Sunday, February 5, 2012

Disney Princesses.. really?

I have friends who have daughters.. who in turn are infatuated by the Disney princess pantheon... which in turn makes me thing about what these princesses are actually teaching children today.

Do you realize how un-wise most of the Disney princesses are?

Snow White decided she was in love with a man she truly didn't know. She agreed to marry him.. simply because he was her first kiss. Ok, so the kiss roused her from a death-like coma. He sounds like a pretty weird guy, if you ask me, kissing what he thinks is a corpse!

Ariel had a fetish for legs/all things human. That combined with plain old infatuation is all that drew her to Eric.

Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty) met a guy one afternoon in the forest.. and decided she liked him enough to marry him. Ok, so he killed a dragon... but that doesn't necessarily mean he's "the one."... Although there is the whole arranged-marriage angle. You're slated to marry the guy, so you fulfill your duty to your nation and marry him.

Cinderella and Tianna do marginally better- Cinderella met a guy at a dance, talks with him some. And while that's better than making the decision based on a kiss, it's still just one date. Yeah, he's a prince and sure, he went looking for the chick with one shoe.. but it was still only one date. Tianna goes on one over-night adventure and decides that's enough to build a marriage on.

I really think Belle (from Beauty and the Beast), Mulan, and Jasmine did a lot better. They really got to know their guys.

Jasmine broke her own "rule" of No Princes to get to know "Prince Ali"/Aladdin. They still didn't quite spend as much time as I think is needed to get to know each other, but they did spend some time together.

Belle lived in his house. They talked, did stuff together. They shared interests and thoughts. They interacted. Same with Mulan- she worked for him, learned from him, went on a military campaign and really got to know what kind of person he was, who he was in the trenches (literally?)!

Should we be pushing these paragons of capriciousness on our future lady-heros?