Petra Herrera Disney-Style Princess: Mexico Gets Its Own Heroine In Form Of Revolutionary Commander

Mexico now has its Disney-type princess called Petra Herrera. She is supposed to be a revolutionary commander who lead a battalion of women through the Mexican revolution. Former Dreamworks animator, Jason Porath, drew Petra in a similar way all Disney princesses are drawn for an upcoming project he’s working on called “Rejected Princesses,” in which he’s looking to change the perception of women’s rolls in animated movies. “The women of “Rejected Princesses” have either incredible or terrible stories but they’re all very different than the ones told by Dreamworks, Disney or Fox,” said Porath in an interview.

The Mexican heroine conquered him from the very first time he read about her life. “I started researching about female soldiers, found Petra’s story and she immediately took my breath away,” said the animator. Besides Petra, some other princesses he’s created include Noor Inayat Khan, a British secret agent from World War II and the first woman to ever be in charge of a war tank in the Soviet Union, Mariya Oktyabrskaya. “I love Disney princesses but they’re made for a general audience. Studios have to look after their employees and so their stories are plain and uncontroversial. There should be a space created for women that don’t fit a certain mold,” Porath insists.

Petra Herrera’s creator said, “I honestly think that the only studio which would risk doing these characters, would be Ghibli, legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki’s production house. Ghibli has showed us what you can do with movies like Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke. I really hope we start seeing a wider variety of female characters. Women of every ethnic and cultural background, women who can lead and govern. Women who can be queens and not just princesses,” he concluded.

Jason Porath, who worked on “Kung Fu Panda 2” and “Puss In Boots,” thinks “Frozen” was, in many ways, Disney’s attempt to separate from their typical story, and movies like “How To Train Your Dragon” show how studios are definitely looking for something else.