There've been a lot of Disney princesses out there. The concept may have been marketed differently in recent decades, but you need to keep in mind that princess movies started fairly early for the company. Snow White initially came out in 1937. Sleeping Beauty arrived in 1959. And even though it may seem like only yesterday, The Little Mermaid made its theatrical debut in 1989 — which was 30+ years ago.
In all that time, only one Disney princess has been black. And that's been Tiana, from The Princess and the Frog. The movie came out in 2009. Tiana's story is based on her dream of someday owning a restaurant. Her backstory includes a strong family bond, where her father taught her how to make gumbo. While she wasn't initially a princess, she — like many of the other young Disney women — turns into one.
Tiana's character is an incredible addition. But it's still not enough. The company currently has 12 official Disney princesses. While Disney has been great with showcasing women from different ethnicities (such as Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, and Moana), it still has a lot of catching up to do. Especially since many young women look up to these characters.
A company called CreativeSoul Photography set out to make things right. The photographers interpreted Disney princesses in different ways and shot gorgeous photos of young black women taking on the many roles.
The photos themselves are frame-worthy. CreativeSoul photographers Kahran and Regis Bethencourt are from Atlanta and are also husband and wife. Their shoots for this particular series took place in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Thanks to their work, young girls everywhere can finally see themselves as Ariel, Belle, and Aurora.
Kahran told Today that they were shocked by the amount of Facebook support that came in after they posted the initial photos online. She mentioned that the overall comment was, "Gosh, we didn't know that we needed this, but we did." This is why representation matters.
The couple realized that in order to really make this series shine, they needed to take each character and really make her their own. It's obvious to the viewers who each young girl is portraying, mostly due to wardrobe. But CreativeSoul really made each character special and unique in a beautiful way.
The Bethencourts have built a career around photographing children. Initially, it was their own nieces and nephews who stopped by their at-home studio. Soon, they realized that having kids be their prime focus could really jump-start their business and take it to new levels.
They were especially interested in photographing children's fashion. However, that's when they realized that there wasn't too much diversity in the children's fashion industry. When you page through a catalog, there isn't really an equal balance between white children and black children, along with other children of color. That's how they got this idea.
They also made a point to showcase each young model with her natural hair. That's another thing they noticed while looking at children's fashion photos. When black girls are shown, typically their hair is straightened. While pretty, natural hair is absolutely stunning.
Yet for some reason, many photographers fail to showcase the true, natural beauty of their models. This detail makes the CreativeSoul photos even more stunning. As mentioned before, representation is everything — and the Bethencourts noted that this lack of diversity was a big issue.
That's partially why they chose to make sure CreativeSoul focused on, as they told Today, the mission to "showcase under-celebrated beauty." The truth of the matter is that beauty is all around us. But different skin colors and body types and ethnicities still aren't seen often enough in magazines and advertisements.
This has been shown to affect women in more ways than one. For one, they start feeling as if their body isn't beautiful. Even though it's an amazing machine that does so much, the wide variety of body and hair and skin types might not be featured enough in magazines to normalize the differences. For black girls, it's important to see other strong, black women in the world proving to them that they're capable of anything.
And it's important to see black women in a natural state. Much like the world often applauds celebrities for taking makeup-free selfies, we need to encourage more young women to showcase who they naturally are — without straightening hair or using Photoshop. Real beauty is much stronger than manufactured beauty.
People need to see these photos by CreativeSoul and realize that they're beautiful for many reasons. It's wonderful to see young black women in such elaborate, beautiful outfits without many alterations. Their makeup is solely to play a part, not to minimize flaws.
These photos also boosted the confidence of the models, according to Kahran. "They are often super shocked," she told Today. "You can see their confidence growing, which is my favorite part. They often come in a little shy or nervous, and once they see themselves, a lightbulb goes off."
"It's important for kids to be able to see themselves accurately represented in the media and in a different way than some of the stereotypes that have been hanging around in the media for years," she added. Photographs like this — whether in Disney gear or dressed simply as young fashion icons — make a difference.
This mission has inspired the CreativeSoul Photography team to assemble their first book. It's called Glory: Magical Visions of Black Beauty, and it's currently available for preorder on Amazon. If you think these photos look glorious on your screen, just imagine how beautiful they are in print.
