Before I get into Disney Days 2 and 3, I would like to go a rambling a bit on a particular topic of interest.
Yet, the idea that a romantic partner will make your life secure isn’t one limited to fairy tales; otherwise we might as well rail against modern romantic comedies, where the whole point is to secure the charming, laid-back rich guy (isn’t he always rich-or on his way to riches in the rom-com world?) To quote a princess from a recent movie,” Everyone wants a happy ending.” Deep down, we all hope that the one we marry is our one true love, our soul mate, the remote to our Wii. If we wish it for ourselves, why is it such a horrible value to teach to our children? Deep down, is it really such a dirty desire to have a happy ending in life?
Now, let us really take the issue to hand; why all the hating on Disney princesses? Yes, the more archaic ones might be the bubble-headed heroines that swoon for the handsome Prince (I’m looking at you, Snow White. I mean, seriously-taking food from a stranger? Was that ever smart?) I find the recent brand of Princesses much more resilient to the charms of the “evil princess stereotype.”
Take, for instance, Ariel, who committed the evil sin of letting the Prince in the story do all the heavy lifting for her while she swooned before the ugly (read: fat) witch. She also wore a bikini, and seemed far too physically developed for her age. I remember myself being amazed, at the tender age of 8, that she *gasp* wore seashells and nothing else. Then I happened to stumble upon an illustrated book, chronicling the actual Hans Christian Anderson tale, where the mermaids wore nothing at all up top except their lovely locks. The only coverage was hair extensions-which was a little truer to the mythological portrayal of mermaids. Ariel, in movie form, looked quite tame comparably.
Now let us examine her other sin, besides being too pretty; too traditionally swoony, too in need of rescue, too… girlie. The role of princess in need has the obvious implication that she can do nothing for herself, and is therefore dependent upon the prince (the male.) He is active, thus dominant, and she is in need of action, thus submissive. Yet Ariel is remarkably rebellious against the other male in her life, her father. So rebellious, in fact, that she believes there is something valuable in humans, despite their superficial differences (tail/legs, lungs/gills, check.) She even goes so far as to fall in love with one. If we as a society demand the dismantling of Disney movies to examine underlining “bigger” messages like female submission, we must also examine this as a possibly progressive argument for interracial relations. If the ultimate message is female subordination, why does the happy ending not involve her returning to her father, admitting the human got her into loads of trouble? No; the happy ending is that she becomes a human, and returns to her land-based sweetheart. What is the underlying message of that? That love conquers differences.
Let us take another princess, this one my personal favorite: Belle. If there is any princess (beyond perhaps Mulan) who breaks the portrayed Disney stereotype, it is Belle. Yes she is beautiful-but she also seems totally unaware of it. A whole song is dedicated to how unaware she is of her outward appearance. For most of the movie, she wears simple shoes and a practical dress, seemingly by choice. Her love interest is not the handsome but empty-headed Gaston, but an ugly yet compassionate Beast. She even mocks Gaston for his sole interest in appearances. She reads books for FUN, for heavens’ sake. She sings of wanting all those contradicting things a young woman could want-adventure, but stability, freedom, but love. When her father goes missing, she doesn’t run to Gaston-she gets on the horse herself. Belle is a woman of action; she stands up against the town mob, she chastises the Beast for his insensitivity. Yes, she wears a ball gown-but what girl doesn’t want to feel pretty once in a while? Does just the mere presence of a ball gown negate the rest of her personality?
Moving on, the picture becomes much more complicated. Aladdin is a movie with a saucy princess, but Jasmine suffers from the similar sins of Ariel; being too physically attractive (and scantily clad), and being the Princess in distress. She even uses sex (okay, a kiss) to get her way when distracting Jafar. Still, it is interesting that Jasmine is not actually the heroine in the same sense Ariel or Belle was. The movie is not about her; it’s about Aladdin. She is a secondary character. The less focus put on her, the more stereotypical she becomes. I could fault Disney for always making their male character developed, even when he is not the focus, but that isn’t true-Gaston and Prince Erik were both male stereotypes in their own way. If anything, the biggest sin of Disney might not be stereotyping the Princesses, but pigeon-holing the Princes; always muscle-y, always handsome, and always ready for action. Only Aladdin demonstrated some actual conflicted emotion that didn’t seem testosterone-based.
Aladdin was followed by the Lion King, which got away from sexual stereotyping greatly (both Simba and Nala demonstrated depth and nuisance not associated with gender) but that might be because they were lions. The Hunchback of Notre Dame also suffered from a sassy, but curvy and rescue-able heroine. Yet there is another example of the focus on the hero (Quasimodo) diminishes the complexity of the heroine. Hercules followed the same formula.
Mulan and Pocahontas were both interesting twists, though I’ve heard the argument that the departure of them both from stereotyping was diminished because they were racial-based and “not princesses.” I argue Pocahontas was a princess, in so much as a movie about a colonial American about Indians could be. What people don’t realize is that Pocahontas had a whole lot more wrong with it because of the race card, despite it “fixing” the princess-needs-rescue formula. I point you in the direction of “Pocahontas Perplex” by Rayna Green for more detail. She is far more eloquent and better read on the subject than I will be for a long, long time.
“Mulan” is more interesting, in that it features a female heroine who is not sexy-built (though that is also keeping with the overall style of the film.) She certainly avoids the sin of needing to be saved. Yet there is something else interesting going on; love is no longer the underlying message, strictly speaking, of “Mulan.” Being “true to yourself” is far more important. The love story is also extremely more subdued. I recall seeing “Mulan,” back as my sixth grade self, and noting then it was the first Disney film where the hero and heroine don’t kiss. There is a love story, but it is much more of a subplot.
This was even more obvious in later Disney films; take “Lilo and Stitch.” The love story was a sub- sub- plot. The message of “family” was more important.
What interesting comment does that make on Disney philosophy, and indeed the philosophy of a society that largely embraces princesses, for all their flaws? Not so much that female submission is the way to go in life. Perhaps, more so, that when love is involved, there is always a certain amount of stereotyping.
