The Postmodern Princess, part 1

It's hard to say exactly why princesses are such a big deal for so many young American girls. It isn't, however, very difficult to see that they are a big deal, and if you weren't a little girl who was at one point obsessed with princesses, pink, tiaras, and fairy tales at some point between the ages of five and ten, chances are you knew someone who was.

But why princesses? The United States was founded on a rejection of monarchy, after all, and not only did our founders do their best to reject the notion of royal rule, our entire society is built on principles that run counter to the whole idea of monarchy. Success is not supposed to be achieved through social connections and heredity, but rather through hard work, perseverance, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Being a princess is all about...what, exactly? Having life handed to you on a silver platter? Not having to work for what you want?

Maybe, at least to a degree. Princesses are part of royalty, an upper class that seems destined to be everything we want to be but aren't. As children get older, they start to idolize other types of upper class, ones that actually exist in modern society: rock stars, movie stars, super models, professional athletes, and more. These may be distant dreams, but they are potentially achievable, and our society never seems to tire of reaching for those heights, as evidenced by such reality shows as American Idol, America's Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance, and America's Next Top Model. We love seeing an ordinary person reach fame and celebrity, and we imagine that it could one day be us.

So why do so many little girls dream of being princesses? It's not as if princesses are common these days, and it's almost impossible to become one. For those rare few that do marry into royalty, it's not always the dream come true that it seems—case in point, Princess Diana. Still, teens swoon over Prince Harry and little girls pester their parents for more and more products from the Disney Princess line. Princesses in pink with tiaras and sparkly gowns remain as popular as ever. Maybe some of it has to do with the fairy tale setting, the mystical and mythical element that sparks our imaginations. Maybe it's also because being a princess implies fame, respect, money, love, and freedom. If you're a princess, surely you can make any of your other dreams come true, right? But while the idea of happily ever remains popular with little girls, modern American society seems almost embarrassed by this. We want our girls to grow up self-assured, empowered, ambitious individuals who have more specific goals than just "happily ever after", and we want them to be able to work to achieve those goals. So how do we handle this problem?

That's how we ended up with the Postmodern Princess. The new fairy tale princess doesn't wait to be rescued. She (almost) always ends up with her prince charming, but there's usually some twist to it. Maybe he's not who she expected, and she has to learn not to judge on appearances or first impressions. Maybe she has to hunt her prince charming down herself, rather than waiting for him to come rescue her. Maybe she even rescues him. The Postmodern Princess is often a tomboy, or maybe she's equally comfortable in both masculine and feminine roles. She is attractive to men not because of her dainty feminine qualities (or at least not just because of them), but because of her self-assured determination and her own dreams for the future.

Disney Princesses are a pretty notorious example, as many of the early ones in particular were about as anti-feminist as you can get. They've gradually been catching up to modern ideals, however, starting with Ariel in The Little Mermaid. What? But Ariel gave up her family, her home, her voice, her tail, and her self-identity to get her man, who she'd never even spoken to! This is a common source of outrage, and I grant that it's true, but take a look at Ariel. She is spunky and often defiant, and she goes to great lengths to get what she wants—even if those lengths are not necessarily wise, and you could probably argue that she's still too young and naive to really know what she wants. Besides, what's so great about this prince, anyway? He's pretty bland—I read a review of the movie when it first came out (I was ten years old), and it described Prince Eric as a "male bimbo". (I had to ask my mom what a bimbo was.) The review was right, kind of, but on the other hand, the princes in Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty hardly did more than speak a few words. Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty was a definite step in the right direction, as he had a little more personality and was actually kind of likable. Prince Eric occasionally has a touch of mischievous humor, and he has a lot more screen time and dialogue than some of the earlier princes. Still, he's not all that exciting, it's true. Why is this important? Well, to really respect a Disney princess, we have to feel that the object of her heart's desire is actually worth her time. With Eric, that's somewhat debatable, but at least Ariel actively seeks out what she wants rather than letting others do all the work for her. Snow White had the dwarfs, Cinderella had the mice and her fairy godmother, and Aurora had the good fairies, after all. Ariel has help, but much of the time it's fairly ineffectual help, and she does a lot of the work herself. At least she takes the initiative.

Next up is Beauty and the Beast. I was 12 this time, and when we came out of the theater after the movie, my mom looked at me and said, "Belle is just like you!" Well, she was in that she was a bookworm who spent hours reading, and she had an obsession with dreaming of adventures and other lands. But where Ariel began showing some spunk, Belle took it several steps further. She showed initiative, and although she was kind of vague about what sort of adventure she wanted, she wasn't just waiting around for her prince to come bring it to her. She went to rescue her father on her own, and she agreed to stay in the Beast's castle to save him, giving up that freedom she wanted for the family she loved. Although I admire Ariel's initiative, Belle's is far more selfless and brave. Granted, the Beast isn't exactly a prize catch, but he does manage to woo Belle—not through his station, looks, or wealth, but by displaying true personality and character, and showing respect for her desires. Suddenly we have a prince we can admire Belle for loving. He isn't perfect, but he's interesting, and very likable as the story goes on. The final showdown involves the Beast and Gaston, and Belle only helps at the end by saying "I love you" and breaking the spell, which is a pretty standard thing for a princess to do. Still, she did her best to save the Beast and not wait around for others to do things for her, so Belle is a pretty admirable princess, all in all. (Of course, Beauty and the Beast was one of the best Disney movies ever, truly postmodern princess or not, but that's for another review.)

Although not a title character and for once, not European, Jasmine is definitely a Disney princess, and a fairly feminist one at that. Unfortunately, most of her feminist traits remain philosophical, and although she does take the initiative to leave the palace and see life out in the city, she is woefully naive and unprepared for the realities of the world. Although she spends a lot of time insisting on making her own decisions and not being a prize to be won, she still spends most of the movie being controlled by men. Aladdin seems to have a decent amount of respect for her, so I think we can hope for a positive future, but she doesn't actually accomplish all that much in the movie aside from spouting platitudes—admirable platitudes, but sadly without a lot of action to back them up.

Disney's 90s renaissance was in full swing from The Little Mermaid to The Lion King (we'll skip over the latter for now, since it's a bit debatable whether Nala counts as a princess), but things took a turn for the worse with Pocahontas. Pocahontas is often presented as part of the Disney Princess line, but there are a number of problems with her identification as a princess. She's a chief's daughter, which really isn't the same thing as a princess. She's not of European ethnicity and doesn't easily fit into the standard fairy tale mold. She's a historical figure, albeit one whose story was totally butchered in this retelling. And, finally, her movie just wasn't very good. I've seen Pocahontas a couple of times, but I have trouble taking any of it seriously. Most other princess characters are based on fairy tale and legend, but when you try to do a historical story, I believe you have a responsibility to tell the story honestly. Creative license is allowed, but to try to tell a story like this and whitewash so much of what actually happened, to make John Smith into a clean-cut blond hunk, and to pretend (or at least imply) that Pocahontas brought the Native Americans and the English colonists together to live in peace forever after, is entirely dishonest and unconscionable. Not to mention that you're teaching children a version of history that is just plain wrong, which will only confuse them when it comes up in their US history classes later on in high school. I was in high school when this movie came out, and I spent a lot of time growling to my friends about how Pocahontas did not marry John Smith, she married John Rolfe, the man who began the tobacco farming industry in America, and wasn't that a lovely contribution to history? Anyway, enough with that mini-rant. Pocahontas seemed admirable and self-assured in the Disney movie, and she did save John Smith's life, but I have a hard time finding her any sort of role model even so.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame has similar problems. I actually do like this movie, largely because it does have a very good soundtrack and a fascinating villain, but it's also guilty of butchering its source material. It was classic literature this time instead of history, and I haven't actually read the original book, but the characters and story are so vastly different from the book that the movie has caused great gnashing of teeth and foaming at the mouth among a couple of my friends. I enjoyed the movie, but at the time it came out I was at the peak of my obsession with the musical Les Miserables, based on another of Victor Hugo's works, and there really was no comparison when it comes to the quality of the adaptation. Besides which, Esmerelda wasn't a princess in any way. Pocahontas was at least a chief's daughter, but Esmerelda was a gypsy girl, and neither love interest in the movie was royalty of any sort, either. At least she was a kind, intelligent, and proactive person, which is more than you can say for the original book character, as I understand it. Still, she's just not that memorable and doesn't really fit as a princess, no matter how you look at it.

Hercules was a definite step in the right direction. Meg wasn't a princess, but boy, did she ever have an attitude, and it even turned out she was working for the villain! She definitely broke out of the standard pattern, but she also wasn't a princess and generally isn't marketed as one. (Okay, okay, she did marry a god, I guess that counts for something.) I don't know if you want to argue that someone working for the god of the underworld is a good role model, but Meg didn't just stand back and let the guy do all the work—in fact, when we first met her, she actually refused his help at first and told him she could handle it. Go Meg! So, maybe not so much a princess, but definitely fitting the "postmodern" personality. Not to mention that I am always in favor of a character who breaks out of the usual tropes and stereotypes to do things that the audience doesn't expect. (What's that? They butchered the Hercules myth, too? Shush. I know they did, but I still love it. Maybe that's a review for another time, too.)

Mulan is another not-princess who is often marketed as part of the Disney Princess line, but she is similar to Pocahontas in that she's not of European ethnicity, and she's not really a princess. She definitely breaks the mold in a lot of ways, and she seems to actively avoid a lot of princess traits. She's not after a man, and although she kind of ends up with one, it's really pretty ambiguous. She goes after what she wants pretty proactively, and her goals are kind of a mix of protecting her family and finding herself. She's a definite tomboy who isn't incredibly strong, but she's very smart and solves problems with ingenuity and skill rather than brute strength. There's a lot to admire about Mulan. I know a lot of Mulan fans who are incredibly frustrated that she turns down the offer of a position on the emperor's council, but some of my friends choose to believe that after she went home to her family, she eventually went back to the capital to take that position. She may not be a princess, but she is definitely trending toward that postmodern ideal.

Disney sure seemed to have trouble finding real princess stories to tell around this time, despite the fact that there are still plenty of Grimm's fairy tales still left untouched. Ah, well. The next feature they released was Tarzan, which I think is actually kind of underrated. I really enjoyed this one, and I thought Minnie Driver as Jane was absolutely hilarious and fun. She's quirky, intelligent, and just as strange as her bumbling father. She's also not afraid to get her hands dirty, which makes me wonder why she wore that yellow get-up out into the jungle in the first place. I'll let it slide though! Here we have a Victorian heroine, which is a pretty interesting change, and although she has to be saved by Tarzan a number of times, she's an interesting character who contributes to the story in ways other than just serving as the damsel in distress.

The next animated feature with a strong female lead was Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and gasp! This actually featured a princess. Sadly, although based on a fascinating story and featuring a number of great voice actors, it doesn't seem to have made much of a mark as a Disney film. It's too bad, too, since it appears to be the first Disney steampunk movie, and I can totally get behind that—not to mention that I've been fascinated by the Atlantis legend since high school and have read tons of books on the subject. Unfortunately, the movie messed with the legend quite a bit, although I guess that isn't surprising. (This will definitely be the subject of its own review later, so I won't get into that too much right now.) Princess Kida didn't show up till a good ways into the movie, and although in some ways she was a fairly strong character, she was overshadowed by the ensemble cast. In fact, near the end of the movie she pretty much fused with the story's MacGuffin and then, oddly enough, appeared to become useless. There was a lot of great potential in the character, but most of it went unutilized.

I've mentioned a lot of female leads who aren't considered part of the official Disney Princess line. The official line consists of nine "princesses", including Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Mulan, who I've already talked about, and also the three more old-fashioned princesses, Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella. Although Mulan wasn't a princess and Kida was, Mulan was the last new entry into the official Disney Princess line until Tiana came along, in last year's The Princess and the Frog. It took us a long time to get to her, and Disney had actually shut down their 2D animation department after flops like Brother Bear and Home on the Range. (Did anyone even see that last one? I'd forgotten it existed.) The last Disney animated movie with a strong female lead that I remember was Lilo and Stitch in 2002, which was brilliant but doesn't fit into the princess ideal in any way. Okay, I guess there was Captain Amelia in Treasure Planet—while not a princess either, she was a pretty awesome female character. Still, her role wasn't that big, and unfortunately the movie bombed at the box office. That's pretty sad, since I actually really liked Treasure Planet, but that's a topic for another day. So by the time The Princess and the Frog came out, it had been seven years since our last strong female lead in a Disney 2D animated film, eight years since our last princess, and eleven years since our last "official" princess. It was about time!

I'm going to have to do an entire review of The Princess and the Frog to do it justice, but Tiana really is a Postmodern Princess in the truest sense. She has the spunk and determination of many of the princesses that have gone before her, such as Belle and Ariel, but she's the first princess to hold down two jobs and be totally disinterested in finding love. Yes, she's the first black princess too, and it's about time, but what truly fascinates me about her is how quintessentially American she is. Being African-American is definitely part of that, of course, and the fact that she lives in New Orleans. We seldom have a Disney princess who lives in anywhere specific—The Little Mermaid had a vaguely European/Caribbean setting, Beauty and the Beast took place somewhere in France, Jasmine was Arabian, but Tiana lives in a specific American city with a distinctive culture of its own. Not only that, she is truly a modern character who lives in the 20th century, and can even be pinned down to a specific year—1926. Her life has been shaped by events in American history such as World War II and the class differences of whites and African-Americans in the south, and she values hard work and entrepreneurship above all else. She has dreams for the future, but they are very specific ones that she is actively working toward. She finds love, but she was never searching for it in the beginning, and she never abandons her dreams for love, instead incorporating the two. Her prince doesn't sweep her off to a castle where they live happily ever after—rather, she includes him in her plans and they make their own castle, by building the restaurant she always dreamed of. He sacrifices his own wants and needs for her dream and her life, a total reversal of the typical story. It's the first time I've ever seen a fairy tale end with the prince getting a job.

There are many, many other examples of the Postmodern Princess in both literature and film. Some of these I plan to cover in future reviews, books like The Ordinary Princess and The Hero and the Crown. In my next post, I'll be talking about some other film examples of the Postmodern Princess that are actually more like satires of the traditional fairy tale or princess story, such as Enchanted and Shrek. For now, I think I'm all princessed out for one day! If you haven't had enough, you should check out a couple of the sources that inspired me to write this. First of all, I discovered a couple of articles on Overthinkingit.com (remember them? I mentioned them yesterday, and they are really awesome—you should check it out!) about Disney Princesses that really got me thinking. Click to read Belle: Princess or Not Princess? and The Princess and the Frog: A Comparative Analysis to see what they had to say! Additionally, the Nostalgia Chick recently did a wonderful video review of Ever After that talks about a lot of different versions of the Cinderella story. Specifically, she focuses on the original Disney film, Disney's Enchanted, and, of course, Ever After. Her insights were really fascinating and got me thinking about the Cinderella story. Although I'd had this title on my review list for a while, I was inspired to go ahead and bump up Ella Enchanted to my first non-Oz review. So stay tuned for tomorrow's conclusion of Postmodern Princesses, and the start of my Ella Enchanted review!