Disney Princess, Prince Charming and Children at the Receiving End

Most of us have adored Disney Princesses and even had a favourite, right? From the princesses who waited for their Prince Charming to the bedtime stories, everything around was wrapped in bows and glitter and taught us about love, womanhood and our identity. But was all of it empowering or even self-appreciative?

Back in the day, I would sing and dance to the title tracks of the Disney Princess movies; I would jump with joy each time I watched Cinderella get her prince, enjoy the beautiful gown, the ballroom, the magical transformation and the “happy ending”; I would be happy when the curse got broken, and Belle got her “happily ever after” story. There were absolutely no questions, and in my defence, I was a child!

To me, Cinderella had suffered enough; she deserved something rather marvellous, and getting her prince seemed like a “reasonable conclusion” somehow. I never really thought beyond the story itself; why would I? I was a child admiring the happily ever after for my favourite princesses.

However, looking back, there appears to be something amusing in the way the princesses were announced and introduced. They wanted to be loved; nothing wrong with that, but the story often made finding romantic love a significant part of the “escape” and “better life”. Why was the possibility of a better life so closely tied to a man these women had barely spoken to? Why were the other women in the story always presented as competitors for the same man?

The thing is that these stories rarely explicitly told the little children watching that they should find a man; the idea is already woven into the narrative that sits comfortably between the ball gowns, songs, transformations and the eventual wedding. Getting the prince became the reward that made the ending complete. For a child, these are simple stories, but for the adults revisiting them, there is more to look at.

Disney Princess: Why Are Little Children Introduced to a Competition

What makes the question worth asking is the target audience: the children! Children do not necessarily sit down and analyse a princess’s motivations, the writing of a romantic subplot or the gender and class dynamics between the characters. They absorb the story as it is shown, learn who gets rewarded, rejected, the template of being beautiful, desirable and what a “happy ending is supposed to look like.

When the most desirable outcome across the stories repeatedly involves being chosen by a prince, what do we normalise exactly then? There is an uncomfortable treatment of women as rivals as well. Take Cinderella, for example. The stepsisters were also desperate to marry the same prince who is set to find Cinderella. In other stories, women are pitted against one another through beauty, desirability and attention. The counter argument can be that all those women were the villains, but is the idea that another woman is someone to compete with rather obnoxious? The stories presented these women as competitors rather than as someone who might have their own ambitions and identity, making the narration a rather simplistic device.

Why Is Such Narration Required?

A little child can enjoy a love story and can grow up wanting to fall in love, get married, wear a beautiful dress and have a grand wedding, fair and fine. The problem begins when these become the most celebrated inspirations and aspirations available to the female characters, particularly when the same stories offer very little room for alternatives.

There is a difference between telling a child that love can be wonderful and repeatedly suggesting that being loved by a man is what makes a woman’s life beautiful.

Some Households Have Other Plans for the Stories

Interestingly, my own introduction to the bedtime stories was not the conventional way! My grandmother never really narrated stories in which women were simply waiting for men, depending on them or making their entire existence revolve around finding someone to love. Even when she told me the Disney princess stories, she did not necessarily follow the original plotline, and growing up, I realised that the unconventional introduction was important for the larger perspective that I grew up with.

Basically, she would take the characters and give them different motivations. The women had their own identities, making their decisions, standing up for themselves and existing without “needing” a man to validate their lives. So even though  I used to be happy for Cinderella meeting her prince, deep down the constant hearing of a different plotline had made me realise that dependency is not a virtue. Sometimes the stories would take different turns, and the original plot would be waved goodbye.

What becomes particularly interesting about this is that she did not need to introduce entirely new characters or discard the princesses I adored. She simply changed how the story treated them. It was never a grand lesson delivered through some lecture; it was a bedtime story. She would narrate, I would listen, and the characters would have different lives. This is in no way to say that every bedtime story needs to become a lesson about independence. Children should be allowed to enjoy everything that makes childhood entertaining, but why should a story about a princess automatically revolve around a man? And yes, Disney has created fairly independent girls lately, but have we created templates for each?

Perhaps We Just Need Different Happy Endings

Disney has introduced princesses with more varied ambitions and storylines over the years. Characters such as Moana, Merida and Elsa have shown that the female characters can carry an entire story without a romantic relationship being the final goal. The change is rather great to begin with, even though the storytelling traditions remain.

Perhaps the solution is not to stop showing the classics but to give them more stories alongside these classics. Stories which celebrate women’s friendships, competitors in something other than romance, which requires healthy competition; where women are adventurous, decision-makers and even people who just want to do something for themselves.

What do you think about the treatment of Disney Princesses? Tell us in the comments below.

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