Friday, May 17, 2013

Disney Retracts New Merida?

So, after all the backlash of the new revamped, Princess-y Merida, it seems Disney has retracted the new version from their website after inducting her to the Princess world just this week.

As per "The Guardian" website:
Disney has been forced to remove a "glammed-up" version of Princess Merida from the Pixar fantasy fairytale Brave from its official website following a high-profile campaign.
Red-headed teenage tomboy Merida had been given a makeover in advance of her induction into the Disney Princess collection, rendering the character slimmer, older and somewhat sexualised in comparison with her appearance in 2012's Oscar-winning animation. More than 200,000 people signed a Change.org petition calling on the studio to return the character to her more realistic origins and the redesign was also criticised by Merida's Oscar-winning creator Brenda Chapman.
While Disney has not officially announced a U-turn, the creator of the Change.org petition says "glam" Merida has gone missing from the Disney Princesses website after being officially inducted at Disney World last weekend.
"Numerous supporters have written to us to share the news that the new makeover version of Merida is no longer appearing on Disney.com," wrote Carolyn Danckaert of the website A Mighty Girl.
I commend Disney for taking it down. Personally, I did think it was a bit insulting for changing Merida so much and "princess-ifying" her in such a way-- with a smaller waist, off the shoulder dress, brighter colored dress with gold accents, narrower eyes, no-mess hairdo, framing her face with the new hair, a slightly larger chest and worse, the new Merida had no bow and arrow on her at all! I'm glad Disney heard women (and some men) refuse to just accept this new version of Merida. Time will only tell though, if they still revamp her for what seems like Disney Princess standards of something a little more subtle or leave her be now.


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