I Want More!

I saw Tangled when it came out in theatres on my birthday twice. I happen to be a huge Disney freak, and the two new Princesses, Tiana and Rapunzel, excited me with a new hope of returning to the Disney Princess phase.

However, as anyone can point out, Disney Princesses are very flawed.When you hear the words 'Disney Princess,' you usally think of this: lonley sad princess with huge ees sings songs about how she wants more, she gets her 'more' and her man and they get married. The Disney concept of more tends to be my biggest pet peeve about the princesses. The Nostalgia Critic put it very well when he said, "You're fucking royalty! If you had any more you'd be fucking godesses!"

With that said, I've been thinking a lot about what sort of Disney princess I would want to be. While most of them fall into that 'more' categlory, each of them has little things that make them specail and unique. After the death of Walt Disney, the concept of the princess changed, as rises in the idea that a female in a movie didn't have to be sitting around waiting for her man sparked a new idea of what a Princess should be.

First, I'll start with the three Walt Disney princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty.) You'll notice a lot of similarites in these three, since these were all Walt's idea of a princess. And really, I'll go on record in saying Snow White is my favorite Disney princess. You're probably out to call bullshit on me by saying, "Hey hey wait- aren't you pointing out all the flaws in the female sterotype princess? Snow White is classic 'female can only cook, clean, and wait for her man,' and she's your favorite?"
Well, here's the thing: Snow White was the first Disney princess, and thus cannot fit into the sterotype. The sterotype of Disney princess didn't exist yet! Sure, if we look back on it now, Snow White is just a cute dame who sits around the house, spending all her time singing, cooking, and cleaning. She doesn't actually get much done in the movie other than providing the Dwarfs with a mother figure who could do all that for her, since the men are out working all day. However, we also have to look at the fact that this movie was made in 1937, and the idea that a woman could even think about working for a living wouldn't come around until the middle of World War II. Snow White was also very young; she was only about 14 (yeah, and she gets married at the end.) And this was before 14 year old girls could spend their time Facebooking (when did that become a verb?) meaningless song lyrics and spending 10 bucks a week going to see Justin Beiber: NeverSayNever. This was a time, not just when the movie is set, I'm talking 1937 too, where a 14 year old girl probably wouldn't know anything else besides how to be a mother. And even if you take it out of the context of 1930's, Snow White is set in midevil times (I can assume?) so the concept of her being anything other than a baby train for a man would be even less prominent. Snow White is my favorie because she is just the embodyment of cute, and she did set the stone for Disney princesses in the future. While this may not have been a good thing per-say, it works for her.

Sleeping Beauty (why does no one ever all her Aurora?) and Cinderella tended to follow much the same pattern, which is why these two are usally looked over. Aurora moreso- since she doesn't do shit in the movie. I know she talks and gets one song at least, but other than that, she's just a painting for half the movie, laying in her bed of 'I don't have to do shit because I'm a woman.' Sleeping Beauty wasn't even about the sleeping beauty. If anything, that movie is about the fairies! They do all the shit! We could have just had a movie about the fairies and Meleficant, but I guess you have to have the sleeping beauty in Sleeping Beauty. But honestly, it's easy to over-look a Princess who didn't do much besides sing a song about dreams, be a curious fuck who cant deciefer that a sharp thing will cut her. I know the explination was that she's never seen a spinning wheel before, but even a monkey could realize if something's sharp, it will cut you. And yes, she didn't know the cut would put her to sleep, but she couldn't have been so dumb as not to think "Oh, that's a sharp needle. I see sharp things all the fucking time. I know if I touch it, it will cut me. I should stay away from it!" instead of having that look a baby gets when you shake something in front of its face. I mean really, there is no way she couldn't have been exposed to sharp things every day. Glass, needles, sissors, things of that nature, and she had to have been taught (and if not taught, just fucking realized it by age 16) that sharp things cut you. Sharp things hurt. You don't go around touching sharp things. Okay, I'm done, I'm done. It just bugs me the movie had to be about that dope instead of the real heros: Floura, Fauna, and Merryweather.
Cinderella went back to the Snow White trend and was a Princess who was not treated like a princess. For Cinderella and Snow white, the 'I want more' excuse is fine. I let it slide for them because in all honesty, they really were not treated well. While they didn't show it in Snow White, Cinderella concentrated more on the emotional abuse side of the story. While Snow White was still okay with working, Cinderella knew she didn't have it so hot, and felt the pain. I think this was because Cinderella had those two sisters who would constantly flaunt in her face how much better they were treated. This makes Cinderella a bit mroe of a believable princess in my opinion, because while a young child might not understand Snow White's struggles since she never is upset about them at all, most little girls can relate to having siblings or other children picking on them for not being 'good enough' or not 'having enough'. However, as I have mentioned, the main focus for these three girls was always to get the man. But, this can be ignored for the time they were made, the lack of that just being a 'Disney princess sterotype' at the time, and Walt's perception of the princess.

Next comes the 90's Disney princesses. Though, technically, the first Princess I include in this categlory is Ariel, whose movie was realised in 1989. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontis, and Mulan are part of the categlory of 'Princesses who bug me because the creative team at Disney couldn't think of any ideas for Princesses that didn't just want more and a man.' Well, Belle, Pocahontis and Mulan seem to avert this, but Ariel and Jasmine are usally listed as the Princesses who grind people's gears because they just sit on the sterotypes of early Disney princesses. While you can't blame them for wanting that 'more' they wont shut up about, as I've stated, they're fucking royalty. Cinderella and Snow White had an excuse! They had fucking crappy lives! Ariel and Jasmine have it great compared to them. Sure, Ariel is just another curious as fuck princess, and Jasmine wanted to see life outside her palace (and not be forced into an arranged marriage,) but they could have had it worse. At least Jasmine didn't it have it like most Arabian girls at the time. If the movie was more accurate, her dad would have been raping and beating her and not even giving her a choice in a husband. Jasmine and Ariel also irk me because they're nothing like the book. Want a nice example? In the book The Little Mermaid, Ariel isn't magically changed into a mermaid and safely swims to the surface. Her fin is cut in half, she almost drowns, and when the gets to the surface, she is bleeding to death. That prince guy (I cant recall if he was named in the book or not, but Eric is such a dumb name for a prince) doesn't help her, either. He starts laughing his ass off and tells her to dance of his asmusement, bleeding all over the sand. Then, instead of the book ending like the movie where she defeats Ursula and marries the prince, uh...Ariel doesn't make it in the book. No happy ending for her. She's stuck in purgatory for the rest of her life, and I think it's that every time a child cries she's gotta spend 200 more years there or something like that. That would be the interesting Disney story! Now Belle from Beauty and the Beast, I can live with. Same with Mulan. They were both great princesses (although Belle wasn't a princess until the end and Mulan never was) who really changed it up. They don't spend the movie man-hunting, and they're need for more is actually well done. Both are living in female-opressive socities: Belle lives in a time where her intellegence is looked down as a fault since she's not popping babies out like she should be, and Mulan is the same thing, but instead of her intellegance, it's the fact that she lives in ancient China and was also not activily pregnant while also giving birth to soilders. Pocohontis is also in there, but she didn't actually do much to advance the understanding of Native American culture. She spends half the movie talking to trees and trying to get white ass. Yeah, it's a very pretty movie, and it definatley could have been WAY more sterotypical, but I just don't look upon it as a good movie.

After Mulan was released in 1998, there weren't any Disney princess movies made until 2009 with one of my favorite movies: The Princess and the Frog. Tiana was specail for being the first African-American princess in the series, and in my opinon, it's the studio's best 2D animated feture behind Snow White and Fantasia. However, I know I'm going to get hate for this, but I just don't see Tiana as a Disney princess. I can give Tiana every single compliment I can because she was a fresh, new idea: a Princess that wasn't seaking 'more.' The whole idea of her character is that she was going to be a Princess who wasn't just going to sit around and dream, she's going to fucking get shit done. Tiana works hard and is a modern-day girl. However, this is why it's hard for me to look at her as a princess. When I think of the Disney princess, while I do hate the sit around for my hot sex girl, they're what I think of as a princess. Tiana isn't a Princess until 5 minutes before the movie's done, she doesn't live in a palace (she lives in the slums), and works at two diners. Tiana is a magnificant character. She's everything I'd look for in a great character. She's not going to let her race and gender stop her from achenving her dreams. And, she is a princess in her own right. But I can't think of Snow White or Aurora working in a diner and acting so un-princess like. I love Tiana as a character, but for me to imagine them as a Disney princess, I like just a little bit of that early Snow White feeling.
This is why I love Rapunzel in Tangled. Rapunzel is a perfect combination of Tiana and Snow White. She fights for herself, but is naturally scared and naive. Yes, she is just waiting around in a castle, but first off she can't go anywhere, and second, she never mentions just wanting a man. She just wants to leave her castle for one day. She's not after men or children or a fairy tale life, she just wants to live a little. But Rapunzel also retains that early Disney princess charm. She's girly, playful, and maybe she does act scared at times. The princesses dont all need to be like Tiana and be more manly that the male lead. Just a little bit on anti-feminism works for the Disney princess. Because, as a female writing this, I know it's hard for a girl to be just as a strong as a boy. What Rapunzel does is she is girly, but when she knows she can fight back, she can. She's cunning, but also has that name naive charm of the old Princesses. I think if we had more 'perfect mix' Princesses, we'd be heading in the right direction. I just hope Disney returns back to it's 2D roots.