Kristen Bell has voiced her concern that the Disney princess Snow White sends out the wrong message and is a bad influence for children.
Her comments arrive shortly after Keira Knightley, who stars in the new Disney film ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’, said she has a strict ban in her household on 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Cinderella' because neither of them promotes a progressive message for women.
Speaking on The Ellen Show, Knightley said 'Cinderella' is banned because "she waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don't. Rescue yourself, obviously." 'The Little Mermaid' is forbidden because Ariel gives her up voice to please a man.
Bell, who voices Anna in the Disney movie ‘Frozen’, has since told Parents magazine that she isn’t totally comfortable with the classic Disney princess tales either.
She said she loves reading to her daughters Lincoln and Delta when they're "cuddled up like meerkats," but has some concerns about the Snow White story.
She expressed how she believes it undermines what she teaches her daughters about stranger danger: "Every time we close "Snow White" I look at my girls and ask, 'Don't you think it's weird that Snow White didn't ask the old witch why she needed to eat the apple? Or where she got that apple?'
"I say, 'I would never take food from a stranger, would you?' And my kids are like, 'No!' And I'm like, 'Okay, I'm doing something right.' "
Bell also spoke about the issue of consent in the story: “Don’t you think that it’s weird that The Prince kisses Snow White without her permission because you cannot kiss someone if they’re sleeping.”
Kristen Bell currently stars in ‘The Good Place’ on Netflix and is set to return to a reboot of the series that made a star of her, ‘Veronica Mars.’
