Wonderlicious wrote:Disney Duster wrote:Pocahontas was in a DEMOCRACY I'm not sure if she can be called a princess.
Well, as chief, Powhatan was a monarch-like leader, albeit in a social structure different to the regimes akin to what would have been found in Europe at the time (which in turn influenced the kingdoms in the European fairy tales). Thus, Pocahontas can be described as at least a sort of princess, more so than Mulan at least; she was classed as an Indian princess back in the 1600s when she grew in fame, and most versions of her legend (which inspired the Disney film more than real facts) tend to call her a princess. We could get into a huge needless debate over types of society and whether or not she could be classed as a princess; no form of society is the same, and one will ultimately end up making approximations to try and make things easier to understand. And let's not forget that the Disney Princess line is basically "Disney's Pretty and Popular Heroines" line; many of the popular heroines are or become princesses, so I'd see it as a fairly snappy umbrella term.
Oh, and for the record, a monarchy can be democratic, just as a republic doesn't necessarily mean an equal regime (such as is the case with various communist countries past and present).
The Queen of England doesn't have absolute power; if they'd clung onto it long ago, they'd have all gone the way of Marie Antoinette.
Anyway, away from the anthropological/political rambling...
Some people know me as the ultimate warrior against the Disney Princess line. I could explain where my disappointment lies in great detail, but I'll keep it to a few reasonably brief points.
1. It ostracises audiences away from the films; as opposed to twenty years ago, I doubt many young boys today would want to watch the likes of
Sleeping Beauty and
Snow White after being exposed to merchandise featuring the heroines against a pink backdrop and clad in diamonds.
2. It basically takes the term "Disney princess" as a means to brand otherwise isolated characters and sell them off as a generic toy line, sort of like a fairy tale version of the Cabbage Patch Kids or Bratz. Once again, it could make naive people assume that these films are basically toy advertisements (as opposed to the toys being advertisements for the film). I do feel a similar thing happens with a lot of other Disney characters and universes, in particular those of Pooh and Mickey, so I'll condemn Disney for that as well.
3. It's all reasonably sexist. I hate to sound overly politically correct, and it's my concerns with the merchandising line, and not so much the films themselves. As part of a society wide issue, the whole thing makes kids appreciate superficial things (hair, make-up, fine clothes, looking pretty, getting a hot boyfriend), and I worry it's sending out messages to young girls that looks can really matter; no wonder that in the Los Angeles Time article about
Tangled that a psychologist stated that young girls are concerned with becoming hot and looking like Hannah Montana.
4. The obsessive purist and Disney fanboy in me gets annoyed by some of their decisions. Some of it is just related to preferring them look one way more than another, but I also hate the type of things they seem to make up. I saw "Disney Princess Babies" when out shopping for my cousin's daughter's birthday, and was horrified to see that they got the characters so wrong. Aurora, Cinderella and Belle were in baby versions of their ball gowns, when they would definitely not have done so in their film's respective universes. On the same shopping trip, I saw a ballerina Snow White; since when did she do ballet? And the diamond look that they're sometimes clad in is just creepy.
(In case you're wondering, we weren't planning on getting her anything Disney related, rather we were just browsing. We got her a Jessie doll in the end, which she loves, and took along with her when she went to see
Toy Story 3).
5. Related to all the last points (in particular 1, 2 and 4), the Disney Princess line doesn't really respect the legacy of Disney, or the universes created in the original films, which are all classics.
I'm not trying to troll by posting this; these are my genuine concerns with the line, all of which derive from my own appreciation of Disney and the company's standing. I'd rather see merchandise that is respectful to Disney's legacy than to the stuff we generally see; Disney can definitely do it. I will admit that the Disney Store doll set posted here looks quite pleasing, as it seems to celebrate the films and their legacy as much as it is an excuse to parade lovely females.
Anyway, I'm tired. Hopefully I won't receive death threats, or claims that my reasoning is completely bogus and that I shouldn't talk about classics on this forum.
), but I know deep down that it encourages girls to be superficial and pushes boys away from great, classic films. You won't be getting any death threats from me. On another topic, they have a ballerina Snow White? 
Horrors!
