intellectual properties

the princess tales continue

earlier this year i read “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister“, a retelling of the Cinderella story that is extremely well written and engaging and not at all what you think it’s going to be (same author as the very popular story of the Wizard of Oz witches, Wicked. i liked this one much more than Wicked.). i learned a lot about 17th century life in Holland and Dutch art, for example. honestly, i don’t read too many books these days, as i find it harder and harder to find novels that hold my attention. i start a lot of books. i don’t finish many. this one, i read pretty much cover to cover. i kept meaning to recommend the book here, and it wasn’t until i came across two items about princess stories yesterday that i remembered. again: highly recommended.

so the two princess sites: first, “Fallen Princesses“, a photo essay:

As a young girl, growing up abroad, I was not exposed to Fairy tales. These new discoveries lead to my fascination with the origins of Fairy tales. I explored the original brothers Grimm’s stories and found that they have very dark and sometimes gruesome aspects, many of which were changed by Disney. I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

then, NPR points out that Pixar’s 13th movie finally has a female heroine, and guess what. SHE’S A PRINCESS.

Of the ten movies you’ve released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees — The Incredibles, in particular — but the story is never “a girl and the things that happen to her,” the way it’s “a boy and what happens to him.”

I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Princess And The Frog. Not a girl who’s a side dish, but a girl who’s the big draw.

And I’d really, really like it not to be a princess….don’t the Disney princesses pretty much have us covered? If we had to wait for your thirteenth movie for you to make one with a girl at the center, couldn’t you have chosen something — something — for her to be that could compete with plucky robots and adventurous space toys?

the whole “princess” phenomenon is one of the reasons i can’t stand Disney to no end, and i think it’s sad that Pixar has followed its leader in this regard. not only that, but the premise is sort of vomit-inducing:

In Scotland, Merida (Reese Witherspoon), a member of the royal family, decides to give up her family name for her dream of becoming an archer. Merida makes reckless choices, resulting in the destruction of her father’s kingdom and her mother’s life. Merida then struggles to set things right.

so the girl decides to break out of her assigned gender role, which results in everything getting all fucked up?

oh, Pixar. you almost had me at UP.

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