Talk:Disney Princess/@comment-9204379-20131121033959/@comment-1416077-20131121142555

I think they are right; the ideal that a girl is incapable of standing up for herself and needs a prince to come rescue her and make her life worthwhile is appalling; this is classically seen in many of the earlier Princess films, though it can be said that as time progressed, the roles definitely changed in the films... but the franchise still babyfied them.

To wit:

Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora are, basically, pretty damsels in distress, rescued by their prince. (There are deeper nuances, but we are talking popular perception of the base story).

Ariel chooses to be a pretty girl with no voice in "man's world" until her prince saves her.

Belle is seen as a pretty face and not much more in her town; she has a bleak future until SHE rescues the prince (Yaay!) and then HE takes her away from having to live with the uneducated, petty, peasants (back to formula).

Jasmine lives a boring, sheltered life until her "prince" rescues her from the drudgery by showing her "a whole new world".

Pocahontas is a major exception... sort of... she ends the film longing for the return of John Smith...

Mulan totally breaks the mold in her film... but her doll has her in a pretty dress, waiting for her prince to come (I'm not making this up; it is in the back of her doll); the fact that the doll has high-heel-only barbie feet (at least the earlier ones) totally misses the point about the character.

Tiana had a wonderful dream; a dream that was going to be extremely unlikely... until she rescues the prince (yaay!) and HE makes her dream of opening a high-class restaurant come true. If not for him, her dream would never come true.

Rapunzel... what would have happened if Eugene had not shown up at her tower? It was his utter and complete humiliating defeat that gave her the courage to leave her tower; if not for him, she would definitely not have left to see the lights that year (remember; she sent Goethe away because she believed the could get Eugene to guide her). In an indirect way, he rescued her.

Merida totally rejects the whole concept of relying on a prince; to the point that when Disney executives "redesigned" her for the franchise, the public outcry was so great that she got re-redesigned.

Parents need to sit down with their daughters and point out that Snow White is just 13 and she chooses to make herself useful to the dwarves instead of just relying on their kindness. The prince in this film is barely an afterthought and could easily be interpreted as an angel taking the irrevocably dead princess to Heaven.

Aurora's room is especially interesting; "this is the 14th century!"... yet she has at least a dozen books in her room; she is wise in the ways of the woods; she is being reared to be a reigning queen and co-queen of two kingdoms and despite her misgivings, she chooses duty over desire and goes to meet her parents.

Cinderella... well, I ranted about her a pew posts down; IMHO, she represents everything that's wrong with the franchise. Curiously enough; she is the most representative princess in the public eye, so her shortcomings are seen to represent those of all the other princesses even if they are superb role models.