Interesting Links for 12-07-2012

[andrewducker]

• Ranked: Disney Princesses From Least To Most Feminist
  (tags: feminism women disney )
• Proving you're gay to the Turkish army
  (tags: lgbt turkey )
• U.S. Used Mind Altering Drugs on Guantanamo Detainees
  (tags: military usa interrogation guantanamo )
• Many Wall Street executives says wrongdoing is necessary
  (tags: crime business finance )
• Book pirate

Comments

[marrog]

So I read that list of Disney princesses and I was like "I feel like they're being too hard on Belle, she totally had more agency than that, and she didn't want to reform the Beast, she was responding to him reforming himself and letting his vulnerability and kindness show through," and then in the comments everyone's all "You're being too hard on Belle!" Clearly I am not the only one with a blind love of Beauty and the Beast.

I go off on one about Belle. Feel free not to read.

[innerbrat]

I'm am hideously biased against Belle, so I apologise in advance for ragging on your favorite Princess.

Feel free to skip the rest of this comment!

But.

I think I just associate with her far too much in the beginning of the movie, when she's inspired by her reading to seek out "adventures in the great wide somewhere!" and then... she settles down with the nice rich guy down the road. Stockholm syndrome aside, I invariably cry because she never has those adventures - because I don't think talking to clocks is a great adventure.

So maybe I'm setting my sights too high for her, but as far as I read it, she ends up still stuck in "This Provincial Life," and it breaks my heart.

/rant.

(My favorite crossover is that she eventually gets rescued from the castle by Mulan. Though I guess Rapunzel would be just as good a match as well, these days.)

Re: I go off on one about Belle. Feel free not to read.

[marrog]

Ugh, I haven't seen Mulan, but I think Rapunzel would drive Belle round the bend

[innerbrat]

Hey, you're not pissing on my chips. :) I loved Belle until I pissed on my own chips like this.

You're entirely right, of course. We don't know what happens post-movie, as for some reason Belle is one of the very few princesses whose sequel is set during the timeline of her original movie (which - what?). But the way you fill in post-canon depends on your reading of the movie - you're obviously filling in a preference based on liking Belle/Adam (and that's OK - not that this needed saying.)

And that I'm probably projecting - in fact, I know I'm projecting the experience of seeing a lot of my friends 'settle' for marriage over the ambitions that they used to have. I've had it pointed out before that the book she reads at the beginning is not all that different from her actual story, and I buy that as a valid argument, but it doesn't change the visceral "no, Belle, have adventures, don't marry that guy!" reaction the movie always gives me.

Oh well. It's a good movie objectively, I just don't like watching it anymore.

[alitheapipkin]

You should watch Mulan, they are right about it being the most feminist one of the lot :)