Calm down I’m not writing another blog post about the Royal Wedding or about Prince Harry. As much I would love to analysis Harry some more* this blog is about a different kind of princess. Jip, I’m talking about Disney Princesses. Recently a rumour has been going around the internet that Disney has decided to stop making Princess Movies due to the fact that they feel that the genre is not producing enough revenue and that modern watchers find the genre anti-feministic.
Wait up…WHAT??!!
Ok, sure Disney has denied that this rumour and has confirmed that they will still be making Disney Princess movies, but I can’t believe that people would make up something so stupid. I was born in 1992 and thus a large part of my childhood involved the Golden Era of Disney movies and most of those movies were Disney Princess movies. A Disney Princess movie doesn’t just have to be a Disney movie about a girl from a royal bloodline, but rather any Disney movie about a young woman who goes through a life-changing adventure of some kind.
(I want to make the distinction that there are numerous Disney movies not involving a Disney Princess, like The Lion King, Bambi, The Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, etc. and even though I enjoyed them as much let’s look past them for the moment.)
Most human beings enjoy Disney movies and it’s easy to see why. How can you hate the sweet and innocent stories? How can you hate the beautiful songs and interesting characters? Most of those movies are about following your dreams and about standing up for what you believe and for who you truly are. Shouldn’t that be a good thing?
My favourite Disney Princess will always be Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Even though the movie was made in 1989 something about the movie still spoke to me. I guess it has to be the fact that Ariel had the courage to follow her heart no matter what. Ariel wanted to break away and truly experience a life that was different from hers and I can relate to that. Plus Prince Eric is also my favourite Disney Prince and he is oddly and disturbingly attractive for an animated guy.
The claim is that these Disney Princess movies go against feministic ideals is just crazy. Sure you can twist them so that they appear to be anti-feministic, but it would be cheap to do that and it shows that you have totally missed the message of the movies. Fine people, argue that they should take away Disney Princess movies and leave the animation world to stories that are male orientated ‘cause sure that’s a lot more feministic (Note the Sarcasm)
(PS I am 19 years old and the fact that I remember all the times when my friends and I used to love to watch Disney movies should prove that I remember the innocence of childhood. Why can’t we ignore how tough our adult lives are and just relish in the past a bit from time to time. Plus they are so darn romantic! )
*take that any way you want… ;)