A Princess and a Problem: Disney's Next-Gen Princess Movies (Girlcember Part 1)

Hello hello!

Sorry for the intermittent posts. You do not want to know how many manuscripts I have edited in the last couple of months. No, really, you DON'T.

Tonight, I got the chance to see Frozen with my boyfriend Andrey and his brilliant little sister. I was expecting it to be okay. Probably about Brave good, or Princess and the Frog good--that is, mediocre for Disney but not childhood-shatteringly bad.

What I got was a masterpiece that made my inner feminist jump up and down in glee, made my inner twelve-year-old jump up and down in glee, and my almost twenty-four-year-old outer self curse the bastard who had been cutting onions in the theatre.

Now, this is an analysis, so it goes without saying that there will be

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

...so turn back before it's too late if you haven't seen the movies yet! 

Right. Good? Good. 

I would love to gush about the movie, its design, and everything amazing, but in order to make sense of why it's so special, we need context. Serious context. Are you ready? Then let's kick off Girlcember with an analysis of why Frozen is so solid, and why its predecessors just didn't work. We're doing this in stages, and let's flash back to 2009.

Source.  So close, and yet so far.

Precursors, Part 1: The Princess and the Fail 

In addition to the numerous equality issues (link) regarding the portrayal of the African American MC--who spent most of the movie as a frog--TPaTF suffers from a mixture of both too much effort and too little. Disney's history with PoC--Princesses of Colour as well as People of Colour, in this case--is noticeably spotty. This movie, for me, had 'try-hard' written all over it. I was nervous but excited for the setting. I love jazz, equality issues, and Disney, so what could go wrong?

Well...everything, I guess. While Naveen was a noticeably excellent and well-developed hero, Tiana was kinda thin. She works her butt off, but the movie's endorsement of workaholic behavior, skirting around equality issues, and her excessively perfect personality just didn't make it gel. As with Ariel, she doesn't really grow or experience a serious challenge that requires her to change. Again, it's not bad, and it's worth marathoning, but the company was so scared of doing something offensive that it managed to be offensively bland instead. I appreciate that she was a hard-working and intelligent young woman, and that she earned everything she got, with the prince basically being a nice bonus. I liked that they had time and fantastic reasons to fall in love, and although it was inaccurate and a bit...ah, how do we put this?...stereotypical in the way it portrayed voodoun, I thought the various kinds of magic were pretty neat. That was a nice change, at least. That's a good description of the movie, though; 'nice'. But that's about it. 

 Source. Again, so close, but so far.

Precursors, Part 2: I Know It's Cheating, but Let's Mention Enchanted Anyway 

Enchanted came out in that really awkward period where Disney was trying to...I don't know, pretend its princess movies weren't a thing, I guess. There were piles and heaps of criticism of the princesses, particularly by White Women's Issues Weekly, but even I've done a post on issues with them.

I admit that I liked Enchanted, especially in the vicious bits of satire--I howl every time the rats and cockroaches and pigeons come up in that animal friend singing scene. I love the fairy tale prince. However, the queen, Nancy, and the single father love interest--I can't even be arsed to look up his name--were bland. The movie makes fun of Disney's heritage, but Giselle never does anything violent or really that subversive. Sure, she holds a sword and sort of accidentally knocks the bad CGI dragon off, but her purity is never questioned. I like the reversals and the satire and the whole-hearted goofiness of its parts, but it leans on tropes, and that injures the whole. I do like that it dealt with divorce, actual work, and differing ideas of beauty--Giselle, for example, sees the beauty in 'ordinary' women and manages to make the 'looking at the world with naive eyes' thing work. However, it plays the whole game too safe and yet manages to be too cynical in the same stroke. So, I like the movie, but like TPaTF, it's uncomfortable with itself.

So, I don't want to cram in too many ideas and mess up the length; let's tackle Brave and Tangled in the next post, and then, finally, we'll talk about Frozen and why I think it's the crowning achievement. 

See you soon!

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr. More interviews and witty commentaries are coming. Keep checking back to see those surprise posts, too. This is your darling SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Sample Time!

Sample time!

A snippet of 'And The Stars Will Sing'. It's something to whet your appetites, and I promise you won't find it in the Amazon preview of my book!

Crystal has been settling in, excitedly describing her coworkers, the ship, and the food. She has her suspicions about why Crossing Paths is really working on the wormhole, but so far, things have been quiet and stable enough. And then, one evening, it gets a little more interesting...

"It’s been a couple days since I’ve last written. There wasn’t really that much to talk about until today. Annamar had a nightmare last night. Her screams were enough to chill your bone marrow. Her quarters are right next to mine, so I heard her very clearly. So did Kelna. So did half the floor.

I'm sorry, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say, especially because she was just terrified. I guess I know who was screaming that one night.

            We found her sitting on her cabin floor, sobbing and shaking, and very, very white. Kelna came in right away, followed by Jaria and me. She is usually so composed, and to see this kind of raw emotion is very unsettling. She kept going on about rips and tears and the effects of their reckless actions on the galactic fabric. She never actually said who ‘they’ were, just kept crying. After a while, we helped her calm down enough to go to sleep.

            I was not so fortunate—I lay awake for a very long while, mindsearching to calm myself. I felt around blindly in that vast black universe, and it was like being wrapped in a warm blanket, the kind from when you were a little kid. You know exactly where all the burst seams and frazzled edges are, and it’s so calming. It makes my head spin softly, better than alcohol or hradìrga any day.  I’d never want to have to analyze the fabric; I’d rather dwell in it and savour those faults. However, knowing where they are does help in the mapping. But enough about me.

            This morning she had almost forgotten about it, but I shall watch her very closely for the next few days. It’s creepy, because she might be a PreCog. Lots of the lunar people are. I remember reading about that in the old colony archives from the early days of Terran history. She seems so fragile sometimes, brittle and resilient in the same instant. I sure hope she’s okay.

Crystal. "

Crystal doesn't know yet that much more frightening things than a screaming nightmare will be in store for them....