alexseanchai | (no subject)

Bingo.

There's an excellent Tumblr post out there (and probably some less sweary/more formal writing available somewhere?) about the Love Changes Everything trope set as power fantasy, and Disney Princess seems to be along the same lines.

- The world moves from the force of one girl's want/personality/etc
- She has loyal friends who stand by her through hard times
- She has friends full stop
- She's beautiful, but it's one part of a greater package
- She's talented and it's recognized and appreciated
- Some previously undesired quirk generally saves the day
- She finds a strong relationship, but it's one part of a greater package

...yup.

This 100%

My super-unpopular take is that Twilight is also a girl's power fantasy: specifically, an older teen girl's power and sexual-agency fantasy. Without glossing over any of the deeply patriarchal bits (the scene where Edward takes her carburetor so she won't visit Jacob is #1 on my list of "reasons the romantic heroine should have called social services on the hero"), Bella has similar bullets:

- She tells the boy that they are going to have sex and be in a relationship, and though he continues to say no, she gets every single thing she wants from him. (Problematic in its own way, I know, but power fantasies sometimes are.)
- When he says he won't have sex with her without marriage, she responds by telling him, effectively, "I think marriage is stupid and has no meaning, so I will go through this pointless ceremony if it gets me laid." At no point does she convert to his spiritual beliefs about marriage per se.
- She discovers that even though she has self-loathing and imposter syndrome, she is powerful and special.
- She is recognized and appreciated.
- She gets to have a good relationship with both her parents, despite divorce and geographical distance.
- She has loyal friends who stand by her through hard times (and are also immortal and preternaturally beautiful).
- She has friends.
- She fixes interspecies racism -- that's just how awesome she is. Basically she saves the world.
- She gets to have a powerful and beautiful and special baby, but since the baby grows up to adulthood in only a few days, she doesn't actually have to do any of the stinky bits with diapers and crying.
- Which means she gets to have athletic sex with her ~~boyfriend~~ husband all the damn time.
- She gets to be just old enough to be independent but never old enough to need a job.

You have (a) good point(s)!

There's reasons it's wildly popular, the same way that Disney princess movies are wildly popular.

This would also explain why some of the yelling I saw about the Twilight books was about how the same girls who liked Disney princesses were now being Corrupted!!eleventyone! by Twilight. Nah, bro, they're just growing up and discovering that their fantasies are a bit different.

Reasons why I love my Team Bella shirt:

1) The stuff outlined in this comment
2) It was designed and sold by the cool queer creator of what's probably my favorite webcomic (now on indefinite hiatus)

Edited 2018-11-12 17:08 (UTC)

:D

...I might should read that book.

:D

Sounds accurate to me.

* She's invariably beautiful = social power
* She's going to rule the country = everyone has to do what she says
* She's going to end up falling in love with and marrying the guy (person) of her dreams, who treats her well and respects and supports her (self explanatory, plus marriage also = social power, especially to a really handsome dude, double especially if he's well off/has his own social power)
* Even though she's going to rule the country someday, there's still people around who can help if things go wrong, and sometimes are farther up the ladder than her and can mentor her (= help her get more/maintain social power)

Pretty much all of this builds social power rather than physical power, because that's the sort of power that girls are "supposed" to wield. If they do have some sort of other prowess, it's usually magical or intellectual in nature, so they don't have to exert themselves physically, which would encroach on the masculine realm of power.

Points of discussion: Mulan and Brave.

Mulan, while trained as and becoming an exemplary warrior, wins the day through her tactical skills rather than physical prowess. Her victory against the majority of the Hun army was also through the use of cannon, rather than direct physical confrontation. That said, while her romantic interest is clearly from a high ranking noble family, her romantic arc is a lot less "complete" than we usually see in Disney princess films. I think we can credit this to the 90's Disney animation team being basically allowed to do what they wanted while the other team was training in computer animation, since this team also gave us Brother Bear, The Emperor's New Groove, Lilo and Stitch, Treasure Planet, etc. (IIRC, many of this team's employees went on to work for Dreamworks.)

Merida probably comes closest to subverting the trope, and I feel that's mainly because of Pixar's storytelling style being specifically "the opposite of Disney". Merida's main skill and weapon are still in distance fighting rather than close combat, and she is definitively a princess, unlike a number of other Disney princesses who only achieve princess-hood through struggle and/or romantic connection (Cinderella, Belle, Tiana). She also ends the movie with the option to choose a future partner based on love rather than political advantage, which definitely plays into female power fantasies, but only because she's already starting from a position of power (other examples: Jasmine, Rapunzel (though it's not explored in the main film and I haven't seen enough of the animation to say one way or another), possibly Anna and Ariel, but those two have other circumstances as well).

that's true, Mulan didn't get a romantic wedding happy-ever-after, just the promise of potential in that direction. but also the cisallohet-normative romantic arc there just flat out wasn't time for in the plot arc because she was assumed male for most of the time she and Shang were in the same vicinity and when that changed the plot started moving very fast.

*mutters rudenesses about the live-action taking away bisexual!Shang*

Yes, if by "Disney Princess", you mean Princess movies starting at earliest Ariel, at latest Mulan. Before that, no, as none of the Princesses (and not that many female leads) have agency in determining their own destiny, but instead are granted boons by others that allow them to live and then attract the attention of a prince that marries them.

Ariel-to-Mulan is a clear transition period for Disney, which happens to coincide with the resurgence of animation as a medium for demographics other than young children. The princesses there have greater agency, but are essentially firmly restricted societally or seen as weirdos and ultimately are able to gain societal power through marriage.

Mulan is the turning point where the story structure shifts to "person with agency is put in a situation that requires her own skills and abilities to solve" and the ascension or retention of Princesshood is secondary to the need to use her own skills to solve the problem. Being a princess often is the necessary excuse to allow for the free movement and problem-solving of the main character.

Thing I note: No Princess/Queen commands the full armies / staff that would be at her disposal to get things done. Even in Arendelle, where there isn't any male figure with any claim anywhere near the throne that might be plausibly used as the block to that access.

So it's a good individual power fantasy to be a Disney Princess, but it's not a good part fantasy for any girl who aspires to management, at least canonically. I'll bet in the imaginative play of many girls, it's an understood part that the Princess bit means command, but that's never explicitly put on camera.

I mean, Cinderella II, but that's...a lot newer and a lot less known?

also yes, many good points

Wasn't it also a direct-to-video? Those usually get...disappeared from the canon in short order.

Edited 2018-11-14 02:03 (UTC)

Sounds correct

This is one of those moments (...much like my listening to Bohemian Rhapsody last night and being reminded how beloved and integrated into so many people's musical experience it is, while it's very much "what was being smoked, here?" for me) where my not having grown up with this piece of popular culture leaves me tilting my head to the side and going "...Huh."

Like I've seen several of the Disney princess movies, but only as an adult, and I had to scroll through the comments here to connect them with the elements of power fantasy your commenters are pointing out. (It's also been almost 30 years since I was a preteen, so now I'm trying to think what WERE my power fantasies at the time, and if they shared anything in common with the above. Further hmm.)

Anyway. Hmm.