Petition for Disney Down’s princess

A petition calling for Disney to create an animated hero with Down’s syndrome has picked up more than 58,000 signatures online, reports Ben Child in The Guardian. Animated films from Disney have featured various disabled characters, from 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Frozen. They include Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Gabriella, who is deaf and communicates through sign language, in The Little Mermaid. But the studio has yet to produce a film that centres on a character with Down’s.

San Francisco Bay Area residents Keston Ott-Dahl and her wife, Andrea, have a 15-month-old daughter, Delaney, with the syndrome. They posted the petition online on October 1, the start of Down Syndrome Awareness Month, and have seen it move to just a few hundred signatures short of its 59,000 target. Ott-Dahl, an author and activist, told the Orange County Register: “Children with Down’s syndrome and disabilities are targets for bullying. But how great would it be if young children can learn compassion and see disabled heroes in animated films? Disney can impact the kids’ lives.” Artist Alexsandro Palombo highlighted the paucity of physically disabled characters in Disney’s movies when he published drawings of Snow White and Pocahontas in wheelchairs and with missing limbs. The studio has not commented on the petition.

http://goo.gl/UadN0C