loveyourchaos, cocoluscious, stasiabodasia, plaidguerilla, ashleyxsober:
In defense of the princesses:
- Snow White: Survives in the woods on her own after being abandoned. Manages to not be completely embittered despite being raised by as a servant by an evil witch stepmom. (Hey, that’s better than most of us could do.) Befriends a bunch of curmudgeonly miners, which is surprisingly cool.
- Sleeping Beauty: Okay, Sleeping Beauty actually is kind of lame. She’s kind of whiney when she finds out she’s a princess and has to marry some random dude, but she doesn’t run away, adopt a disguise, or enlist the help of little woodland creatures to enact some escape tricky plan.
- Jasmine: Continually defies authority. Flat-out runs away from a life of privilege because she wants to do her own thing. At the end, manages to change long-standing royal marriage precedent. (It’s worth noting that, unlike all the rest of the Disney princesses, Jasmine’s not a main character.)
- Ariel: Again, continually defies royal authority. Was willing to make a pact with a creepy witch in order to achieve her dreams (remember, she wanted to be human before she met Erik). Oh yeah, and those dreams involve changing species. Gets basically everything she wants in life, and nobody’s mad at her.
- Belle: Runs away, saves her dad twice, defies local authorities, and basically doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks.
- Cinderella: Much like Snow White, manages to rise above the childhood abuse. Sneaks out of the house. Sneaks into a major party. Doesn’t get caught. Sneaks out of the attic. Does it all with style.
In other words, it’s worth noting that a lot of the princesses were already discontented with their lot and making plans to fix things long before the prince stepped into the picture. Generally, he comes along midway through the plot, if not mostly near the end.
Also: in every single case, every princess was being targeted because of their beauty and/or social station. It’s completely misleading to say that Snow White, Belle and Cinderella were saved by beauty when in each case they were targeted specifically because they were beautiful.
(For further discussion: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Ariel were all up against powerful female antagonists, although none of them actually defeated those antagonists.)
