For our Capstone project we have to do an interview that will help us with our research and to learn more about our topic. My topic is, Disney princesses, and my main inquiry question, the question that drives all my research is, “How have Disney princesses evolved, and how have they impacted girls and boys around the world?”

When my teacher told me that we had to do an interview, I was scared. I had no one to interview, and I was getting a bit worried. My mom then told me that my friend’s mom started to work at Disney! I got so excited because I knew that she would probably be a good interview for me, and would help me with a lot of my research. I interviewed Lisa Fragner, vice president of Disney television.

When I emailed her I got super nervous, I was worried that she was not going to be able to do the interview, and that I wouldn’t have somebody to interview. But once I emailed her, she replied right away! I got super excited to open the email because I think that she could really help me learn more about how they have impacted girls and boys around the world. I opened and she said yes to doing the interview. We started arranging a date. This part was hard since a lot of the dates that she was free I wasn’t and vice versa. We then settled the date as Monday, May 10th, at 4:00pm. 

Once I got the date I started brainstorming interview questions. We had to have 10-15 questions.Coming up with the questions wasn’t hard for the first 8 questions, but then I started to get worried, and I couldn’t think of any other questions. So that is where my teacher helped me. She helped brainstorm new questions, and helped me make the questions that I already had even better. Once I finished meeting with my teacher, I had 12 questions. But during my interview I noticed that some of the questions didn’t make any sense, and that for one of my questions it would sound better if it was combined with another question. So I ended up having 10 questions, instead of 12. 

 Here are all of the questions I used in my interview

 

1. Please describe what you do at Disney.
2. What do you enjoy the most about your job?
3. What is the most challenging and/or least favorite part of your job?
4. Who was your favorite Disney princess when you were growing up and why?
5. Which Disney princesses do you admire now, as an adult?  Why?
6. What are three main ways Disney princesses have evolved?
7. Which Disney princess evolved the most compared to the first Disney princess Snow White and why?
8. What impact have Disney princesses made on girls and boys around the world?
9. What is your favorite movie that you have worked on and why?
10. How has COVID affected the ability of children around the world to access Disney movies?

Once it was the day of my interview, I got super nervous because I was scared I was going to mess something up. But once Lisa called I calmed down, and my interview was super fun! She was so kind and very helpful. She also had an answer for all of the questions that I asked her! Some of my favorite facts that I learned were, 

A lot of people couldn’t go to the theaters to watch movies, so that’s when streaming platforms, like Netflix and Disney+ became very popular. You can watch pretty much anything, whenever you want. But a lot of kids don’t have access to streaming platforms, so they couldn’t watch whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

The main thing that she does at her job is, finding stories for them to turn into an animated film. She could find the story from pretty anything! The radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and much much more!

Disney princesses before mainly focused on the princess needing a prince to save them, and that is one of the main ways that Disney princesses have evolved. Also for a long period of time they were all white. But they have changed because they started to be more diverse, there are Black Disney princesses, Native American, Asian, Arabian, and more!

Overall the process of doing the interview, and then actually doing the interview was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of cool new facts that are really going to help me with my research! I can’t wait to put everything together and see how my essay and my final project turns out once it is put together!