“I remember some of us sitting in the story room in the early days and we kept thinking, Well, what are examples that we can look to in mainstream films with the central relationship as a friendship between two female characters?” producer Osnat Shurer tells Polygon. In the early days of production, they looked back at cinematic history, and quickly became stumped. The filmmakers behind Raya found that out when they were looking for past characters and relationships to draw upon. The lack of relationships between women in film isn’t just a Disney-movie problem: Lately, Disney is actually doing better than the rest of the film industry in that regard. The sequel rectifies that somewhat, but Frozen 2 is still the exception, not the norm.

Even Frozen (which is arguably not a Disney princess movie, but its own separate franchise, but I’m counting it here for argument’s sake) separates sisters Anna and Elsa for the majority of the movie.

Somehow, that’s pretty damn rare.Įven though Disney has an extensive pantheon of princess movies, few of them contain significant relationships between two female characters. There are three women at the center of Raya and the Last Dragon: warrior Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), smart-talking dragon Sisu (Awkwafina), and fearsome rival Namaari (Gemma Chan), and they all have meaningful relationships with each other. Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon is notable not just for being Disney’s first film with a Southeast Asian lead character, but also for being one of the few Disney films with more than one female lead.

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