Disney Princesses Are My (Imperfect) Feminist Role Models

I see what you did there.

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I know she’s not a princess, and the film never comes up in the Disney Princess discussion, but I’d like to give a shout-out to “Lilo and Stitch”. Lilo herself is a great character, and her big sister is a single mom (well, mom-standin) Making It Work. If my granddaughters get more inspiration from L&S than from most of the Princess pantheon, I’ll be happy indeed.
(Currently they’re obsessed with Frozen, and I’m OK with that… but I like Lilo and Stitch better.)

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Quick, name one song from “Tangled” from memory! If you can do it, you’re a rare person.

The catchy musical numbers are kiddie crack.

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From Clickhole

5 Disney princesses reimagined as Caucasian

Hunh. I tend to reserve that sort of extreme assessment for Dreamworks Animation.

 

While not a Princess, Lilo of Lilo & Stich deserves some sort of shout-out. Not Latina, however.

Whoops – missed this one before!

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Yeah Blade is a super hero in the Marvel universe.

M.A.N.T.I.S. was on TV.

Talking to Neal Adams, supposedly there are talks of having John Stewart show up in a movie - either Green Lantern or JLA. I really liked his character. It’s worth tracking down the run of Green Lantern: Mosaic from the mid 90s where John is tasked with keeping peace between a patch work of community of alien cities which were transplanted to Oa.

I’ve heard rumors of a War Machine movie, which I think would be awesome.

But yes, even though comics have slowly moved to more diverse characters, the Hollywood movies are slow to catch up.

ETA - maybe some day the comic I dreamed up will be made into a movie. The character was technically black… though he looked white. Basic back story it was a DARPA project, basically like a T-800, only with a human brain in the seat. The body was made for a white veteran who had all his limbs blown off in war, but when a black general’s son gets wounded and near death in combat, he pulls rank and has his sons brain transplanted into the “FELIX” unit. So imagine waking up with someone elses face. Eventually I was going to have them recreate the skin and facial features to reflect his past body.

I don’t remember a single word or a single note, but the witch’s song about how imprisoning Rapunzel is really a demonstration of her love is about the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen in an animated film aimed at kids (Coraline included).

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Well technically SW was in a coma so I don’t think it’s necrophilia but I don’t have my fetish dictionary handy. :smile:

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And yet Sondheim fans are worried about Disney making hash out of Into the Woods.



So soon they forget…

Shoot–this is Disney. If they can make Native Americans copacetic with the white man despite a touch 'o the genocide, then they can handle nearly anything. In fact, I propose that Disney goes full Godwin–Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Eva Brauney, the butch lesbian who conquers the distrust between Hitler and Blondi despite that boring old Bormann! Wheee!

…time to stop drinking coffee today, methinks.

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Somnophilia would be the fetish of being sexually aroused by sleeping people, but it’s not a DSM recognised paraphilia.

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Disney Princesses are basically alpha females almost at the beginning of their reproductive years. This is why they are what hetero men find alluring and what hetero females wish to be like. It’s basically the female biological counterpart to the alpha male jock – they get their status largely from their physicality. What I’ve found more prevalent in recent years is a practice of females in the same approximate age range as Disney princesses using their physically derived status to emotionally bully lower status males, often in the name of some political or activist agenda. How is this any different from alpha males physically intimidating smaller people in the name of some political agenda? It’s not one whit different. It is just as dehumanizing to all parties involved, the bully included. If it’s the position of feminism that women aren’t to be defined by their biology, then there should be a rejection of any false “moral superiority” based on the force of physicality and biological status. If you’ve supported a bully because you happen to think she’s cool and pretty, then you’re no better than someone who supports a bully because he’s strong and has great abs. It doesn’t matter how noble you think their position or cause is. The ends do not justify the means, even if the means involve the prettiest girl in school.

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With movies like those can you BLAME anyone for wanting to forget?

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While not within the official canon of Disney Princesses - this painting is the creation of one G Richard Cassarino - who was an animator on Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” as well as the creator of “The Hideous Sun Demon” (as seen in the 50’s monster movie “The Hideous Sun Demon”). Don’t Fool With Mother Nature made in Alaska shortly after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Not sure that it’s rewriting history for Pocahontas’ love interest to be a white guy. She married an English colonist named John Rolfe under some pretty creepy circumstances. Probably very few people nowadays would be willing to call it love, but I’ve never heard of her being linked to anyone else besides Rolfe and John Smith–Native or white.

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Also Blankman, although that was much more of a parody.

Aw, come on, wouldn’t you like to hear a Disney Princess singing a song extolling the virtues of human sacrifice; a beautiful ballad called, “Heart and Soul” or a stomping show tune called, “Aorta warn yer!”

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The Tangled songs are actually quite catchy. My kids went through a Tangled phase earlier this year (after they got bored of Frozen), and my wife and I routinely caught each other humming the songs to ourselves for weeks after they gave it up. They’re not as catchy as the songs from Frozen, as I haven’t watched that in months and could still sing Let it Go or The First Time In Forever from memory, but I also didn’t have the Tangled soundtrack playing in my car for months either.