Comments | seanan_mcguire: In defense of the blonde: one Marilyn's plea.

seanan_mcguire

In defense of the blonde: one Marilyn's plea.

Jan 08, 2010 14:27

Mary Robinette Kowal-who is fantastic and awesome and incidentally, the person reading the Toby Daye audio books, which means hers is a voice I'm going to be hearing quite a lot of-made a blog post previewing the upcoming fantasy movies of 2010. It's a good post, which is no surprise, since she's a good author and a great lady. But one line, ( Read more... )

media addict, shameless plea, so the marilyn

Leave a comment

Back to all threads

My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. druidspell January 8 2010, 23:03:55 UTC

First: I agree with your larger point, that we need girls on TV and in movies who look like the girls watching TV and movies and need heroes and role models they can relate to ( ... )

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. seanan_mcguire January 8 2010, 23:14:41 UTC

I completely agree that it's overly simplistic to reduce the Disney girls to only their hair color, and I love it when we get new characters that expand the diversity and awesomeness inherent in the fairy stories of the world. (Have you noticed that the characters over in Pixie Hollow are beautifully diverse? It rocks completely.)

But again, looking at the list of Disney theatrical animated features, Disney has been doing an incredibly good job with diversity in their recent movie offerings (this list leaves off the sequels, so I'm not even going to try to timeline them). I just keep hoping and praying for Disney princesses who are awesome, and have agency, and aren't just there to be prizes for a prince. I don't think Disney and their princesses, by themselves, promote the idea of who should and shouldn't have stories told about them, and I think we need to change everyone's stories, not target a single studio as the source of the problem ( ... )

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. seanan_mcguire January 8 2010, 23:15:54 UTC

Added after your ETA came through: I got that, I promise. :) The general existence of the idea makes me batshit moonmonkey pumpkinfuckers crazy. I just want to be sure all the little girls get awesome role models, 'cause I suffered a shortage.

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. druidspell January 8 2010, 23:31:55 UTC

I definitely understand that; and while I'm a blue-eyed brunette now, when I was younger, my hair was cornsilk blonde and I had big blue eyes, and I definitely understand and sympathize with the resentment toward the myth of the dumb blonde. That's the same myth that led me (and several of my fellow blondes) to hide my intelligence because society told me that I wasn't supposed to be smart. I was relieved when I got glasses too, and when my hair gradually darkened to the reddish brown it is now, because it was like being given permission to be smart and nerdy without always having to defend myself.
Another reason why I have a problem with Rapunzel: ... Rapunzel waited in a tower for a prince to rescue her from the witch who was raising her. How about we get another princess who can take care of herself, and doesn't need rescuing? *holds out hope for an "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" retelling*

(Also: Pixie Hollow is AWESOME and incredibly beautiful!)

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. seanan_mcguire January 8 2010, 23:35:51 UTC

See, I'm holding off on having cranky over the specific story until I know what it is, 'cause the original Beauty and the Beast story is so a non-agency princess...and we got Belle out of it. Also, the women in The Arabian Nights (which I'm currently rereading and wow, yum) are either a) powerful witches who probably die within a page of saving the prince/hero, or b) prizes. No Jasmines there. So I am totally sitting here going "come on, Disney. BLOW MY MIND."

(The quality of the Tinker Bell stuff makes me want to hug people.)

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. druidspell January 8 2010, 23:47:01 UTC

("East of the Sun, West of the Moon" is a Scandinavian fairy tale about a commoner girl who marries a mysterious prince that saved her family from ruin when she married him. She falls in love with him, betrays his trust due to her sisters pressuring her to find out more about him, loses him to the wicked witch, and then moves heaven and earth to rescue him and live happily ever after.)

You're right about the original Beauty and the Beast; that's one of the classic Perrault stories with a female protagonist as well-rounded as a piece of cardboard, but Disney turned her into a woman with the strength of will to tame the beast with friendship before love, and who was one of my favorite heroines: the bookish girl who finds true love. A princess with the agency to in effect write her own story's ending would be absolutely marvelous, and the idea of getting more of those? There is no bad there.

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. lysystratae January 9 2010, 05:21:50 UTC

I loved East of the Sun when I was a kid (mom took me to see a musical theater-in-the-round version), I'd love to see a movie made...

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. ldwheeler January 9 2010, 18:52:46 UTC

This made me smile ... because my theatrical debut (and, heh, penultimate role) was in my third-grade class's production of East of the Sun, West of the Moon in 1978. (I was Waldo the troll, sent to spur the girl and her family to mistrust the prince.) And yup ... Lara (our production's name for the commoner girl) was a strong, smart woman. One of three strong women in that play, albeit one of them was the Evil Antagonist.

(The comment has been removed)

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. seanan_mcguire January 10 2010, 21:21:51 UTC

Not yet! I shall be thrilled when I do. And you're right, Scheherezade completely rules, and I'd love to see them do something with her.

(Hi! I'm really glad!)

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. lysythe January 9 2010, 12:58:02 UTC

I feel kind of dumb for being disappointed that you missed out Snow White and not caring much about the rest of your comment. Feel free to whack indignantly.

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. druidspell January 10 2010, 01:29:57 UTC

Whacking definitely isn't imminent from me; the reason I left out Snow White in my comment is because Seanan was comparing the female heroines of the last 20 years--Snow White is one of the first Disney Princesses, and dates back more than 50 years. (This is not to say that Snow White isn't an awesome movie, or a good character, just that for purposes of the comparisons she was drawing and that I was responding to, she didn't fit the criteria of a black-haired heroine of the last 20 years.)

Re: My problems with Rapunzel have nothing to do with her hair. seanan_mcguire January 10 2010, 21:22:35 UTC

The decision to leave Snow, whom I adore, out was entirely mine. If we looked at the entire stable, we'd also need to look at the social pressures of their decades, and then my head would explode.

Back to all threads