Who’s your favorite Disney princess? Don’t deny it, everyone has one. Is it Ariel? Belle? Jazmin? Mulan? Elsa? Every girl of our generation grew up dreaming of becoming her favorite princess. Living in a castle, having a fairy godmother, finding her prince (love at first sight, am I right?), and living happily ever after. There’s no harm in that, right? Not so fast.
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There’s absolutely nothing wrong with visualizing the life you want and daydreaming about it. However, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, you have to set goals and work hard to achieve them. Success and happiness usually go hand in hand with hard work and determination. That’s why Disney’s princess fantasy can be more harming that helpful in the long run.
Things don’t fall out of the sky, “prince charming” might not be so dreamy (or smart, or funny or even charming) as you think. And that’s okay because we don’t live in a fairy tale, we live in the real world. We’re made of flesh and bone, not sugar and spice (and everything nice).
A couple of weeks ago comedian Amy Schumer released a tragically hilarious short called “Princess Amy”. It’s supposed to be a trailer for a movie about a peasant girl who finds out she’s the one: she’s the kingdom’s lost princess! However, everything goes south from there.
The short portrays what it really meant to be a princess in the olden days. There was no magic or talking mice, it was more about keeping the crown on your head at all costs. Marriage was a political decision, it was about enforcing the unions between two kingdoms, or even keeping the purity of the family bloodline. There was no love in the equation.
And God forbid a queen didn’t produce any male heirs, then it was a typical case of “Off with her head!”
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However, we have to give credit where it’s due and Disney really is starting to do some things about this horrible princess stereotype.
That’s why my favorite modern Disney movie is Maleficent. This live-action adaptation of Sleeping Beauty finally breaks the “women-need-a-man-to-save-them” stereotype. If you remember the original movie, Princess Aurora is cursed with a spell that puts her to sleep. The antidote? A “true love’s kiss”. Her “true love” was naturally Prince Phillip, a guy she met once in the forest. That makes sense, right? (Not really)
So fast forward 55 years from 1959 to 2014 and Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent came to put a stop to that. In this movie, the not-so-evil Maleficent grows very fond of Aurora and even starts to look after her (she becomes like a mother to the little girl).
When Aurora turns 16 she is put under the sleeping spell but *SPOILER ALERT* her “true love’s kiss” isn’t the one from a boy she just met, it’s that motherly love’s kiss. That’s how Maleficent breaks the spell. *Awww*
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So there’s no harm in dreaming of a happily ever after, you just need to understand what happiness really means to you. It’s not always the guy with the prince charming looks or the castle that’ll make you happy. Happiness comes from within and if you’re not happy with who you are or what you’re doing, there aren’t enough ruby slippers that’ll change your mind.
So don’t aspire to be a Disney princess, dream of being an independent and strong Queen.
