Disney Princess Facts

[Elladorine]

Don't worry, I often like the devil's advocate. They're willing to step up with a good argument rather than a shocked fan who'll just huff off and say "well, forget you, man!"

And it hopefully makes for more interesting conversations.

I know, my beef isn't with the marketing line. It's simply with how fans interpret "Princess" because of how Disney uses it. While I'm annoyed that less popular characters aren't in the line, I'm more annoyed that it says that you have to be a popular character to be in the line.

I didn't feel you had any beef with it but I sense that some fans in general might. And personally, I'm not much for popularity contests, even when it comes to these fictional characters.

I wish it could just be me too. But it just bothers me that because of the goddamn line, there are fans out there who'll say "Kida isn't a Disney Princess" just because she isn't in the line. There is not, nor should there be, a difference between "Princess in a Disney Film" versus "Disney Princess". Just because Disney uses the latter as a marketing term does not mean fans should suddenly say Eilonwy isn't a Disney Princess, nor will it *ever* make Giselle a Disney Princess.

I wonder . . . do people actually get satisfaction out of claiming that that neither Kida nor Eilonwy are princesses? I'm guessing that had there not been a line, the whole term wouldn't be so flippantly tossed around like it is now. Anyone remember the old song "Disney Girls?" Had they gone with that term instead, would the same fans be arguing, "Eilonwy is not a Disney Girl!!!"

Something I liked about Enchanted (and one of the points, I would assume) is that had Nerissa not interefered, Giselle would have married Edward and had been obliviously happy with her 2-D world. But she was exposed to and fell in love with a person that was more dimensional (not just visually, but in character) and became more dimensional in the process herself. Being the stereotypical "princess" type was not meant for her. On the other hand, what about Nancy?

It's a great piece of art, Sunset Girl! (And sorry, I couldn't resist using your old name at least once in this post!)

Huh? I don't know what you're talking about! *tries to look innocent* . . . But seriously, thanks! It's great to be remembered.

[Escapay]

On the other hand, what about Nancy?

I totally forgot about Nancy, actually!

Huh? I don't know what you're talking about! *tries to look innocent* . . . But seriously, thanks! It's great to be remembered.

It's great to have you back!

Albert

[Mooky]

There are Disney Princesses and there are princesses from Disney films. Being a princess in a Disney films doesn't make you a Disney Princess.

This is exactly the skewed 'logic" and ideas that I'm annoyed with, and I'm not singling you out, I'm singling out the idea that "if you're a Princess in a film, it doesn't automatically include you in the merch line".

I was just trying to show the way Disney sees this whole Princess thing. I pretty much agree with everything you said.

[bruno_wbt]

According to Disney Consumer Products this is the cast for the Disney Princess line:


Cast:
Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.

<a href="http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l139/ ... racter.gif" target="_blank"><img src="http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l139/ ... racter.gif" border="0" alt="Official Disney Princesses"></a>



source:
https://licensing.disney.com/Home/displ ... l&region=0

[Ariel'sprince]

Oh,they only care for new merchandise like Halloween costumes,besides,I count Giselle,she seems very official and lots of official places called her "The lastest Disney Princess".

But it's not called the Disney Heroines line, which is exactly my point. "Princess" does not always equal "Heroine", and Disney is twisting the definition in order to fit in characters like Giselle and Mulan.

Yeah but still,Giselle and Mulan more fits into fairy tale Princesses then let's say Kida or Elionwy,their film doesn't feel like fairy tale and Mulan and Giselle are more like Ariel or Cinderella then them.
It might sounds weird to incloud them but still.

[supertalies]

I love lists like this ^_^
More "firsts" please!
And on a Disney Princess lj, we pretty much figured out, through deduction or facts, that:
Cinderella=France
Snow White=Germany
Aurora=England or France
Ariel=Norway
Belle=France

I thought that Ariel was Denmark since that is where "The Little Mermaid" story originated from.

Snow White - Germany.
Cinderella - France.
Alice - England.
Wendy - England.
Tiger Lily - Neverland.
Aurora - England?
Maid Marian - England.
Eilonwy - Prydain.
Ariel - Denmark.
Belle - France.
Jasmine - Indian?
Nala - Africa.
Pocahontas - pre-United States.
Esmeralda - France.
Megara - Greece.
Mulan - China.
Jane - England
Kida - Atlantis
Tiana - New Orleans.
Giselle - Andalasia.

I think I forgot a lot of heroines (and damsels! (just kidding ), but you'll have to forgive me that!

[Ariel'sprince]

Official Princess worlds:
Aurora-Enchanted Kingdom.
Cinderella-Castle Of Dreams.
Snow White-Unknown yet.
Ariel-Atlantica.
Belle-Beast's Castle.
Jasmine-Agrabah.
Pocahontas-Unknown yet.
Mulan-Land Of Dragons.
Giselle-Andalasia.
And we still don't now the worlds of the upcoming ones.

[Sailor Eric]

Ummm...not sure if it has been mentioned before, but

Princess Aurora
*The only princess with a crown!!!!!

(Ariel, Gisele, and Cinderella have tiaras for their weddings, not crowns).

[Disney Duster]

The Cinderella Castle in MK is more gothic which conflicts with the actual film setting but I doubt anyone cares.

I care A LOT.

As for the thing with Enchanted, I think what pap64 couldve meant to say was that Giselle was the first princess to cross over into the CONTEMPORARY world.

I'd be down with that if contemporary meant "present day".

Because the original Disney princesses were not in alternate universes. They were in the real world. Fictional things happened to them, but these fictional things happened in the real world.

So 2009net, would you be down with that? That Cinderella being able to understand mice, and the mice getting her the key, and her fairy godmother making a pumpkin a coach, are just fictional things happening in the real world somewhere, perhaps a fictional kingdom, but still in real france? And the same idea for all Disney fairy tale films?

But one thing's for sure. Disney, Walt Disney, never intended the films to be in a whole new universe like we think of today. They were set in real places. Perhaps fictional kingdoms with fictional characters, but still in the real world. And they definately tried to make the characters realistic, as well.

So Enchanted can just bite me.

Thanks for the info on Andalasia Siren, but Giselle's world isn't Spanish at all. It's still set in nowhere, unlike any of the previous princesses. I think that actual is in agreement with what you said. Enchanted can bite harder.

No, given the makers of the film Giselle is hardly some random guy's uninformed opinion of them. She is an affectionate spoof of what many perceive a fictional Disney-type fairy-tale princess to be.

Yes. Just re-read what you said. The makers of Enchanted were messing with the fairy tale characters and lands of Disney, without knowing, or just without caring about what the original creators of those fairy tale things really thought about those things.

There would be absoluteley nothing wrong with having the well be a time machine, or the stepmother enchanting it with a time spell (like the stepmother in Cinderella III!), and Giselle being in present day New York. The audience could laugh at how it's likeGiselle's monarchal past is like fantasyland and modern-day New York is like real life, but the audience can just keep thinking that like they always have about Disney's original films, how they're fantasy and different from real life (the whole thing, not just the obvious magical transformations and animals being understood by some girl).

HAHAHAH! I just remembered something! I had an argument with someone. He said that he didn't get why the animals worked for Giselle in "Happy Working Song". They weren't enchanted fairy tale animals like from her world. And that's the point. The princesses were special girls who were so kind and good they kind of "enchanted" the animals, or the animals just got along with them because they were very into nature or something. Sure, we don't see it, but the Disney films were saying, it's a possibility.

So, what do you think of those real world New York animals working for Giselle, hm? Hahahahah!!!

And really, I'm not sure how "realistic" any of the other princesses are regardless; insert the old Disney term "plausible impossible" here. Any film is a suspended belief of reality, animated or not, realistic or not.

YES!!! And Disney DID really try to make the girls realistic. Really, that's what they intended, that's why they studied real people all the time.

It's also implied that Giselle lives in the same world of other fairy tale characters.

The whole Grumpy thing annoys me, as it could imply the crossing over of characters, another case of them messing with Disney they shouldn't mess with. Or it could imply that they all lived in the real world, so it makes sense they could meet other characters because there's no alternate universe. I have to go with the latter to accept Enchanted!

[Disney's Divinity]

I think the only reason Andalasia is a fantasyland is because it would be strange for Giselle to go from the real world to...the real world. It's just a way to differentiate between the animated life and the live-action one.

[Flanger-Hanger]

The Cinderella Castle in MK is more gothic which conflicts with the actual film setting but I doubt anyone cares.

I care A LOT.

Why Dusty? The Disney theme park castles are not be be carbon copies of the ons depicted in the movies. They are meant to be another interpretation that represents an ideal of the respective fairy tale. a dream castle that is meant to be as visually appealing as it can be (forgetting that Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland was the victim of time and budget constraints). Note that it's not called Cinderella's Castle, but Cinderella (no 's, it's a common mistake) Castle. Do the mosaic's in the interior arches show the Disney film characters of the story? No, it's it's own unique interpretation. Also remember the fact that the restaurant inside was once called King Stefan's Banquet Hall. A named borrowed from Sleeping Beauty to make it sound regal and grand. An artistic license which has been changed but it's all apart of the fantasy which should be viewed on it's own terms and not associated directly with the film but rather it's ideals of grandeur and fantsay. The castle is a well designed and recognized piece of architecture which will always be, to me at least, what the Cinderella story represents. An ideal happily ever after.

Also to be more specific, the castle is French Gothic in inspiration. Gothic in terms of architecture is a vague term which can have many meanings for different countries (not The Haunted Mansion's facade at WDW is Dutch Gothic) so yes there is a French influence from various castles of that country.

[Disney Duster]

Well, yes, you're right Divinity they may have felt they needed to do that, but they didn't need to. The concept of going from one time to another would have been acceptable. Audiences could still laugh at how unrealistic Giselle seems. Yes, the princesses seem unrealistically perfect and graceful and good and naive, but people like that exist, and like I said, Disney tried to make the girls realistic despite all that. Why couldn't the audiences just laugh at the joke from their own opinions? Why did one opinion on who the princesses and their lands were have to become what they were, in this film?

I wanted to add that one review of Enchanted said that even though Giselle went to New York, it was Disney's New York. It was a less gritty, aggresive, and yes, less realistic portrayal of all that one would find in New York did they stay long enough. I thought it would have been better if, to further differentiate Disney land and New York, they had some filmaker who made films that felt very real, like an independent filmaker who liked jump cuts and showing everything as it is. I know, I know, Disney hiring someone like that? Well, why not just try to emulate the independent film look? But nope.

So, even Disney's version of the real world wasn't all that real. The part that happened in Central Park, anyone? And, like I mentioned, the animals? Although, I know the idea is that Giselle enchants them like she did the animals and people in her old world.

And that's how the films should be taken. These girls are real but have, perhaps, rare or special abilities and magical things happen to them. But they're still real.

Flam-Ham, okay, thank you for explaining that view, and thank you for your concern for my plight. First thing is, well, the mosaics actually do show the film characters. Look at their faces. Perhaps barring the godmother, and perhaps barring the prince, the characters of Cinderella, the stepmother, and her stepsisters are indeed just slightly different interpretations of the same designs. They indeed have the same faces and hair, but particularly note the stepsisters having the same hair color they did in the film, and one being red with anger and other green with envy, their respective dress colors. Their dresses, along with the stepmother's, and Cinderella's at the ball, I guess, are the right colors. They even have Lucifer. Thye chateau also looks pretty like the one in the film.

I wouldn't mind if the castle was slightly different from the film one, and the mosaic costumes only slightly different from the film ones, but they are such a departure it just drives me nuts. The clock isn't even in the tower, when the clock tower is so iconic!

I don't mind a different artistic interpretation of the Disney film, but I do mind making the stuff unrecognizable from the Disney film. The character faces in the mosiacs aren't enough. I mean, you didn't notice them.

I mean...WHAT is with setting the mosaics in around Sleeping Beauty's time?

[tsom]

Okay, for Cinderella's location, I agree that it has lots of French influences, but it can't be France because the narrator says it's a TINY kingdom. France is not tiny. One could argue that it's Luxembourg, but Lux is a Grand Duchy (which could be where the Grand Duke is from). The only other option is Belgium, which is tiny, has a French area, and it's still called a kingdom today.

For Sleeping Beauty, one of my guesses is France. The reason why I say this is because in the beginning, the narrator says that everyone of HIGH or Low Estate came to see Princess Aurora. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't France the only country to use the Three Estates System (up until 1789)?

For The Little Mermaid, it can't be Denmark. Eric's kingdom has lots of Italian influences, not to mention his olive skin. Also, on the DVD commentary, the commentators stated that Eric's castle and kingdom was supposed to have a Southern Mediterranean feel to it or something like that. My guess would be that the kingdom is king of like Genovia, where it has a combination of French and Italian influences. A place like Monacco for example. Also, Eric's kingdom could be a Principality. Notice how we never see his parents, and there are "E" symbols all around the castle, carriage, and ships. Now, why would all these symbols be there for a mere prince? Prince Eric has to be the ruler of his country. Another possibility is that when Eric's parents died, the country was ready for him to be king, but all he needed was a wife before it becomes official?

What I'm also interested in is when do these stories take place? Disney claims that Cinderella takes place in the late 17th Century (probably 1697, when the story was written by Perrault), but the costumes are from the 1800s (between 1850 and 1870 to be exact).

For TLM, I think it's the 1800s. I asked a costumer, and she says that the costumes appear to be from the 1800s, a little bit after or towards the end of the Romantic Era.

Whew...I think way to much!

[2099net]

So 2009net, would you be down with that? That Cinderella being able to understand mice, and the mice getting her the key, and her fairy godmother making a pumpkin a coach, are just fictional things happening in the real world somewhere, perhaps a fictional kingdom, but still in real France? And the same idea for all Disney fairy tale films?

No, I'm not. Because as I said earlier, it seems to me that Disney went to a lot of trouble NOT to specify where each of his fairytale films took place. None of them are like Hunchback of Notre Dame, Peter Pan or Pocahontas, where the locations are mentioned on screen and/or major global landmarks are shown. Tsom sums up the situation more so and better than I ever could (and incidentally, I always assumed The Little Mermaid to be Mediterranean in feel (although I felt Spain or Italy rather than Southern. Perhaps it was set in Malta!?! That would please a certain Julian)

In my mind Disney and his artists DID research areas and periods. For this they should be commended. But they only used these to influence their final designs. And personally, I find that more satisfying both artistically and narratively than having the films with a definitive setting in place and time. These are after all timeless tales. Beauty and the Beast's lyrics call it a tale as old as time. So why try to definitively narrow it down to (as an estimate) France around 1700-1720? (I've chosen this time, because we all want Belle and the transformed Beast to live a full and happy life together uninterrupted by the French Revolution don't we? See choosing a location and time, no matter how innocently, only reminds us of the real world and it's cruelness when looked into in more depth).

While Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty may be based on the "definitive" versions of Perrault, they're no closer to the source than The Little Mermaid is to Anderson's tale or Hunchback is to Hugo's. I see no reason to assume that they are set in France, just because Perrault is French. Sleeping Beauty probably owes as much to Tchaikovsky's ballet as Perrault's recording of a traditional fable, yet no one has assumed Sleeping Beauty is set in Russia or Eastern Europe as a result.

Personally, I feel attempting to place the films both in both location and time is going against the original wishes of the films' creators. If they wanted the film to be set in a specific place and time, they would have made it clear in the actual film. Personally, I think its a folly to even attempt it and make it canon (although as speculation its obviously fun to do).

As for the whole Real location vs. Fictional location I would like to bring in the Simpsons to illustrate two points.

Firstly, like Walt's fairytale movies, the Simpsons live in an unspecified location. Yes, its Springfield, but the creators are deliberately coy on where Springfield is.

Part of this is to sustain a running gag, but they also DON'T want to have a definitive location for Springfield, as they feel it would remove the feelings of intimacy the viewer gets when watching the show. Springfield could, to most Americans, be drive of an hour or two away from their current location.

And I feel this is something Walt wanted to do with his fairytale movies. It may not be that important to Americans, but in Europe, Sleeping Beauty could be anywhere in mainland Europe (and it appears from some respondents of this thread, Britain too). It helps to make viewers take "ownership" of the film while watching it.

Secondly, various episodes of The Simpsons have taken place in real world locations – Washington DC, New York, Tokyo and London etc. But I would still be hard pressed to describe those episodes has taking place in a real location, because the obvious fictionality of the characters and situations that are placed in them. And I feel the same about Disney's animated classics.

None of them is a police procedural, where the only fiction you have to accept is a bunch of made-up characters which have realistic easily identifiable jobs, families, concerns and emotions tracking down a murderer with a realistic and easily identifiable motive. All of that is fictional, but strongly anchored in reality.

I'm sorry Disney Duster, we always seem to be arguing lately. I hope you realise it's nothing personal! I'm just saying what I feel.

If we were to discuss how great Treasure Planet was, or how wonderful the Country Bears movie was, or how Disney should do live action DVDs like their 2 disc Vault Disney releases again, I'm know I would be much more positive and perhaps even witty too.

[Ariel'sprince]

More:
Giselle is the only/first Princess with no family at all (Until 3 years later,Disney will decide that they want the sequels back and we"ll see the prequel,Enchanted:Giselle's Beginning).
Belle is the only/first Princess to have her movie on IMAX.

[Disney Duster]

Okay, for Cinderella's location, I agree that it has lots of French influences, but it can't be France because the narrator says it's a TINY kingdom. France is not tiny. One could argue that it's Luxembourg, but Lux is a Grand Duchy (which could be where the Grand Duke is from). The only other option is Belgium, which is tiny, has a French area, and it's still called a kingdom today.

I know, you've said that, and it sounds like a very good conclusion, but a long time ago, wasn't France divided into sections? And wouldn't those individual sections, including the tiniest, be kingdoms?

As for the costumes, yea, we should ask more costumers and historians, but I was thinking that when the fairy godmother said Cinderella's dress was "daring", it meant her dress was different from what was usually worn. I wonder if Disney intended the costumes to be ahead of their time. I already told you this, but in case it helps again, I watched my Cinderella Making Of recently and it was King Louis the 14th they tried to emulate in the architecture. Though, the prince and other costumes are too modern for this period, too?

So, going with emulating, I'll turn to 2009net. No need for apology, I'm not upset over anything (except Enchanted!). I guess Disney could have been trying to emulate places without pinning them to one specific spot, I could go with that.

BUT...what would be wrong with saying Cinderella's in France, at the cusp of the 17th century, and there's some tiny kingdom within France that might have existed, and we're telling you we heard it existed, and this story happened in it?

And Snow White's almost definately set in Germany.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this. You know the StoryBook Land Canal Boats? They opened in 1956, only 6 years after Walt Disney's Cinderella came out. It was during Walt's time, you know, when he knew about pretty much everything in his park and approved it all. Well, Cinderella's home is French.

The banner says: Dream Castle, Cinderella's Chateau, and French Village. You can see the chateau on the left in the background, looking just like the one in the film, though it's hard to see.



This is part of that evidence of Cinderella being in France that I was talking about.

[pap64]

Aren't the Cinderella and Prince Charming dolls in the new "Its a Small World" ride at HK Disneyland in the France segment?

[Disney Duster]

I know no one has opposed what I said already, and maybe you'll view this as rehashing the issue or beating a dead horse, but I just thought of some more reasons I thought were too good not to post.

First, especially to 2009net, did you know Disney's artists actually went to France and sketched places there, especially lots of castles there, for Beauty and the Beast? In a book I read they even came out and said the film was set in 18th century France.

Now onto the meat of the argument. Think about some of these locations in Enchanted. I don't know about Robert's apartment, but think about the Bella Notte restaurant, the Grand Duke Hotel, and Nancy Tremaine's design studio. These are all fake places in real New York, just like a fake castle or village in real France! 2009net also brought up Belle and Adam not being part of a real monarchy...? Robert is not real and neither is his apartment (?), Nancy is not real and neither is her design studio. Why does there need to be a real King Adam and Queen Belle in a real castle, or an entire real kingdom?

Enchanted's New York, and it's characters, are as real as Belle or Cinderella and their France.

Now, I admit Belle and Cinderella have fantasy versions of France, but it's like a stylization of a real place. Animation is never (supposed to be) exact tracings of something, otherwise that wouldn't even be art, which is different visions of things in the world.

What, you need super realistic France minutely detailed to perfect historical accuracy?

Would it make sense for Belle to walk out of fantasy France into real France? No. Only if she she literally jumped out of a storybook. Time travel from past France to modern day France would work the best, or work at all. If Belle only moved from her stylized France to real France within the same time it would feel like a parallel universe or an alternate dimension.

That's why people say it was wise for them to make a different character. But Giselle isn't just a seperate princess character, she's entirely different from them.

This is why I have some hate for Enchanted and will also never accept Giselle as a Disney princess. She's supposed to be taken as one, but she simply isn't one. She can't walk out of fantasy nowhere, lacking emotion, complexity, or realism that was attempted in the past princesses, into the "real world" to become real, and still be thought of as a Disney princess.

Enchanted may be a really good joke, but it can't be thought of as a classic, as a serious look at geniune Disney classic characters.

And I'm not trying to ruin everyone's fun. I'm trying to debunk lies. You can all enjoy Enchanted, but don't ignore the truths about what it really is, or rather, what it isn't. And a true Disney princess being handled in the way she should, it is not.