Meet Elena, Disney's new 16-year-old Latina princess who is her own champion

Like all the little girls born in the ’90s, I grew up watching and falling in love with Disney princess movies like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. The beautifully animated movies, which have picture-perfect happy endings do seem highly misogynist from an adult woman’s point of view. Belle’s story from Beauty and the Beast revolved around her looks more than the fact that she loved books and she was a wonderful daughter to her father. Princess Ariel of The Little Mermaid, gives up everything (including her voice) to follow a Prince Eric whom she has only seen once. Talk about the perils of love at first sight. [caption id=“attachment_2922724” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Princess Elena of Avalor. Image courtesy: Twitter/Disney[/caption] Disney, like the Academy Awards, is notorious for emphasising on a majority white character base, while stereotyping their coloured characters. Case in point: Though Tiana of The Princess and The Frog is African-American, the story line is pointedly about a black family in a black neighborhood. Earlier this year, a campaign to have the first-ever gay Disney princess, Elsa from Frozen, took off after the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend started trending on Twitter. This is why it was overwhelmingly exciting when Disney announced its first ever Latina princess, Elena of Avalor which would premiere on Disney Channel. After Marvel and DC comics who have taken a conscious step to increase diversity in their comics , Disney has thankfully started to follow suit. The plot line follows Princess Elena (voiced by Aimee Carrero) after she saves her kingdom from an evil sorceress. Elena discovers that her journey is only beginning as she learns to navigate life as a crown princess. Here is a clip of the trailer:

Though the thought of creating a Disney princess from an oppressed ethnicity  is commendable, Disney seems to have slightly whitewashed the character. Elena isn’t Afro-Latina or from a specific Latin-American country. She is a thin, light-brown Latina princess from Avalor, a made up Latin-American-esque kingdom that exists in a pre-colonial world. But on the lighter side, one of the most progressive aspects of Elena of Avalor is the news that Disney doesn’t plan to prioritise finding Elena a love interest over running her country, which has been the priority for all Disney princesses to date, reports  Fastcocreate.com. While there are plenty of male characters in the mix, Elena’s relationship with all of them will be strictly platonic, and finding love will be the last thing on the 16 year old princess’s mind. This seems like a definite step in the right direction for Disney.