Era uma vez a “princesa guerreira”: o discurso e as performances de gênero nos filmes de princesas da Disney.

Abstract

Based on stories in the "fairy tale" genre, the Disney media conglomerate, released animated films starring princesses from 1939 to the present day. This spawned what is called "Disney princess movie tradition". Based on this notion, the existence of two discursive categories of princesses is presupposes: the "princesses in danger" and the "war princesses", the latter having erupted during the 1990s. On this basis, the present research will investigate how the discursive formation of the “warrior princess” category is structured. Seeking to identify which sociological factors stimulated the irruption of this discursivity. For the investigation, the theoretical-methodological framework of French Discourse Analysis (AD) is adopted. The concepts that complement each other are highlighted: discursive formation, discursive memory, interdiscursiveness, discursive event, intericonicity and audiovisualities. With such concepts, it is understood which gender discourses and performances are published by the bodies of the princess protagonists, and how they contribute with imaginaries and discourses about gender and sexuality. And in the search for sociological phenomena involved in the discursivity of “empowered” princesses, neoliberal feminism (a feminism at the service of the neoliberal capitalist system), commodity feminism and girl power discourses, answers to how discursive formation is structured of a princess who does not need a male figure to protect her, as she is active in her own narrative.