DISNEY LADIES + THE SOB™
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Mulan (1998)
Aladdin (1992)
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Peter Pan (1953)
Cinderella (1950)
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Pocahontas (1995)
I never liked those posts that reduce the Disney princesses to “girl who overacts about something and dramatically flings herself down and bawls” (super popular in the early 10’s and somehow that’s how a shocking majority view the classics now) but after an Aladdin (1992) rewatch, it’s especially egregious that they ever included Jasmine in that.
This part. This is the part I’m talking about
This is not a woman falling to pieces because her father won’t let her marry a man she just met.
This is a woman born to a life she has very little say in. She has never had a genuine friend (besides a tiger). She is facing a marriage to a man she doesn’t know and doesn’t like but duty (and the law) demands it. So she took a risk, ran away, ran to a world she doesn’t know or understand and when she landed in trouble (serious, serious trouble) a stranger came to her aid. She finally (finally!) made a real connection with someone but they didn’t get much time together before the guards showed up and she had to reveal who she was.
This moment when she’s crying her heart out? It comes after she’s been told that the first person she ever connected with, the first person to be genuinely interested in her for who she is and not what she is, the first real friend she has ever made, was executed… because of her.
She believes a good, innocent person has lost their life because of her actions, and what’s more, it brings home the reality for her that she cannot have a normal life or normal relationships, because see the consequences one little attempt wrought?
I actually love this trope. People treat crying like some kind of moral failure. Boys shouldn't cry, girls *can* cry, but that's also what makes them inferior. If this is not an example of toxic masculity, I don't know what is.
Crying is normal. Even if it's over something trivial. We all face a lot of struggles in their lives, whether we acknowledge it or not. Something minor might end up breaking the camel's back.
Anyway, here's one of my favorite scenes in Beauty and the Beast:
Belle's reaction is completely understandable. I think Mrs. Potts put it best: "The girl lost her father and her freedom all in one day." That's not overreacting!
Thank you so much for adding Belle!
Really, none of the classic princesses deserve the misinterpretation.
Cinderella?
Again, this is not after someone told her “yOu CaN’t MaRrY a MaN yOu JuSt MeT”—this is after she went to great lengths to get ready for the ball, adhering to the intentionally difficult (meant to be impossible) stipulations set by her abusive step-mother for her to be allowed to attend (when really she was invited and had as much right as the others to attend). She made that dress (I can’t recall off the top of my head if the classic animated version was also her mother’s old dress she restyled or not but still, she put in a ton of work on top of all the extra house work) and what did her step-family do? They tore to shreds while she was wearing it. Of course she’s lost hope: it’s the final straw after years and years of doggedly remaining optimistic despite constant harsh treatment.
Let’s go to another favourite: Mulan.
Mulan’s just had the worst day.
She tried her hardest to live up to her family’s and her society’s expectations and vision of a perfect bride but she failed. Not only did it go wrong, but she was publicly humiliated by the Matchmaker—by extension, humiliating her family.
Granted, her family has been kind and sympathetic about the whole thing. Her father even goes to encourage her, assuring her of his unconditional love for her and his confidence that she’ll get it right next time.
She’s just beginning to smile when the drums pound and news of war reaches their village. Her father—her beloved father who’s already a veteran and lives with a disability—is expected as the only male in their family to suit up and head out in the morning.
Mulan can’t help. Nothing she says will be listened to and she can’t take his place (until, of course, she thinks of a way to do so which this moment of crying it out in the rain leads to—score one for having a good cry and clearing your head).
There’s of course more. Take any princess’ dramatic crying momentTM and review the context and I’ll bet you’ll see it’s never as trivial as some have framed it. And, yes, like prev pointed out, it’s this awful thing of people believing boys can’t cry and girls can but then they can never be taken seriously.
Crying is healthy. And crying in response to emotional distress is totally normal. Writers and storytellers across the ages have understood it and portrayed it.
Has anybody added Ariel already?
She didn't deserve to see the things that she held dearly destroyed right before her eyes by her own father. No, it wasn't just about the cute guy she just met. Her family had never approved of her interests and she felt so isolated that she hid them away. Just collecting random stuff that she felt oddly inspired by. Then Triton obliterated it. Her memories, all the care she put into organizing it and keeping it safe—gone. He couldn't accept her passion because it didn't align with his beliefs, so he destroyed it. The ultimate rejection from a parent, the very people who are supposed to love you and make you feel safe.
My girl deserved—which she ultimately got in the end—but still.
Let's take a sec to mention Aurora.
Or Briar Rose, who she thought she was.
She's not just crying because her aunts/the three fairies told her she couldn't be with this guy she just met. She's crying because she just found out her entire life is a lie. She's not a simple peasant girl living with her eccentric aunties, she's a princess. She's a princess of a kingdom she knows little about, has parents she's never met, she's going to go see them today, they're going to leave their little cottage to go to this castle she doesn't even remember, meet people she can't remember... The 'hunter' she met in the woods? She can't keep visiting him after all, she's a princess and has to leave everything about this life behind her today
and on top of all of that, it is her goddamn birthday when she learns all this.
Snow White didn't collapse prettily somewhere, she tripped and fell while running for her life and was too scared/exhausted to get back up.
She's a young woman who was reduced to a servant in her own home by her abusive stepmother, and who knows how long the abuse was going on before her father died, and then one day she's told she can wear a nice dress again and go out with the huntsman to pick flowers. Happy day! She's finally being given a day off! She's leaving the castle! She's going to see the flowers, to be among nature! How wonderful! She has a wonderful time, she comforts a baby bird... huh. That's an awfully long shadow behind her........
So she turns around and the huntsman is standing over her with his knife out to stab her. That alone would be traumatizing to anyone, but then even as he can't do it he tells her that her stepmother has ordered her killed. Her stepmom is no longer satisfied with demeaning her and keeping her as a servant, she wants her dead. So he shouts for her to run, run and never come back, and while she's running in a panic through a forest she's never been in before, trying to comprehend and make sense of what she was just told and what nearly happened to her, her own terror makes everything look monstrous, scaring her even worse.
She's completely justified in just lying there and crying after she's finally lost her footing and collapsed, she has had a horrible last half hour on top of years of abuse.
Mulan character designs by Chen-Yi Chang from The Disney Princess: A Celebration of Art and Creativity
Look I know Rapunzel paints and Tiana cooks, but if you guys don't think Mulan is the Most Creative Disney Princess, you're wrong.
She's literally introduced in this perfect scene that highlights her whole character, flaws and strengths:
The first time you see her she's:
- Cheating, which is totally the opposite of what honor-code General Shang would do.
- Undisciplined, which is what going to the army fixes.
- Problem-solving—by writing the recitation she can't remember on her wrist—
BUT LISTEN. That last one is the first hint you have that she's the Most Creative Disney Princess. Because guess what? She's not the first young woman to cheat at the matchmaker test. The Matchmaker specifically checks to see if she's cheating when the test begins. But the rest of them wrote their cheat sheet on their fans.
The Matchmaker was prepared for the usual kind of tricks. But Mulan's full of her own ideas, not everyone else's.
You guys know the rest. She dresses up like a soldier—nobody suspects her because the idea that someone would do that never occurs to everyone else. She climbs the pole by tying the medallions around each other when none of the other recruits can figure it out. She lights the cannon by grabbing Mushu instead of searching for flints. She creates an avalanche instead of just taking Shan Yu out. She tricks the Huns by dressing her friends up as concubines. She defeats Shan Yu with his own sword and a bunch of fireworks.
But even beyond problem-solving, Mulan never does things like other people do. She doesn't even do things like other women do.
She doesn't just walk across a bridge, she jumps from pillar to pillar. She doesn't just bring her father tea, she puts a spare teacup in her sleeve because she knows she's clumsy.
Mulan is creative. But you know what that moment proves? That she's not just a representation of all women-versus-men. Mulan is representative of a human, who sees where she has strengths, and sees where she has weaknesses. She uses her strengths to her advantage and works to improve or make up for her weaknesses. She doesn't try to be exactly like a man. She just tries to use what she's got to do the right thing. And finding ways to use what you've got, even if it's not like what everyone else has, is creativity.
Appreciation post for the gorgeous dolls designed by toy designer/fashion illustrator Lisa Temming.
CINDERELLA THOUGH?????
Love Aurora!!
OMFG URSULA
Have faith in your dreams and someday, your rainbow will come smiling through. No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.
Thor grabs his depression hoodie and goes to the other Disney Princesses for company. They’ll hook him up with starbucks and listen to him vent.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING MORE PRECIOUS IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE
https://twitter.com/disney_around/status/1030504483334176774
I swear to heaven this movie is going to kill me
superman-creampieing-batman