Disney Princess Disasters

There’s been much debate over the last decade about how the classic Disney princess stories have been detrimental in little girls lives and have shaped them to believe that they need rescuing by a man. There has been a movement (so they claim) towards stronger, independent characters in these movies but there is always still an element of a male presence. I can’t think of any movie recently that has no male in it at all, even Frozen and Brave, have men in it that “rescue” the girls in some form. (I'm not certain since I refuse to EVER watch Frozen. I'm over everyone saying its so good and singing all those songs. Let It Go indeed! But I hear there's a man in there who treats her like a real dick so at least they're making it more realistic...)

Cinderella- needed help from a fairy godmother to meet the prince and become princess (her godmother should’ve told her that if he was going to fall in love with her it was to be for her personality not what she was wearing and sent her to the ball in her rags. Real talk.)

Snow White- slept for a long time surrounded by seven little men waiting for her prince to come kiss her and wake her up (she obviously didn’t read the whole Adam/Eve apple story...)

Rapunzel- Locked in a tower waiting for her prince to come rescue her (all that time and she didn’t once look for a staircase or make a rope of bed sheets to climb down? I don’t buy it.)

Sleeping Beauty- another sleepy princess waiting for her prince to come wake her up (That’s pretty much the only man she’s ever seen and she just goes with him? Keep your options open, sister!)

Ariel- Mermaid who falls in love with a human and will do anything to get legs and be a princess (Much love for my little mermaid, but how selfish! “I want legs, I want the prince, I hate you daddy!”....someone needed a time out.)

Jasmine- Spoiled little princess waiting in her garden with my pet tiger who has the pick of all the suitors (don’t even get me started on this one---Jasmine had no redeeming qualities in my eyes. She needed a time out, for sure. And probably a spanking.)

Belle: the sneakiest of all the princesses. Firstly, she wasn’t a princess she was just a girl who loved to read in a small town and was unimpressed by the insipid mind of the local heartthrob who chased after her just to prove he could get her. I loved her—she was strong and sassy and loved books and didn’t mind being on her own. She wasn’t waiting for someone to come save her and I thought (probably subconsciously because I was 5 years old) “Here’s a strong role model. I like this Belle”. But her story was the craftiest.

She sacrifices her freedom to save her father from the Beast (martyr) and then, as a prisoner, she slowly begins to see the good in the scary Beast and wants to help…change him (savior). Oh Belle, if time has taught me anything, it is people cannot change, or moreover, YOU cannot change people, they have to want to change on their own. Now, the Beasts I’ve met (in real life) aren’t really disguised princes cursed by a witch trying to teach them a lesson. If anything, they are the Beast before he was a Beast---charming, handsome, rich (not so much), selfish.

Of course, in true Disney form, there are lots of twists and turns in the middle, some singing, and finally when you think all is lost, true loves kiss saves the Beast, changes him back, his lesson is learned, and everyone lives in the gargoyle-free shiny castle. These endings were the greatest sham and, of course, we all knew it. As we got older we realized, most things don’t have a happy ending and not everything plays out like it’s supposed to. But it took me 24 years to finally realize that Belle’s story sneakily shaped who I was, and now I’m a little mad about it. She wasn’t the maiden in distress, she didn’t need to change or need to learn a lesson. She was helping others, and that’s a nice thing, but it doesn’t always work out and, unfortunately, there wasn’t an alternative ending to that story---the Beast never learns his lesson and she grows old and dies in that castle as his prisoner (after reading all the books in his library, of course). We grew up only learning the happy endings not the realistic ones, and the argument that those stories have a real impact on our lives is true I guess, even for girls who didn’t want to grow up and be princesses and need rescuing.

My mom always mentioned that I cried at the end of the movie and I actually remember that. I remember sitting in the theatre and wiping away tears when the Beast lay in the rain dying and Belle said “I love you”. I don’t know what made me so sad at five years old. Was it the fact that he was dying and his time ran out and they couldn’t be together? Was it that they finally loved each other but he was dying and the thought of them not being together made me sad? Was it that he changed and became selfless and he still was going to die? Who knows. I don’t know what it was exactly; maybe it was all those things.

Now that I’m aware of sneaky little Belle, I’ll be more careful in choosing my Beasts—ones that have some good hidden away underneath their rough exteriors. Ones who have already learned their lessons.