters Would Look Like If They Had Realistic Bodies
Disney gave us a colorful bunch of friends to grow up with. Some were bold, expressive, and charismatic. Others were quiet, deep thinkers, carrying a world of emotions in their kind hearts. But as different as they were on the inside, most of them were very similar on the outside.
So artist Wyethe Smallish decided to try and see what they would look like if they were built differently. "I have my own body image issues that I work on, and a major way that I do that is through my art," Wyethe told Bored Panda. "So as a therapeutic exercise I wanted to alter some characters I really loved growing up."
But what started as a personal project has already touched hundreds of thousands of people—after Wyethe shared her works on social media, they quickly went viral, receiving tons of praise from people who really appreciate such a refreshing take on their beloved characters.
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Ariel
Mulan
The Disney Princess franchise is comprised of thirteen princesses and a number of associated heroines. Regardless of any actual title(s) they have, each official Disney princess is properly addressed (within the franchise) with the title of "Princess" preceding their name.
They are: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, Moana, and Raya.
"Growing up as a little girl, I always looked up to [Disney's] princesses and admired [their] stories," Wyethe said.
"I noticed that they all had the exact same body proportions, and that made it harder for me to relate to them as I grew up."
Princess Aurora
Jasmine
Rapunzel
She's probably got the strongest arms and core in the world from swinging around, painting, and kneading dough all day!
Having said that, Wyethe really enjoys the Disney character design. "It is a gorgeous style!"
However, she believes that, "as a society in this day and age, body representation not only makes the image more relatable, but it also helps with body acceptance and body appreciation."
Jasmine
She looks great either way. I don’t understand why Disney characters aren’t allowed to have average bodies. Surely kids won’t care.
Cinderella
Jasmine
Princess Tiana
"Overall there has been an enormous amount of positivity and appreciation for these illustrations," Wyethe added. "I receive messages every day saying how these images have helped heal their inner child. That makes it so worthwhile to me."
But we should remember that there's more to her art than this series. "While I do appreciate the love I have gotten from these drawings, as an artist this is not what I focus on. I may make more videos from time to time, but I have no desire to pursue this any further than a therapeutic exercise."
Mulan
Jasmine
Princess Aurora
Princess Tiana
The classic Disney movies have long been criticized for the problematic messages they transmit to impressionable girls, including the idea that you need a man to be happy, that you should wait around until you meet the man of your dreams, and that, once you marry the prince, you will live happily ever after.
But the image of feminine physical perfection often takes center stage when it comes to criticism towards the studio. For example, in their paper 'Mirror, mirror on the wall: Whose figure is the fairest of them all?', anthropologist Toe Aung of Pennsylvania State University and independent researcher Leah Williams said, "Disney princesses have extremely small waist-to-hip ratios that are nearly impossible to achieve naturally."
Princess Tiana
Rapunzel
Elsa
Ariel
Aung and Williams argue that such characters "might heighten or reinforce our preference for lower waist-to-hip ratios, and the perception that physically attractive individuals with lower waist-to-hip ratios possess morally favorable qualities."
So instead of building girls' self-esteem, the way these princesses look might actually bring the opposite result in the long run.
Cinderella
Rapunzel
Belle
Meg
She looks so much better- the original looked like a beanpole 😅 I love her new face shape too
But since beauty is a subjective trait, Aung and Williams focused on a measurable quality: the female characters' waist-to-hip ratio.
Using screenshots, they determined the "minimum waist and maximum hip widths" for 11 official Disney princesses, and the main characters of the phenomenally popular Frozen as well as seven Disney villains, including Maleficent from The Sleeping Beauty and Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
Princess Aurora
Meg
Princess Aurora
Princess Tiana
They found the median waist-to-hip ratio of the characters was a ridiculously low 0.535, meaning their waist measurement is just 53 percent of their hip measurement.
That is far below the 0.7 that is widely accepted as ideal and, surprisingly, even lower than that of the traditional Barbie doll, which is 0.56.
Such an hourglass figure is "nearly impossible to achieve naturally," the researchers highlighted.
Belle And Adam
I never cared for the design they gave the human Beast. He actually looks a lot better filled out.
Meg
Prince Eric
Cinderella
Ariel
People really loved Wyethe's Disney series
And even requested a few other characters for her to transform
Image credits: fartscapade
Image credits: fartscapade
Image credits: fartscapade
Image credits: fartscapade
Image credits: fartscapade
Image credits: fartscapade
Am i the only one who watched cartoons knowing they *weren't* real people and wouldn't look like such? Like, I was a little kid, I didnn't care about realism
What's boogered up about this is that even on a subconscious level it makes children think that's how you're supposed to look. I LOVE Disney but honestly as an adult who has dismorphic ideologies, and grew up with that, the pressure to look like that is still there. I LOVE that this person is normalizing different body types and I'm all for body positivity so I'm glad they did this and I wish more Disney princesses would be normalized.
No, I did too. And I looked at my Barbie doll and thought, well that's not right. We must just be weird!
I looked at my Barbie doll and thought " nice doll to play with" . Never ever once did I think about my own body or that I had issues. OMG they're toys
fr 😭😭 The only thing I thought about her is that she has several jobs and I thought that was cool because I could be whatever I want 😭😭😭 what affected my image were people in real life, not cartoons.
For real! It depends on art style too. Like, if you want them to look 100% realistic, make it live action or something.
isn't shaming someone for being thin the same thing this is supposed to be protesting? (been nice knowin' ya. i'll be banned after this for sure!)
Um, I’m not sure if “being thin” is the deal here. Many, most actually, of these characters wouldn’t have been able to actually keep upright with their original proportions. Some of these were made a bit chubby but most were just altered to be actually physically possible. Not fat, just capable of human life. It’s easy to get your sight slightly skewed because normality changes in peoples heads, but most Disney princesses wouldn’t have any room at all for internal organs for instance. It’s a biiiig mistake to equate “possible, human body” with “fat”, but I see it all the time. And it kind of matters because even if kids rarely think “hm, it’s important I don’t assume these ideas about physical appearance are achievable and that I don’t get a warped sense of self in the future”, what they see is what they learn. Period. What they see is what they learn.
what i learned from cartoons growing up is that art is a beautiful medium that can exaggerate & simplify details as it wishes, & that not every art style is realistic. did phineas & ferb teach me that i should have a triangular head? no, it taught me that even if it looks completely different from disney, both art styles are awesome in their own way. that the point of creating a cartoony art style is to make strong silhouettes to make actions easy to read (easier for animators to do when their character is thin, just look how unclear the silhouettes become in many of the altered versions). the point of animation is also to tell a usually fictional story, so of course it won't be realistic. so that means the character designs will be optimized for animating & storytelling, not anatomy lessons. addressing a kid's body image issues is the job of parents, doctors, therapists, etc. it is not the job of the artist to completely change their style when someone has a deeper self-worth issue.
Yes and my mom grew up with that, tall and "gangly"she was harassed constantly and called ugly and a walking board and no guys were interested in her until years later
My sister too. She is just naturally thin. Even after 2 kids, she is just slim. Picked on at school for being too thin. She's beautiful btw!
No, it's not, simply because the Disney proportions for thinness are completely wrong. Nobody has that type of waist, not even anorexic. Disney princesses don't look like many real people and media's have been trying to show this type of beauty as something women should all strive for (in advertisments, fashion magazines etc). Real photos ended up being photoshopped to look more like those Disney princesses. And Disney definitely was at the origin of this. So although I agree that the artist should have also shown maybe one princess with a very thin structure to show how different it would have been from the Disney princesses, I don't think the article is trying to shame thin people in the least.
and I quote: "She looks like a stick in the right picture". "She looks anorexic." Are you aware of how many times slim or thin girls have been called a "stick" or "anorexic"? That kind of language is damaging, hurtful, and not ok, just like it's not ok to call someone else a "potato sack" or "fat".
im fairly skinny and i'm not a fuhkin bendy stick, i have organs
Nice try iblew, but I think they are being shamed for being impossible.
then where is the companion post where the artist slimmed down comically obese characters? They are cartoons, yes proportions are exaggerated. GEEZE-A-LOO!
People are sensitive about that simply because it happens everyday irl to actual models and people in media. Eveyone is all editted down to look like the "ideal body". They rarely ever make being a health (not obese, not skeletal) seem like a mythical thing. Hell there's so many "Drop the weight, become attractive" things in media I'd have a hard time finding something positive about gaining any weight. When I was younger I was obese and my family celebrated me losing weight. My cousin on the other hand was sickly thin so our family celebrated her gaining weight. That is how it should be, not "ugh why is being fat/thin being celebrated just be NoRmAL"
Being fat and over weight is not healthy and people need to stop normalizing it. I'm not being mean or calling out over weight people, but its just science facts. We don't need to be rail thin either though. Even chubby isn't good. This needs to be taught at young age. You need to maintain a healthy weight.
Most of them definitely look more pudgy than they would at the correct weight for their ages. Problem is that we're all so used to seeing people being 20-30+ pounds overweight that the "correct" weight looks abnormal to us.
Thing is, the edits are fat because the models that inspired these characters looked very healthy and were not this big. They would've definitely been overweight if they had the body types of the edits. The Western obesity problem has skewed people's senses of normalcy in a profound way. The original characters were fairly average when their films came out in 59, 89, 92, etc. The newer characters just represented active, young teenagers.
I am a teenager and *am* shaped like a hourglass. At 15, I had 60 cm waist with 90 cm bust (65 cm underbust) and 90 cm a*s. I'm not kidding. Finding clothes, especially bras and pants was a b***h. I painfully stood out against my classmates and started getting catcalled at 12
The problem is that you thinking the realistic versions are too fat. Some fat is normal on womens body, so maybe they are healthy women
Perhaps they were healthy too as 'too thin' we can't guess the health of a cartoon. Some of the renderings are too fat and flabby esp for the lifestyle some of these characters lived. It's not realistic for the story. Example the time of Cinderella being "too thin" was seen as ugly and undesirable and so she was to be shown in that light. She was food deprived, worked hard every day, and lived in deplorable conditions. She would look like a concentration camp prisoner, in this story it's showing seemingly unattractive people can have beautiful souls and in the end her outside matched her inside. Is it rather derivative? Yes, but these are fairy tales.
I completely agree however it's not much better if they're showing twig ppl so that ppl like me starve themselves desperate to be skinnier. Also it's not as easy as you think to lose weight, *especially* if you have slower metabolism and it's in genes to be overweight.
Some people just are "chubby" naturally (like chubby cheeks, they're so cute!!!), With slower metabolism and other genetics and they do try to maintain a "healthy" body weight but they struggle too. I think that should be normalized. And so should being skinny, I agree but with how things are presented how people are bullied if they don't have the perfect body (not too "fat", not too "skinny") it's hard living in our society yk.
Ok, I’ll admit, some of these do look a bit unrealistic depending on their situations, but ALL OF THE “BEFORES” LOOK LIKE EATING DISORDERS
And eating disorder is not a look or a specific appearance. A lot of fat people have eating disorders or the onset of behaviors that could easily become eating disorders. And all of these characters were based on real women who were incredibly petite and would be considered outrageously skinny in comparison to the flashier average bodies in the US today. That's the problem- you need to quit stigmatizing thin people in order to uplift fat people.
Okay, for a woman to be a chubby is the most normal thing! Woman are born with more fat than men so they can reproduce. And it is a heathy weight being chubby. Men can also be chubby and be healthy. Some people just carry more weight than others and that’s a healthy weight. Your healthy weight is different to someone else’s healthy weight. For me when I was 12, a healthy weight was about 40kg I believe and I weighed about 55kg and naturally I thought, oh I must be carrying a bit more fat. I was, because that was my body. Because that was my healthy weight, because that was my family’s genes.
these drawings are not even fat or overweight, they are what women's bodies look like. it is rare for a real human girl to have wide hips and big breasts but no stomach weight. what should not be normalized is calling these body types fat. i have the same body type as most of these drawings and i used to tell myself that i was fat to the point where i stopped eating and self-harmed every time i felt the urge to eat, but i realized that saying i was fat just wasn't true. however, lots of girls and women with these body types still struggle, and you telling them the lie that they see in the mirror every day can't possibly help.
This. With the very small possible exception of Meg (and I think that might just be because she was always scary thin even w/o comparison, and her poses), I don’t see anyone who looks overweight, maybe “big boned” or stocky but not unhealthy.
I look like those newer cartoons and my blood work is great. Also swim 1-2 miles almost daily. Body type is not an Indicator of health. Ask my dad. He looks like a super hero and his cholesterol is through the roof.
Too thin is bad, too big is bad. This illustrator went from one bad to another. Also ignores the story in some case, like Cinderella would be thin AF, wasn't like her family would feed her well enough to get normal sized let alone fat
Yes, the 'befores' are unrealistically skinny, but they are also out of proportion. They are not real people, they're cartoons! Do kids think that all mice wear gloves and have 3 fingers & a thumb? What hurts young women is photos of real celebrities that have been photoshopped. Making these cartoon images more chunky isn't fixing anything.
This body positivity is getting out of hand, it’s a very smart and needed revolution but handled in such a stupid and superficial way most of the time. Like celebrating fat instead. Most of those are not heathy body, they might be common bodies in the US because of how unhealthy most of your diet is (and I don’t want to be offensive) but they are not healthy. Now let’s really celebrate healthy bodies instead of celebrate just a different and more common way to have an unhealthy body just for pleasing people.
So many of these alterations were not about adding fat but about adding organs and a functioning skeletal system.
Ehhh, I'd look again if I were you, many of the redraws makes them fatter.
No, a small few were. Most were not. Most just went from “incapable of actual life” to “functioning human beings”, really.
Dude. The characters were stylized but animators spend years studing human anatomy. Look up the characters' model sheets and lice action models. They were not as big as the edits!!!
Oh we're super fat here and whether it was your parents fault for never teaching promoting and living the example healthy diet and exercise or you're slammed at work and only feel you have time or money to pick up cheap fast food and straight to the couch and you became accustomed to it, it's unhealthy and should not be encouraged. That's not too say harass those you feel are too big or too little, but if we all lived as examples of healthy eating and movement, the younger kids will as well and hopefully we can "unsick" this nation.
i agree that body positivity has gotten out of hand & is such superficial garbage these days. in my opinion, body positivity should focus on normalizing scars, medical devices (breathing/feeding tubes, hearing aids, prosthetics, wheelchairs, etc), limb differences, facial differences, etc. these are the things that rarely ever get representation; enough with the overweight trend, focus on ableism instead of """fatphobia""" (such a dumb word, it isn't "phobic" to listen to science & know that being overweight or obese is unhealthy & shouldn't be normalized when so much of the US struggles with obesity & obesity-related health issues).
As a disabled person, I’m really happy to see people fight against fatphobia. Sure, I’m not overweight but I do have scars from traumatic experiences and that’s also a valid form of body positivity. Stop gatekeeping!
Poverty massive amounts of fast food readily available and cheap. We eat it and feel physically bad after and it basically did the opposite of it's intention. Instead of giving us fuel to go thru the physical demands of the day, we get bloated and fatigued. The cycle continues until you developed diabetes or some other life threatening condition and were forced to make better choices or you succumb to them
As an animator myself, cartoons are supposed to be exaggerations of reality. Outrageous proportions are a part of that. However, taking the same characters, and trying to normalise obesity/being overweight as being something that should be accepted, is not something I jive with. I'm not saying be anorexic (the same applies with the reverse of obesity, obviously), but the radical ends of each spectrum are not healthy. You don't see the people who want to normalise being obese saying it's okay to be too thin. They're hypocrites. They'll call that person unhealthy because they're too thin, whilst sitting there 15kg overweight. It needs to stop.
As an animator, you should tailor your characters to your target audience. If it is adults, sure, the originals are fine. For kids though, they internalize subconsciously and don't realize it. It starts as young as 3. There have been studies on it. On another note, this artist did make characters a little unnecessarily pudgy in some pics
The average was much smaller when most of these movies were made and all of the characters were based on real, female models and relatives of the animators, their voice actresses, etc. In the US, the average female teenager in the 1950s had a 25 inch waist. The current average is like 40 inches.
I don't like how they are all just filled out a little more... What about different body types... tall / short ... muscular . there is more than just thin and chunky
Should the characters be depicted smoking cigarettes, drinking to excess, and abusing drugs too? Why not normalize other unhealthy choices to signal our acceptance of others.
Unhealthy choices or actual human-like proportions? Pretty sure giving Mulan an athletic body type is normalizing a healthy choice.
So thinner people aren't human? Because the models for these characters were smaller than the edits. Are they automatically fake or harmful for the mere crime of being smaller than yourself?
Isn't the very phrase "cartoon character" used to suggest a depiction that is exaggerated or out of proportion???
I am quite disturbed by how uncomfortable this makes me. I obviously have a deeply ingrained assumption that princesses have to be inhumanly thin, with waists which do not allow for internal organs!
You aren't the only one who feels uncomfortable, look at all these comments. These pics ruffled some feathers for sure. "Chubby" princesses are apparently a big trigger for some folksy
Why are "real bodies" always on the plus side? There are skinny girls, too. And Disney princesses are mostly teens, their bodies haven't even fully developed yet, there are plenty of thin teen girls. And none of these super active girls are toned? Just the amount of exercise they get would make them thin and ripped.
Yes, there are a lot of thin teen girls. Who have EATING DISORDERS. This is about increasing body positivity and removing the old goals that were impossible to achieve of a 10 inch waist.
excuse me, but I am a teen girl. Who is naturally thin. Who exercises, is healthy, and does not have an eating disorder. On the right side I am seeing body shapes that look like mine and seeing comments like "she looks like a stick" and "is she anorexic?". I don't call people who weigh more than me "fat" or "potato sacks." So why is it ok for them to do this? We don't need to push other people down to raise ourselves up.
And see that's the problem- other women, real or cartoon, are not goals. They have full personalities, ambitions, lifestyles, and qualities that do not revolve around their appearances. When you cite a person as a goal, you are objectifying them. And maybe actually listen to the testimonies of women who have eating disorders- they'll be the first ones to tell you it wasn't the fault of the cartoons. If they even begin to blame other woman's appearances over their actions, they are not healed from their problems. Other women's assets are not a threat to your own!!
once again, THANK YOU. I am glad to see someone else on this thread that is advocating equally for ALL body sizes. Kudos :)
Am I the only wondering why no one seems to remember kids, including teens, don't look like middle aged women? I'm so baffled. They certainly need to be less sickly thin, but that doesn't mean it needs to cross over to chubby. And believe it or not, not everyone has a paunch. Especially not kids and teens. Let's not promote unrealistic weight on the skinny side, but let's also not promote plumpness and obesity, which also equals poor health. Let's find that healthy middle ground.
Almost everyone in high school has a paunch- especially girls. AFABs keep a uterus and ovaries in there.
I never really realised quite how unrealistic some of the proportions were, the waists especially! I guess we never notice this stuff as kids.
Why everyone is thinking the realistic versions are fat? Did you saw real people without clothing? Or with thick layers of corsets and etc. Most of these are normal, some even to thin side...
They're cartoons. It's okay to not be realistic. I don't think any grown man is having body image issues due to He-Man and Skeletor being more jacked than they'll ever be.
Sheesh! They are CARTOON characters in fairy tales! My ego can handle them being disproportionately drawn. Help kids be their truth self. Stop trying to repair wrongs that don't matter.
It does matter. My sibling grew up thinking they had to be perfectly slim like these princesses. No rib cage, no bones. Just skinny, they developed an eating disorder because of images like the Disney princesses. So please, tell me how it doesn’t matter.
This artist tried to make people talk about him but forgetting the very essence of what a cartoon is: An exaggeration of physical traits (fat/skinny/tall/small/muscular/etc.) and psychological traits (very nice, very naughty, very miserly, etc.) Or when we try to be politically correct by taking bad examples.
If you start from the premise that children will somehow see these cartoon figures as real people and role models, and therefore want to look like them, is it really a good thing to portray them as fat? I don't think the premise is valid anyway, but the idealised body image used by Disney for characters it want to be perceived as attractive is (loosely) based on actual attributes generally found to be attractive. They're _supposed_ to be exaggerated, to help us identify the hero and villain characters - it's like baddies wearing black hats in old cowboy movies.
cant we just say body neutrality, call out celebs photoshopping and promoting harmful practices and products and call it a day? like yes disney should be, yk, f*****g realistic, but we did not need some tik tokker to slam the characters which already had an okay-ish design?? like so many girls at my school look like ariel or belle and some of it is a stylistic choice like stop being performative and actually do something, you know what im saying?
Cartoons aren't meant to be realistic, people need to stop with this disney princess c**p. Honestly kids couldn't care less, you're not going to make a kid insecure when all they want to do is watch the movie lmao
Kids do care. I cared as a kid. I still kinda do. Stop being so toxic.
The edited images are still slim, for the most part, they just have room for the internal organs.
I honestly have no idea. This site has become so overrun with trolls anymore that it's pretty sad.
We understand that for most of them (Cinderella, Araura etc) they are realistic to the time right? I mean Cinderella does chores all day and they bearly fed her... And it's not like she was eating processed food we have today it was real food I mean do we really think ariel who swims all day and eats idk things grown in the sea is going to be anything but skinny...?
I think they need to take into account how impoverished some of the characters were in their movies. Cinderella, for example, barely got enough to eat; she would not look overweight.
This is so fxcking stupid and pointless. Most of these characters weren't even 2 0yo and pre GMO/pesticides everyone didn't look like they grew up in Idaho. Realistically there are thin women with narrow waist and small bust and it's common outside of American and European countries to not have the largest assets. The fact that people feel better because these cartoons were drawn thicker shows that some can't enjoy content without projecting their insecurities.
Why all the obsession with the charracters being "fatter"? Why cant they just have different ones? What about thin people? Are they not allowed anymore? Not everybody looks like the "fatter" version... they should thin ones, average ones, fat ones, muscular ones with differnet har and skin. That would be awesome! Also, its a cartoon!!! I've never though I "should" look like that growing up because of watching the cartoons...
Most women back then wore corsets so tight they looked exactly like the princesses. I think the fat rolls are more inaccurate actually...
why is it okay for people to say "oh my god she looks like a stick, please make her fuller," but if I were to say "oh my god she's too curvy please make her skinnier" I'd get banished to Mars? PLEASE normalize ALL body types, including slim. Everyone gets insecure about their body--even if you consider them beautiful. ALL body shapes are beautiful and ALL deserve to be loved.
When the original disney princess were designed, women wore corsets and beauty standards were different. They were also stylised versions of the "normal" at the time. They are cartoons. Women were a lot smaller than today's weights. People ate less processed food and less. A lot of these turned into middle aged women when they were made bigger. And skirts don't automatically tuck under fat rolls when they are sitting. As a fat woman who only wears dresses and skirts, it never folds under. They wore 2 - 3 petticoats under those dresses. And muscles come in all shapes and sizes. Go have a look at Chinese images of armies. They aren't weight lifters. They are slim and strong. I'm tired of this constant need to make everything overweight. We still come in all shapes and sizes, and belittling one over the other needs to stop, regardless of the numbers on the scales.
Is this saying that thin people dont exist? Im a thin woman and I saw some of these as cool but some of these were a bit over the top. also THE GAVIN GUY GOTTA STOP, HE IS A PERVERT
What annoys me the most about this is the artist isn't staying true to the art style. All of the original characters seem to have thin, black line art (with rare exceptions). The artist disregards this and uses varying line weights and colours when it isn't part of the style. As well, many of the characters aren't being redesigned with accurate weights to their stories. Cinderella would be stick thin due to food restriction. In fact, any rags to riches character probably wouldn't have had enough food to be overweight.
I wonder how the artist chose which characters would be average sized vs. overweight? There's a lot variation in his recreations. I've seen another digital artist that made them "realistic" too, but only made them look like Kardashians. Still the tiny waist, just curvier on top and bottom. Lol.
I don't know how to tell you that literally none of these characters are obese. I think the very fattest one in this line up could be considered slightly overweight. If you think these drawings are "glorifying obesity" you have VERY f****d up ideas about what a healthy body looks like. Jesus Christ. Do you look at everyone with any sort of tummy and assume they're lazy binge eating beasts? I have the same physique as most of these girls even though I'm, y'know, actively anorexic and eat one meal a day. Go to hell, all of you.
All characters after redesigning look as mother of (at least) two in her late thirties. If the girl in her teens looks like thoose, she would probably become obese later - and it is illnes causing other illnesses. And often also with bad backpain.
Ummm, did we read the same article? 90% of these girls are still skinny, the only difference is they look like their bodies have room for internal organs. The only even slightly "fat" character here is princess Kida who just looks like a curvy black girl. There is something seriously wrong here
cinderella wouldnt be "chubby" neither would meg, unless thier abusers/caprtors were nice perople who liked to see their slaves well fed but i kinda doubt that, its not about making them actually "realistic" its about making them fat and calling it "realistic proportions"
While I support this I have a few points…. 1) Disney isn’t supposed to be real life. I knew that as a kid. I just saw a princess who was pretty and found a prince. I didn’t care that she was thin. She was a princess who I loved and she made me happy. 2) I get body shamed for being thin. I have a very noticeable hourglass shape and what do I get said to me? “You need more weight. Girls shouldn’t have that hourglass shape. Don’t you eat? Look I can wrap my hands around your waist!” People get shamed for having that ideal body too! There is no perfect person. You get shamed for being thin, you get shamed for having more weight. Society will always make comments and it’s stupid
This is absurd and dumb. She just made them all fat. These are 14-18 year old girls. When I was a teenager I ate nothing but ice cream, soda and pizza hut and was still a size O. No teen should have 30 extra pounds like a middle aged woman who has never exercised. Diabetes, heart disease and covid are all the fun result of eating fast food and calling it positive.
Can you stop spamming that? They aren't real people, they're cartoons made to be a caricature, because that's easier to animate, plus the artist simply made them look older in many cases and just added rolls upon rolls of fat on them.
I’m not… this is the first time I wrote it. Plus the point of these are how unrealistic the bodies are.
Disney doesn't do realistic bodies - apparently they only know one cup size....however your body WILL change as you age, but getting fat is a CHOICE. At 59, I'm 5'8" and 140 pounds. Bigger than I was when I was 20, but I was way too thin then.
I'm only from the country the original fairytale author came from, and I say go! It maybe doesn't mean much to everyone else. But Ariel is a mermaid, in a seatravellers mind without clean water supplies, proper food and with all the alcohol, she could look like a manatee in the flesh if anyone could see straight. But this is a fairytale and Halle Bailey looks beautifull. I can't wait to see the live action movie with her! People should just stop assume that a guy from another age in time didn't write his stories for only people of THAT time, not present days, maybe if he lived today, he would have altered it a lot.
Most of these aren't "normal", they're fat, and on many of them the redraw makes them look weird and out of place compared to the rest.
Elsa and a few others just looked but but most were pretty good. Ariel could just be unrealistically skinny because shes a fish though
Am i the only one who watched cartoons knowing they *weren't* real people and wouldn't look like such? Like, I was a little kid, I didnn't care about realism
What's boogered up about this is that even on a subconscious level it makes children think that's how you're supposed to look. I LOVE Disney but honestly as an adult who has dismorphic ideologies, and grew up with that, the pressure to look like that is still there. I LOVE that this person is normalizing different body types and I'm all for body positivity so I'm glad they did this and I wish more Disney princesses would be normalized.
No, I did too. And I looked at my Barbie doll and thought, well that's not right. We must just be weird!
I looked at my Barbie doll and thought " nice doll to play with" . Never ever once did I think about my own body or that I had issues. OMG they're toys
fr 😭😭 The only thing I thought about her is that she has several jobs and I thought that was cool because I could be whatever I want 😭😭😭 what affected my image were people in real life, not cartoons.
For real! It depends on art style too. Like, if you want them to look 100% realistic, make it live action or something.
isn't shaming someone for being thin the same thing this is supposed to be protesting? (been nice knowin' ya. i'll be banned after this for sure!)
Um, I’m not sure if “being thin” is the deal here. Many, most actually, of these characters wouldn’t have been able to actually keep upright with their original proportions. Some of these were made a bit chubby but most were just altered to be actually physically possible. Not fat, just capable of human life. It’s easy to get your sight slightly skewed because normality changes in peoples heads, but most Disney princesses wouldn’t have any room at all for internal organs for instance. It’s a biiiig mistake to equate “possible, human body” with “fat”, but I see it all the time. And it kind of matters because even if kids rarely think “hm, it’s important I don’t assume these ideas about physical appearance are achievable and that I don’t get a warped sense of self in the future”, what they see is what they learn. Period. What they see is what they learn.
what i learned from cartoons growing up is that art is a beautiful medium that can exaggerate & simplify details as it wishes, & that not every art style is realistic. did phineas & ferb teach me that i should have a triangular head? no, it taught me that even if it looks completely different from disney, both art styles are awesome in their own way. that the point of creating a cartoony art style is to make strong silhouettes to make actions easy to read (easier for animators to do when their character is thin, just look how unclear the silhouettes become in many of the altered versions). the point of animation is also to tell a usually fictional story, so of course it won't be realistic. so that means the character designs will be optimized for animating & storytelling, not anatomy lessons. addressing a kid's body image issues is the job of parents, doctors, therapists, etc. it is not the job of the artist to completely change their style when someone has a deeper self-worth issue.
Yes and my mom grew up with that, tall and "gangly"she was harassed constantly and called ugly and a walking board and no guys were interested in her until years later
My sister too. She is just naturally thin. Even after 2 kids, she is just slim. Picked on at school for being too thin. She's beautiful btw!
No, it's not, simply because the Disney proportions for thinness are completely wrong. Nobody has that type of waist, not even anorexic. Disney princesses don't look like many real people and media's have been trying to show this type of beauty as something women should all strive for (in advertisments, fashion magazines etc). Real photos ended up being photoshopped to look more like those Disney princesses. And Disney definitely was at the origin of this. So although I agree that the artist should have also shown maybe one princess with a very thin structure to show how different it would have been from the Disney princesses, I don't think the article is trying to shame thin people in the least.
and I quote: "She looks like a stick in the right picture". "She looks anorexic." Are you aware of how many times slim or thin girls have been called a "stick" or "anorexic"? That kind of language is damaging, hurtful, and not ok, just like it's not ok to call someone else a "potato sack" or "fat".
im fairly skinny and i'm not a fuhkin bendy stick, i have organs
Nice try iblew, but I think they are being shamed for being impossible.
then where is the companion post where the artist slimmed down comically obese characters? They are cartoons, yes proportions are exaggerated. GEEZE-A-LOO!
People are sensitive about that simply because it happens everyday irl to actual models and people in media. Eveyone is all editted down to look like the "ideal body". They rarely ever make being a health (not obese, not skeletal) seem like a mythical thing. Hell there's so many "Drop the weight, become attractive" things in media I'd have a hard time finding something positive about gaining any weight. When I was younger I was obese and my family celebrated me losing weight. My cousin on the other hand was sickly thin so our family celebrated her gaining weight. That is how it should be, not "ugh why is being fat/thin being celebrated just be NoRmAL"
Being fat and over weight is not healthy and people need to stop normalizing it. I'm not being mean or calling out over weight people, but its just science facts. We don't need to be rail thin either though. Even chubby isn't good. This needs to be taught at young age. You need to maintain a healthy weight.
Most of them definitely look more pudgy than they would at the correct weight for their ages. Problem is that we're all so used to seeing people being 20-30+ pounds overweight that the "correct" weight looks abnormal to us.
Thing is, the edits are fat because the models that inspired these characters looked very healthy and were not this big. They would've definitely been overweight if they had the body types of the edits. The Western obesity problem has skewed people's senses of normalcy in a profound way. The original characters were fairly average when their films came out in 59, 89, 92, etc. The newer characters just represented active, young teenagers.
I am a teenager and *am* shaped like a hourglass. At 15, I had 60 cm waist with 90 cm bust (65 cm underbust) and 90 cm a*s. I'm not kidding. Finding clothes, especially bras and pants was a b***h. I painfully stood out against my classmates and started getting catcalled at 12
The problem is that you thinking the realistic versions are too fat. Some fat is normal on womens body, so maybe they are healthy women
Perhaps they were healthy too as 'too thin' we can't guess the health of a cartoon. Some of the renderings are too fat and flabby esp for the lifestyle some of these characters lived. It's not realistic for the story. Example the time of Cinderella being "too thin" was seen as ugly and undesirable and so she was to be shown in that light. She was food deprived, worked hard every day, and lived in deplorable conditions. She would look like a concentration camp prisoner, in this story it's showing seemingly unattractive people can have beautiful souls and in the end her outside matched her inside. Is it rather derivative? Yes, but these are fairy tales.
I completely agree however it's not much better if they're showing twig ppl so that ppl like me starve themselves desperate to be skinnier. Also it's not as easy as you think to lose weight, *especially* if you have slower metabolism and it's in genes to be overweight.
Some people just are "chubby" naturally (like chubby cheeks, they're so cute!!!), With slower metabolism and other genetics and they do try to maintain a "healthy" body weight but they struggle too. I think that should be normalized. And so should being skinny, I agree but with how things are presented how people are bullied if they don't have the perfect body (not too "fat", not too "skinny") it's hard living in our society yk.
Ok, I’ll admit, some of these do look a bit unrealistic depending on their situations, but ALL OF THE “BEFORES” LOOK LIKE EATING DISORDERS
And eating disorder is not a look or a specific appearance. A lot of fat people have eating disorders or the onset of behaviors that could easily become eating disorders. And all of these characters were based on real women who were incredibly petite and would be considered outrageously skinny in comparison to the flashier average bodies in the US today. That's the problem- you need to quit stigmatizing thin people in order to uplift fat people.
Okay, for a woman to be a chubby is the most normal thing! Woman are born with more fat than men so they can reproduce. And it is a heathy weight being chubby. Men can also be chubby and be healthy. Some people just carry more weight than others and that’s a healthy weight. Your healthy weight is different to someone else’s healthy weight. For me when I was 12, a healthy weight was about 40kg I believe and I weighed about 55kg and naturally I thought, oh I must be carrying a bit more fat. I was, because that was my body. Because that was my healthy weight, because that was my family’s genes.
these drawings are not even fat or overweight, they are what women's bodies look like. it is rare for a real human girl to have wide hips and big breasts but no stomach weight. what should not be normalized is calling these body types fat. i have the same body type as most of these drawings and i used to tell myself that i was fat to the point where i stopped eating and self-harmed every time i felt the urge to eat, but i realized that saying i was fat just wasn't true. however, lots of girls and women with these body types still struggle, and you telling them the lie that they see in the mirror every day can't possibly help.
This. With the very small possible exception of Meg (and I think that might just be because she was always scary thin even w/o comparison, and her poses), I don’t see anyone who looks overweight, maybe “big boned” or stocky but not unhealthy.
I look like those newer cartoons and my blood work is great. Also swim 1-2 miles almost daily. Body type is not an Indicator of health. Ask my dad. He looks like a super hero and his cholesterol is through the roof.
Too thin is bad, too big is bad. This illustrator went from one bad to another. Also ignores the story in some case, like Cinderella would be thin AF, wasn't like her family would feed her well enough to get normal sized let alone fat
Yes, the 'befores' are unrealistically skinny, but they are also out of proportion. They are not real people, they're cartoons! Do kids think that all mice wear gloves and have 3 fingers & a thumb? What hurts young women is photos of real celebrities that have been photoshopped. Making these cartoon images more chunky isn't fixing anything.
This body positivity is getting out of hand, it’s a very smart and needed revolution but handled in such a stupid and superficial way most of the time. Like celebrating fat instead. Most of those are not heathy body, they might be common bodies in the US because of how unhealthy most of your diet is (and I don’t want to be offensive) but they are not healthy. Now let’s really celebrate healthy bodies instead of celebrate just a different and more common way to have an unhealthy body just for pleasing people.
So many of these alterations were not about adding fat but about adding organs and a functioning skeletal system.
Ehhh, I'd look again if I were you, many of the redraws makes them fatter.
No, a small few were. Most were not. Most just went from “incapable of actual life” to “functioning human beings”, really.
Dude. The characters were stylized but animators spend years studing human anatomy. Look up the characters' model sheets and lice action models. They were not as big as the edits!!!
Oh we're super fat here and whether it was your parents fault for never teaching promoting and living the example healthy diet and exercise or you're slammed at work and only feel you have time or money to pick up cheap fast food and straight to the couch and you became accustomed to it, it's unhealthy and should not be encouraged. That's not too say harass those you feel are too big or too little, but if we all lived as examples of healthy eating and movement, the younger kids will as well and hopefully we can "unsick" this nation.
i agree that body positivity has gotten out of hand & is such superficial garbage these days. in my opinion, body positivity should focus on normalizing scars, medical devices (breathing/feeding tubes, hearing aids, prosthetics, wheelchairs, etc), limb differences, facial differences, etc. these are the things that rarely ever get representation; enough with the overweight trend, focus on ableism instead of """fatphobia""" (such a dumb word, it isn't "phobic" to listen to science & know that being overweight or obese is unhealthy & shouldn't be normalized when so much of the US struggles with obesity & obesity-related health issues).
As a disabled person, I’m really happy to see people fight against fatphobia. Sure, I’m not overweight but I do have scars from traumatic experiences and that’s also a valid form of body positivity. Stop gatekeeping!
Poverty massive amounts of fast food readily available and cheap. We eat it and feel physically bad after and it basically did the opposite of it's intention. Instead of giving us fuel to go thru the physical demands of the day, we get bloated and fatigued. The cycle continues until you developed diabetes or some other life threatening condition and were forced to make better choices or you succumb to them
As an animator myself, cartoons are supposed to be exaggerations of reality. Outrageous proportions are a part of that. However, taking the same characters, and trying to normalise obesity/being overweight as being something that should be accepted, is not something I jive with. I'm not saying be anorexic (the same applies with the reverse of obesity, obviously), but the radical ends of each spectrum are not healthy. You don't see the people who want to normalise being obese saying it's okay to be too thin. They're hypocrites. They'll call that person unhealthy because they're too thin, whilst sitting there 15kg overweight. It needs to stop.
As an animator, you should tailor your characters to your target audience. If it is adults, sure, the originals are fine. For kids though, they internalize subconsciously and don't realize it. It starts as young as 3. There have been studies on it. On another note, this artist did make characters a little unnecessarily pudgy in some pics
The average was much smaller when most of these movies were made and all of the characters were based on real, female models and relatives of the animators, their voice actresses, etc. In the US, the average female teenager in the 1950s had a 25 inch waist. The current average is like 40 inches.
I don't like how they are all just filled out a little more... What about different body types... tall / short ... muscular . there is more than just thin and chunky
Should the characters be depicted smoking cigarettes, drinking to excess, and abusing drugs too? Why not normalize other unhealthy choices to signal our acceptance of others.
Unhealthy choices or actual human-like proportions? Pretty sure giving Mulan an athletic body type is normalizing a healthy choice.
So thinner people aren't human? Because the models for these characters were smaller than the edits. Are they automatically fake or harmful for the mere crime of being smaller than yourself?
Isn't the very phrase "cartoon character" used to suggest a depiction that is exaggerated or out of proportion???
I am quite disturbed by how uncomfortable this makes me. I obviously have a deeply ingrained assumption that princesses have to be inhumanly thin, with waists which do not allow for internal organs!
You aren't the only one who feels uncomfortable, look at all these comments. These pics ruffled some feathers for sure. "Chubby" princesses are apparently a big trigger for some folksy
Why are "real bodies" always on the plus side? There are skinny girls, too. And Disney princesses are mostly teens, their bodies haven't even fully developed yet, there are plenty of thin teen girls. And none of these super active girls are toned? Just the amount of exercise they get would make them thin and ripped.
Yes, there are a lot of thin teen girls. Who have EATING DISORDERS. This is about increasing body positivity and removing the old goals that were impossible to achieve of a 10 inch waist.
excuse me, but I am a teen girl. Who is naturally thin. Who exercises, is healthy, and does not have an eating disorder. On the right side I am seeing body shapes that look like mine and seeing comments like "she looks like a stick" and "is she anorexic?". I don't call people who weigh more than me "fat" or "potato sacks." So why is it ok for them to do this? We don't need to push other people down to raise ourselves up.
And see that's the problem- other women, real or cartoon, are not goals. They have full personalities, ambitions, lifestyles, and qualities that do not revolve around their appearances. When you cite a person as a goal, you are objectifying them. And maybe actually listen to the testimonies of women who have eating disorders- they'll be the first ones to tell you it wasn't the fault of the cartoons. If they even begin to blame other woman's appearances over their actions, they are not healed from their problems. Other women's assets are not a threat to your own!!
once again, THANK YOU. I am glad to see someone else on this thread that is advocating equally for ALL body sizes. Kudos :)
Am I the only wondering why no one seems to remember kids, including teens, don't look like middle aged women? I'm so baffled. They certainly need to be less sickly thin, but that doesn't mean it needs to cross over to chubby. And believe it or not, not everyone has a paunch. Especially not kids and teens. Let's not promote unrealistic weight on the skinny side, but let's also not promote plumpness and obesity, which also equals poor health. Let's find that healthy middle ground.
Almost everyone in high school has a paunch- especially girls. AFABs keep a uterus and ovaries in there.
I never really realised quite how unrealistic some of the proportions were, the waists especially! I guess we never notice this stuff as kids.
Why everyone is thinking the realistic versions are fat? Did you saw real people without clothing? Or with thick layers of corsets and etc. Most of these are normal, some even to thin side...
They're cartoons. It's okay to not be realistic. I don't think any grown man is having body image issues due to He-Man and Skeletor being more jacked than they'll ever be.
Sheesh! They are CARTOON characters in fairy tales! My ego can handle them being disproportionately drawn. Help kids be their truth self. Stop trying to repair wrongs that don't matter.
It does matter. My sibling grew up thinking they had to be perfectly slim like these princesses. No rib cage, no bones. Just skinny, they developed an eating disorder because of images like the Disney princesses. So please, tell me how it doesn’t matter.
This artist tried to make people talk about him but forgetting the very essence of what a cartoon is: An exaggeration of physical traits (fat/skinny/tall/small/muscular/etc.) and psychological traits (very nice, very naughty, very miserly, etc.) Or when we try to be politically correct by taking bad examples.
If you start from the premise that children will somehow see these cartoon figures as real people and role models, and therefore want to look like them, is it really a good thing to portray them as fat? I don't think the premise is valid anyway, but the idealised body image used by Disney for characters it want to be perceived as attractive is (loosely) based on actual attributes generally found to be attractive. They're _supposed_ to be exaggerated, to help us identify the hero and villain characters - it's like baddies wearing black hats in old cowboy movies.
cant we just say body neutrality, call out celebs photoshopping and promoting harmful practices and products and call it a day? like yes disney should be, yk, f*****g realistic, but we did not need some tik tokker to slam the characters which already had an okay-ish design?? like so many girls at my school look like ariel or belle and some of it is a stylistic choice like stop being performative and actually do something, you know what im saying?
Cartoons aren't meant to be realistic, people need to stop with this disney princess c**p. Honestly kids couldn't care less, you're not going to make a kid insecure when all they want to do is watch the movie lmao
Kids do care. I cared as a kid. I still kinda do. Stop being so toxic.
The edited images are still slim, for the most part, they just have room for the internal organs.
I honestly have no idea. This site has become so overrun with trolls anymore that it's pretty sad.
We understand that for most of them (Cinderella, Araura etc) they are realistic to the time right? I mean Cinderella does chores all day and they bearly fed her... And it's not like she was eating processed food we have today it was real food I mean do we really think ariel who swims all day and eats idk things grown in the sea is going to be anything but skinny...?
I think they need to take into account how impoverished some of the characters were in their movies. Cinderella, for example, barely got enough to eat; she would not look overweight.
This is so fxcking stupid and pointless. Most of these characters weren't even 2 0yo and pre GMO/pesticides everyone didn't look like they grew up in Idaho. Realistically there are thin women with narrow waist and small bust and it's common outside of American and European countries to not have the largest assets. The fact that people feel better because these cartoons were drawn thicker shows that some can't enjoy content without projecting their insecurities.
Why all the obsession with the charracters being "fatter"? Why cant they just have different ones? What about thin people? Are they not allowed anymore? Not everybody looks like the "fatter" version... they should thin ones, average ones, fat ones, muscular ones with differnet har and skin. That would be awesome! Also, its a cartoon!!! I've never though I "should" look like that growing up because of watching the cartoons...
Most women back then wore corsets so tight they looked exactly like the princesses. I think the fat rolls are more inaccurate actually...
why is it okay for people to say "oh my god she looks like a stick, please make her fuller," but if I were to say "oh my god she's too curvy please make her skinnier" I'd get banished to Mars? PLEASE normalize ALL body types, including slim. Everyone gets insecure about their body--even if you consider them beautiful. ALL body shapes are beautiful and ALL deserve to be loved.
When the original disney princess were designed, women wore corsets and beauty standards were different. They were also stylised versions of the "normal" at the time. They are cartoons. Women were a lot smaller than today's weights. People ate less processed food and less. A lot of these turned into middle aged women when they were made bigger. And skirts don't automatically tuck under fat rolls when they are sitting. As a fat woman who only wears dresses and skirts, it never folds under. They wore 2 - 3 petticoats under those dresses. And muscles come in all shapes and sizes. Go have a look at Chinese images of armies. They aren't weight lifters. They are slim and strong. I'm tired of this constant need to make everything overweight. We still come in all shapes and sizes, and belittling one over the other needs to stop, regardless of the numbers on the scales.
Is this saying that thin people dont exist? Im a thin woman and I saw some of these as cool but some of these were a bit over the top. also THE GAVIN GUY GOTTA STOP, HE IS A PERVERT
What annoys me the most about this is the artist isn't staying true to the art style. All of the original characters seem to have thin, black line art (with rare exceptions). The artist disregards this and uses varying line weights and colours when it isn't part of the style. As well, many of the characters aren't being redesigned with accurate weights to their stories. Cinderella would be stick thin due to food restriction. In fact, any rags to riches character probably wouldn't have had enough food to be overweight.
I wonder how the artist chose which characters would be average sized vs. overweight? There's a lot variation in his recreations. I've seen another digital artist that made them "realistic" too, but only made them look like Kardashians. Still the tiny waist, just curvier on top and bottom. Lol.
I don't know how to tell you that literally none of these characters are obese. I think the very fattest one in this line up could be considered slightly overweight. If you think these drawings are "glorifying obesity" you have VERY f****d up ideas about what a healthy body looks like. Jesus Christ. Do you look at everyone with any sort of tummy and assume they're lazy binge eating beasts? I have the same physique as most of these girls even though I'm, y'know, actively anorexic and eat one meal a day. Go to hell, all of you.
All characters after redesigning look as mother of (at least) two in her late thirties. If the girl in her teens looks like thoose, she would probably become obese later - and it is illnes causing other illnesses. And often also with bad backpain.
Ummm, did we read the same article? 90% of these girls are still skinny, the only difference is they look like their bodies have room for internal organs. The only even slightly "fat" character here is princess Kida who just looks like a curvy black girl. There is something seriously wrong here
cinderella wouldnt be "chubby" neither would meg, unless thier abusers/caprtors were nice perople who liked to see their slaves well fed but i kinda doubt that, its not about making them actually "realistic" its about making them fat and calling it "realistic proportions"
While I support this I have a few points…. 1) Disney isn’t supposed to be real life. I knew that as a kid. I just saw a princess who was pretty and found a prince. I didn’t care that she was thin. She was a princess who I loved and she made me happy. 2) I get body shamed for being thin. I have a very noticeable hourglass shape and what do I get said to me? “You need more weight. Girls shouldn’t have that hourglass shape. Don’t you eat? Look I can wrap my hands around your waist!” People get shamed for having that ideal body too! There is no perfect person. You get shamed for being thin, you get shamed for having more weight. Society will always make comments and it’s stupid
This is absurd and dumb. She just made them all fat. These are 14-18 year old girls. When I was a teenager I ate nothing but ice cream, soda and pizza hut and was still a size O. No teen should have 30 extra pounds like a middle aged woman who has never exercised. Diabetes, heart disease and covid are all the fun result of eating fast food and calling it positive.
Can you stop spamming that? They aren't real people, they're cartoons made to be a caricature, because that's easier to animate, plus the artist simply made them look older in many cases and just added rolls upon rolls of fat on them.
I’m not… this is the first time I wrote it. Plus the point of these are how unrealistic the bodies are.
Disney doesn't do realistic bodies - apparently they only know one cup size....however your body WILL change as you age, but getting fat is a CHOICE. At 59, I'm 5'8" and 140 pounds. Bigger than I was when I was 20, but I was way too thin then.
I'm only from the country the original fairytale author came from, and I say go! It maybe doesn't mean much to everyone else. But Ariel is a mermaid, in a seatravellers mind without clean water supplies, proper food and with all the alcohol, she could look like a manatee in the flesh if anyone could see straight. But this is a fairytale and Halle Bailey looks beautifull. I can't wait to see the live action movie with her! People should just stop assume that a guy from another age in time didn't write his stories for only people of THAT time, not present days, maybe if he lived today, he would have altered it a lot.
Most of these aren't "normal", they're fat, and on many of them the redraw makes them look weird and out of place compared to the rest.
Elsa and a few others just looked but but most were pretty good. Ariel could just be unrealistically skinny because shes a fish though