The New Disney Princesses Make For Less Jaded Women

Children’s fairytales of yore are the stuff that jaded adults are made of, especially women. As children we’re fed that beautiful princess being rescued by Prince Charming and living happily ever after garbage and then we grow up and get slapped repeatedly by harsh reality checks, but I digress. I didn’t mean for that to sound as cynical as it did because the point of this post is to big up the latest Disney Princesses I’ve encountered…

I took my niece to see Tangled Thanksgiving weekend and it was pretty good. First I was wondered why so much emphasis was placed on the beautiful blonde Princess but in the original Rapunzel story she was blonde so I let that slide. However, she wasn’t blonde by the movie’s end yet she was still the heroine and received the same amount of praise. That was an important message for little girls to see. Throughout the movie, even though Rapunzel was sheltered, she wasn’t totally clueless and sometimes came to the aid of the “prince” who in this flick was a theif.

Last year I went to see The Princess and the Frog. What I liked about Princess Tiana was that she was an independent woman who wasn’t interested in chasing the prince but when she found true love she embraced it. The prince, on the other hand was a trifling manchild who was cut off by his parents because he needed to get his life together.

The princes in both movies needed some work but they eventually found redemption with the help of each movie’s heroine. FYI: I don’t think all men are trifling but I like that these new princesses weren’t helpless like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Hopefully Disney keeps up this trend along with improving the diversity factor (because they still need help with that) so that little girls can be steered in a better more realistic direction.

Tags: Princess Tiana, Rapunzel, Tangled

Category: Pop Culture, TV/Film