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[alexseanchai]

"Disney princess" is a societally acceptable way to spell "preteen [white] girl's power fantasy". Discuss.

ETA: asked the same question on FB and two WoC friends observed a problem with my initial phrasing. guess I've got more decentering-whiteness work to do...

Comments

[redsixwing]

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.

[jadelennox]

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.

[redsixwing]

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.

[soc_puppet]

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)

[alexseanchai]

:D

[alexseanchai]

...I might should read that book.

[alexseanchai]

:D