The Disney Princess and her Conniving, Motherless, Prince-Landing Ways
"I’ve often wondered why the mothers are always dead in the Disney Princess stories. I figure it’s that if the mom was alive and well, the writers would miss all sorts of plot opportunities starring the vicious, evil stepmother. I’ve also questioned whether Disney would ever get a clue and give little girls a royal role model whose singular goal in life wasn’t to land the handsome prince."
- some internet page seemingly about the newest Disney Princess - in fact it was only about a new tv show coming out soon
Mostly I'm just irritated because I thought this article would shed light on a new Disney movie and it didn't. At all. But whatever the reason, I shall take it slightly apart, just for teh lulz.
Well, the dead mother thing serves a couple of plot and theme purposes for the old folk/fairy tales. With mom gone, the protagonist has to handle things by herself. This is also why so many protagonists of children's fiction are orphans. Also, having a dead mother allows for the closer relationship with the father. Little Miss Folk-tale can practice her domesticity by waiting on her father. If there is an evil mother figure, the protagonist is often seen as the foil, which also emphasizes her niceness and her domesticity. HOWEVER, there are only about three of those evil mother figures in the Disney Princess films. And Mulan, Rapunzel, and Tiana have living, breathing mothers.
It seems to me that Disney likes the father-daughter relationship a lot more, and this is probably because most of the creative forces behind these movies are men. Hey, it's just a fact. They say "Write what you know," and it's possible that the male creative forces might be more comfortable writing a female character with a primary attachment to a male character, though obviously that's a huge generalization-slash-assumption, so take it with a grain of salt. Still, Disney takes the dutiful daughter thing many steps further than colloquial fairy tales do, presenting the father as charmingly stupid sometimes so that the Princess can take care of him (Aladdin, and, less charmingly if you ask me, Beauty and the Beast), and sometimes he's well-intentioned but strict so that the Princess can find her own way in life (The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas). Even in Mulan, where the mother is alive and well (as is, surprisingly, the grandmother), the primary focus is on Mulan's relationship with her father. Then there are the princesses with terrible mother figures. But their fathers are nowhere to be found. Where is Snow White's dad while his child is being abused by the Evil Queen? Is he dead? I can't remember. Cinderella's dad certainly is, and Rapunzel has been removed from both her mother and father by Mother Gothel. So basically what I'm arguing is that the sentence about all of the dead mothers and the evil mothers makes no sense.
And as for the "singular goal in life" of "land[ing] a handsome prince?" Um. No.
Snow White doesn't want to "land" a prince, she just hopes he'll show up one day. Cue that song getting hopelessly stuck in your head: "Sooooome daaaay my priiiiince will coooome, sooooooooooome daaaay we'll meeeeet agaaaaain." Or that other one: "I'm wishing, I'm wishing, for the one I love to find me, to find me, today." Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not the most progressive feminist character trait, but it's just a fairy tale. Fairy tales are not, as a rule, progressive. They deal with social anxieties about sex and violence and they also tend to reinforce the most conservative ideals of the day. Disney was just adapting it to the big screen. These days that doesn't fly, so they take a fairy tale and make it progressive/palatable to our politically correct sanitized minds, but this was what, 1930? And also their first shot at it. I may identify as a feminist (just cause, y'know, I think I should have rights and all that wot), but I really like the scene in which she's making pie. I LOVE making pie!
And Cinderella just wants to go to a ball. After the ball, sure, she wants to marry the prince, but at least partly because she loves him and the other part would have to be that she is basically a slave in her own home and she would like to not lead that life anymore. Go figure. Enter here the character arc known to many a lady in teh movies: "I fell in looooove, siiiigh." It's a little tired, but again, it's just a fairy tale. Cindy doesn't chase her happily-ever-after, true. And yeah, she needs the mice, of all creatures, to do the heavy lifting, but my point still stands: she was never really after the prince. If she was trying to land him because she figures that was her only way out, that would be a more interesting movie, at least according to the paradigms of today, but again. 1950. Calm thyself.
Aurora's only interested in random strangers she can sing duets with, not the prince. When she is told that she is the princess and must marry the prince, she pitches a fit. Again, boring "I fell in looooove, siiiigh" character arc, but she's very much not interested in the prince. Except that she actually is. YES, it would have been more interesting if random stranger she was singing a duet with wasn't the prince, but the Disney "Interesting Budget" was spent on Maleficent, who is awesome.
Then there's the Renaissance, beginning with Ariel. She wants to learn about humans. For years she builds a collection of human-made objects, and secretly wishes that she could enter the human world herself, and this is before she even spies Eric. It's true that she ends up being stupidly obsessed with him, but she's only 16. We all did stupid things at 16, and sometimes we knew we were being stupid but we went ahead and were stupid anyway. And who knows, maybe she and Eric waited a bit and actually got to know each other before that wedding scene at the end.
Belle wants "adventure in the great wide somewhere" and nothing to do with Gaston. And nothing to do with the Beast, too, until he stops being such an emo. I do have problems with this movie (I have at least one problem with every movie if it's not The Lion King, even if that one problem is only that it isn't The Lion King), but Belle is not trying to land a prince. Same boring old character arc, still not trying to land a prince.
Jasmine wants to be free to make her own choices, which mostly encompasses her not wanting to marry a stuck-up pompous prince. Which is why she ends up with Aladdin. Who is a street-rat. Same boring old character arc, but here REALLY not trying to land a prince. Setting her TIGER on him, actually. And what I really love about Jasmine is at the part where she pretends that the Genie has made her fall in love with Jafar, she's totally using sex as a weapon. Maybe that's problematic in its own way, but at least she's using the only thing she's got handy to actually do something. I'd like to see Cinderella do that. To the Stepmother. Oh God no. I need brain bleach.
Pocahontas just wants everyone to stop fighting. And stuff. (Same boring character arc, still not trying to land a prince.)
Mulan wants to find herself by dressing up as a man. No, that's not it. She wants to be proud of who she is and to bring honour to her family. And she wants to save her father from being killed in the war. Yeah, there's that character arc again, but that's actually the sub plot. The major character arc is that Mulan actually learns to be proud of herself. CRAZINESS! The lady has more to do than swoon!
Tiana wants to open her own restaurant, and eventually learns that although that goal is a nice one, she should also focus on being happy. Tiana's another one with something else to do besides falling in love - she has to learn what's really important. Which is love... oh, it's Disney, it really likes love, and family, and money. Lots of money. But what was I saying? Tiana's not interested in landing a prince, and the boring character arc is not the only thing at play here. And LOTTE is the one who wants to land a prince. And she's a parody.
Rapunzel wants to see the floating lights, which encompasses finding out who she is and being free from a locked tower. And after she's accomplished all of that she wants to date the gold-hearted thief with the stupid name. Who isn't a prince. Again, she falls in love, but there's also that sheltered girl goes off on her own thing going on, so I guess there's more to it than that. And who am I kidding, I love this movie.
In conclusion: don't just half-heartedly attack Disney. Give me a challenge, please.