All pictures belong to Disney except indicated with asterisk (*)
 |
| (Disney Princess reanimated for Wreck It Ralph 2) |
One afternoon, a female lecturer helped me with my analysis on Cotugno’s 99 Days, in front of the class. We were in a discussion of Feminism and she said something I typed below. Not exactly the way she said it, but the point is simply…just the same.
“When it comes to Disney Princess, basically, everything is just the same. The girl will never be happy without the boy. He (the prince) comes out of nowhere and become the hero who saves everything, eventually.”
 |
| (*Wikipedia) |
They demand gender equality, but at the same time, they want to enjoy the privilege of parking lots with the sign ‘Women Drivers Only’, I mean, come on…that’s just too much and I suddenly remember a particular restroom sign for joke, ‘Men to the LEFT because Women are always RIGHT’. I guess men just have to…live with it. Well, we men say that, “Gosh, women are so complicated,” but you should know that women are complaining the same thing about men, “Don’t you know what I mean? It’s obvious, can’t you see? Stop being so complicated. It’s simple. If I say yes, it actually means ‘NO!’”. We both are equal alright, equally complicated. Anyway…
 |
| (*this picture belongs to MICROSOFT, Back to the Future re-imagined) |
We live in the era called ‘post-modern’ and it’s rather boring compared to the modern era. There were many newly found things, inventions, discovery, and many more, basically ‘everything new’ happened during the previous century. Remember, the keyword is ‘new’, not advancement or enhancement. Internet was not an advanced technology based on radio or TV, it’s new. The enhancement of its speed and all about ‘from MB to GB things’ are the enhancements. This post-modern era is marked by so many advancements of technologies invented in the previous century and, instead of inventing new things, many question the modern era, such as, “wait a minute, the thing from the past might be wrong,” or, “hey, it’s better if we add more capacity to the disc,” instead of, “look, here’s the new thing I invented,” or “hey, let’s put movies in a disc instead of a tape!” (do you think the digital movie is a ‘new thing’ compared to DVD, think again, because DVD is also digital!)Ã In the past, we’re exciting to make history, but today, it seems that deleting ‘history’ is more important than ever…
 |
| (*COMPARISON! from screenscreener) |
Now, what’s the point? Comparing the modern and post-modern era? Well, I just want to say that we tend to question the past and therefore, something positive in the past might be negative today. And yes, the judgment also apply to movies. Once celebrated film might be considered ‘eh’ today. Disney Princess…they were fine, celebrated, OK, well-received, classics, but today’s people (especially female) question the overwhelming appreciations of those films. Today, there are so many people hate Disney Princess and the reason is that they don’t like the way those Princesses are depicted as ‘they are’ and therefore, it’s a matter of gender inequality. Well, apparently, living her dream with her dream prince and wealthy enough to do everything she want is a form of gender inequality. Oh, well, let’s examine this new perspective…together.
 |
| (*The Nile) |
First of all, before criticizing Disney Princess, we must know the source or the inspiration of the story: what it is based on. Did they make the story themselves? I mean people inside the Disney Company, does the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, for instance, created by Don Hahn or Jeffrey Katzenberg? Did they deliberately make Beauty and the Beast the way it is? The answer is…no, they did not. They simply imitate fairy tales created by who knows who, who knows when. So, if they didn’t make the story, should we blame them for their characters? Or should we blame the fairy tales that certainly familiar to the filmmakers even when they were very young and brought such enormous impacts to their lives??
So…it’s the fault of the fairy tales? Not exactly. You see, in literature, there are genres (same as movies), and ‘fairy tale’ is one of the genres in literature. Children’s Literature, to be exact. You cannot blindly attack fairy tales for its ‘gender inequality themes’, for it’s clearly mentioned in Children’s Literature table. Not all stories can be classified as fairy tales since the genre has its own rules. You need to match a story to fairy tales classifications to call the story a fairy tales. If there’s no matching features to the criteria, then, the story cannot be classified as a fairy tale. So, why do all princess stories share the same big idea? That’s because they belong to the same genre! You cannot mock a fairy tale as ‘carries incredible lack of believability, plots, and ‘paragraphs’’, it’s a fairy tale for goodness sake! If our predecessors made Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel the way J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter, then they’re fantasies, not fairy tales. They’re called fairy tales because their features match the characteristics of fairy tales.
Now, we all know that The Asylum makes terrible movies. We might enjoy one or two Asylum films, but the bottom line is we know that the films are…not good. We won’t expect great CGI, brilliant dialogue, and stunning acting in The Asylum’s films, but we certainly expect such quality from Spielberg’s, Cameron’s, or Scorsese’s. So, it’s a common practice to negatively criticize films prior to our high expectations but the same practice does not apply to The Asylum’s. I mean, just compare James Cameron’s Titanic to The Asylum’s Titanic II. But that’s the point. If the film is great and amazing, then it’s not The Asylum’s! If the film is terrible, then it’s not Paramount’s or Cameron’s.
You cannot say “Oh, those Fast and Furiousfilms are shallow. All racing and kicking butt. No story at all!” or “Yuck, Michael Bay gives us more and more explosions in the newest Transformers!” Well, that’s what you get from ‘action’ films. If you want to enjoy strong narrative, you should read books…I mean, watch dramas. So, do not expect to see swash-buckling action and massive explosions in Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, The Fault in Our Stars, Rob Reiner’s The Bucket List and Flipped, and In the Bedroom (though this film has one scene that’s f**ing terrified me!!). Films have their own genres so do literature (hey literature was born ages before cinema!) and ‘fairy tales’ is a genre based on its own unique characteristics.
 |
| (*this picture belongs to DREAMWORKS Animation, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas on DVD) |
But fairy tales such as Pinocchio, Sinbad, The Jungle Book, etc are not associated to gender inequality. So why Cinderella and the gang does? Wait a sec! It’s unfair to judge something that’s basically attached to ‘time’. Literature is the mirror of reality, thus the analysis should focuses not only to the story, but also the situation of ‘when’ it was made. We probably say ‘eh’ again during a re-run of Rambo or more ‘eh’ during Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. That’s because we’re not living in the time of Vietnam War or The Great War, so the context is shifted already. I mean, look at Windows 98. It’s…’no, thank you’ today, but ‘oh, yes, yes, yes!” two decades ago! I was like…sad and upset watching kids react to old computer interface, plus they’re saying, “those who lived in the past are so…miserable.” Just wait till you old and today’s latest Windows or Google interface will look as if they’re invented during the age of dinosaurs. Same thing happen to cinema. I cannot appreciate the special effects of old Star Wars. Frankly speaking, I prefer newer Star Wars (prequels and sequels). But I cannot judge the lack of amazing original Star Wars special effects because…you know why. It was 1970’s! So, we must judge something based on its context…and…
Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and so on, are the products of their time, not today’s and they’re gonna be ‘just like that’ no matter what because they are essentially…fairy tales. The time of which these stories came were not the same as today. If you can still find gender inequality today, can you image the issue centuries ago? If Cinderella was made in this decade, the story might start or end differently. Disney’s Song of the South was praised like crazy. They loved the film, it’s one of Disney’s important movies. But today? Disney tries to hide the film from all of us and many of today’s critics consider the film as highly racist and should be banned. The result is…the film never get the chance to be released in once stunning Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray, so the bootlegged DVD version is very popular nowadays. But here’s the thing. The film resembles the society of its time, and banning the film means denying that racism ever existed. The Warner Bros. Studio has a better outlook on this matter and release all of their offensive cartoons but clearly say that those films are the products of their time. They’re wrong and racism should never happen, but it happened. Anyway, censoring or hiding these films mean denying that America (and the world) was racist. And I think, that’s equally mean to the racism itself. And then, many of things considered bad or taboo in the past is now common, like, hey, gay and lesbian literatures and films, and music. And hey, why do I keep talking and talking about this and not about the essence of the title above?? Okay…here we go…
We all know those princess fairy tales. However, do you know that instead of killing women’s power, Disney Princess is actually enhance women’s roles in their Princess movies?
A. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
à In almost all versions of Snow White, the princess is depicted as an extraordinarily beautiful girl. She is helpless, hiding in dwarves’ house with cleaning, cooking, and sleeping as her daily activities, waiting for the evil queen to send her to her death. Then, when the death comes, a prince comes out of nowhere to save her and ultimately becomes the hero. Snow White’s role becomes less important because she is not the hero(ine)
à The Disney version is…somewhat different. Snow White is beautiful, alright, but she’s tough. She could clean the whole castle herself! Disney answers the mysterious appearance of the prince in the end of the story by showing him in the beginning of the story. Feminist would say that , “no, you men can’t bribe us with your money!”. Well, Disney’s Snow White doesn’t know that the man she’s in love with is a prince because the prince doesn’t know that the woman he falls in love with is actually a princess. So, she doesn’t seek for his dollars. They fall in love as ordinary people. The film teach girls to be confident, that you don’t have to be a princess to live your dream (though at the end, you’re a princess, Snow White!) Disney’s Snow White is definitely tough. I mean, she manage to discipline all the seven dwarves! She cooks, but hey, what can you do to pay others’ kindness of allowing you to live in their house?
FYI :
Human: “Dracula, is it true that you’ll be dead if someone stab your heart with a knife?”
Dracula: “Well, of course, you moron! Who doesn’t die after his heart was stabbed with a knife?”
Just because she’s dead after eating an apple and fall in love with a man doesn’t mean that she’s weak.
Random people : “Oh, Snow White, why you have to be so weak? You die because of an apple?”
Snow White : “Whoa, do you want to try the apple? It’s poisoned! Of course I just…drop dead!”
Random People : “Why you have to be so…do you need to date a prince? Why you have to wish to marry a handsome prince?”
Snow White : “Well, I guess that’s because I’m normal!”
***
B. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
à In almost all versions of Sleeping Beauty, the princess is depicted as a beautiful hot girl, and very kind, and she can sing beautifully, and dance, and…and many more. What a perfect chick. Everything that she has in her, is merely a gift from seven fairies. She then falls to 100 years-long sleep and suddenly a handsome prince comes and save her. They live happily ever after. Wow! Sleeping Beauty is Disney’s most-hated princess, because, seriously, what she does to achieve everything she has? Nothing! Compare to Snow White or Cinderella who has to suffer before finally get the prince and live happily ever after. Sleeping is not a suffering. So…what’s the point? Princess Aurora (and before-the-war Scarlet O’Hara) resembles a stereotype that feminists have been trying to annihilate for ages: a female, so weak, so helpless, pretty face and no brain, singing all day long and the key of her happiness is a boy.
à The Disney version is…somehow better than the fairy tale. Aurora does not live a luxurious life for 16 years, but she has to live in a small cottage in the wood and help her ‘aunts’ to clean the house, cook, and wash the dishes, and so on. So, she’s not a spoiled snob. Basically, a Cinderella story without the step mother and step sisters. Does she care about marrying a prince? Heck, no. She meets Prince Phillip in the wood, not knowing that the man is a prince, so when the fairies told her about her true identity, instead of screaming out loud, “Yippiiiiiiiie!! I’m a princess! So long, suckers!” she burst in tears because being a princess with all the luxury is not worth the love she shares with the ‘ordinary’ boy she met earlier that day. And the prince, he doesn’t care whether the girl is a peasant or a hobo, he loves her. It’s a simple pure love between a boy and a girl. So, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty elevates the role of female even more, way more than the fairy tale. Does the prince save the day? I don’t think so. Maleficent caught him and the heroes (heroines) are actually the three good fairies. More credits for women!
***
C. The Little Mermaid
à We can’t really trace who wrote fairy tales such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, and so on, but The Little Mermaid is written by Hans Christian Andersen. The original story is…pretty dark. So, here’s a beautiful princess with a fish tail falling in love with a handsome prince. She wants to be with him, so she made a deal with a sea witch. But her dream costs her many, too many. She has to endure the pain of walking as if she walks on breaking glasses, losing her voice, and finally, watching her love falling for someone else. She then takes her own life. All just for a boy.
à Disney tells us the story differently and surely shows us that a girl is not ‘that easy’. She made her choice to give her voice away to the sea witch, Ursula, when she’s angry. We all know this: never, ever, decide when you’re angry. She has no intention to ‘really’ chase Prince Erik. So far, all that she does simply imagining and dreaming. But the moment her father destroy everything she has, she becomes a huge ball ready to ‘pop’. The story shows us how dangerous it could be if someone is overbearing to others, even if he has the intention of a saint. And Ursula is so seductive that she manages to fool Ariel. Well, everyone in love is a fool. Love+Anger=Not a good match.
You don’t need to be perfect to get the boy. Prince Erik falls in love with Ariel though he knows that Ariel can’t talk and frankly speaking, a bit odd thanks to the crazy bird telling her wrong information about human’s tools. The only reason the prince falls for the other girl is because Ursula uses her magic trick. And when Ariel is back to her mermaid form, she doesn’t take her life. She’s just…accept the fate that she’s a mermaid and Erik is a human. So realistic. But, this is Disney, so they still live happily ever after thanks to Triton.
***
D. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
à In a behind the scene documentary, an animator said that the fairy tale version is basically, “a beauty asked to marry the beast every single day after dinner. Bo-ring!” So…where does the love come from? Why does Beauty suddenly said “I love you!” in the end? What happened? Saying “I love you” to the opposite sex is terribly difficult. In the past, one could spend 500 sheets of paper just to throw them to the trash because he couldn’t find the right words to express his feelings before the mailman take the letter to the girl. Not so long ago, one can destroy the cable of his/her telephone and a long-recently ago, how much time did you need to send her a message from your cellphone?
à In the Disney version, the Beast never ask Belle to marry him. They didn’t get along very well. Belle doesn’t like him and…to be honest, Beast doesn’t really like her either because she is so…’difficult’! What kind of a man screaming to a woman, but not just a woman, a woman who can save him from the curse? She ran away, a pack of wolf attacked her, but Beast came to help her. Then, Belle realizes that Beast is not that bad and there’s something good in him. She probably saw all the negative sides of Beast, but wait a minute…So, Belle shows us that love is not a falling stuff. Love is something we build…together…two, as one…sweet…
Remember, Beauty is found within…and so on…
You know what, I’m tired. I guess that’s all. There are many more Disney Princesses, but before you judge them as anti-feminist or something associated with it, think again…and ask yourself, “Oh really?”
So long…
