This chapter provides a historical context for Disney and Pixar, and delineates how the two studios have evolved to respond in different ways when it comes to the politics of media representation. The Classic Era of Disney (1937-1959) features a conservative vision of the ideal female character, princesses who are polite, kind, white, and traditionally beautiful. The Renaissance Era of Disney(1989-1997) buoyed by the second and third waves of feminism began to present more “empowered” heroines, who aimed to embody (or at least acknowledge) the values of feminism, and some diversity in terms of look, even if the actors and speech remain primarily white. The New Age Era of Disney (2009-2019) is ongoing, and features more diverse princesses both in terms of look and in terms of subverting more traditional princess tropes (Frozen) or doing away with romance altogether (Brave and Moana). Pixar does not have eras in the same way as the Disney films, because it is less less focused on female leads and thus less influenced by feminist discourse . However, Pixar is important in terms of examining masculinity in children’s films, and how language and gender compares to the Disney canon.

The current climate is frequently characterised as marked by residual postfeminist formations and proliferating new feminisms. The latter are frequently associated with celebrity exemplification and embodiment: think for instance of the socially magnanimous commodity feminism typified by figures such as Emma Watson. Complicating the picture further, we argue, is the emergence of a high-profile plutocratic feminism associated with figures ranging from Sheryl Sandberg to Beyonc to Ivanka Trump. The new (faux) feminisms of privilege disassociate themselves from notions of social justice except in the most cursory and rhetorical fashion, cleaving to neoliberal individualism and global capitalism. This intensely market-based form of feminism joins together female affective composure as a hallmark with safe performances of empowerment and displays of family capital; in so doing it works to soothe cultural tensions in regards to race, class, technology, and social power. In this chapter we offer an investigation of the nature and functions of this new style of feminism and assess its value to current hegemonies of class and capital.

The threat of death and femininity converges on the dead female body which is stabilized and symbolized through limiting myths of femininity that augment women’s unhomely sense of a lack of accommodation within the cultural imaginary. In order to examine the possibilities for resisting the enforcement of silence on women’s bodies and their experiences by tropes of death and femininity, this chapter explores staging the ritual of sacrifice in Marina Carr’s Ariel (2002) and Edna O’Brien’s Iphigenia (2003), and probes the performance of the ‘good death’ in Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow (2006). How might the beautiful feminine corpse be reappropriated in order to destabilize woman’s petrification as a monument to death and silence onstage? This chapter focuses on how the three plays render the uncanny and unhomely visible and disruptive in performance. Moreover, these myths of death and femininity still have currency and offer recognizable cultural forms; discussion of Ariel, Iphigenia and Woman and Scarecrow addresses the potency of these myths within Celtic Tiger Ireland, and within the context of postfeminist and neoliberal frameworks.