Disney Princesses As: Career Women!

May, 2018: We're still re-imagining Disney Princesses in inventive ways. #somethingsneverchange

The latest one imagines Disney Princesses as modern-day career women:

via ScaryMommy

The collection is by Matt Burt and he's put a lot of thought into the careers for each character.

Chronologically, here they are:

Snow White -- Leading Psychologist

Cinderella -- Animal Rights Activist

Aurora -- CEO of Spinning Wheel Coffee 

Ariel -- Pop Star & Record Producer 

Belle -- University Chancellor

Jasmine -- UN Ambassador

Pocahontas -- Environmental Activist (I mean, duh)

Mulan -- Title IX Lawyer

Tiana -- Award Winning Chef (I mean, duh)

Rapunzel -- Neurologist

Merida -- Two Time Olympian (Archery & Equestrian)

Elsa & Anna* -- Climate Change Scientists

Moana -- Officer in the Navy

*Not official princesses, but, a common mistake.

Okay, one, it's clear that Burt put a lot of thought and rationale into each of these career choices.
Two--I love that each of them is an empowering career for the character -- you've got chancellors and ambassadors and scientists. (Yay for Women in STEM!)

But.

I wouldn't be me if I didn't have nit-picky thoughts.

1. Most obvious -- Tiana & Pocahontas: really, any other career options for these two wouldn't work.

2. My favorite "new career" -- Aurora: I love that she's the CEO of a coffee company. Tongue-in-cheek, but oddly appropriate.

3. No...just no -- Snow White as a "Leading Psychologist" and Rapunzel as a "Neurologist": Nope. Not buying it. While I appreciate that Burt made Snow a "leading" psychologist who cares for her clients but also presents at conferences, I...would not put my faith in her as a psychologist. If anything, I think she'd made a great preschool/kindergarten/elementary school teacher. Her cheerful disposition plus her ability to make people actually wash their hands? Textbook.

And Rapunzel? Yeah, cool. Neurologist, doctor, med school, blah blah blah. But the thing I love about the end of Tangled is that Flynn tells us that she learned to rule and govern her people and was a great princess/queen. So, yeah. I would have liked to see her be a senator or even a female president. 

    

4. Miscellaneous thoughts, from someone who has clearly spent too much time thinking about this:

• I guess I see Cinderella as an Animal Rights Activist -- but maybe she and Ariel join forces together. I don't love Ariel as a Pop Star -- because she's my favorite, and it seems a shallow career -- but...I suppose Ariel is kind of shallow, so it fits. :/ 
• Again, I love that Belle is the chancellor of a university, but again, it kinda doesn't fit her personality. I don't see her as an authoritative decision-maker -- something I think Once Upon A Time captures nicely with Belle as a librarian -- maybe an English professor at best. 
• Mulan & Moana -- For some reason, I'm just "meh" about these. I think it's because they seem too rebellious for such straight-laced careers. I'm pretty sure Mulan would do something -- with the best of intentions, of course -- that would end up getting her disbarred. And Moana? She relies too much on emotion and instinct to be a good naval officer -- I can't see her taking orders well. 

Like I said, I've clearly spent too much time thinking about this! 

A Real Life Fairy Tale

As an unabashed Anglophile, I've always been "meh" about the modern Royal Family. (I prefer the underrated soap-opera-y goodness of E!'s The Royals. Like, I know it's trashy and ridiculous, but there's something comforting about it -- and it's kind of fun to imagine what goes on behind the closed doors of royal palaces. Us Weekly -- or one of them -- shows that celebrities are just like us, but are royals? I'd like to think so, but sometimes it's hard to imagine. Although articles like this make it a little easier -- Huffpost's "Experts Dissect Meghan Markle’s Mother’s Body Language With The Royal Family." Although it's weird to think of Charles -- arguably the villain in Diana's narrative -- as "the nice guy.")

But I digress.

The point is, I didn't wake up early to watch The Royal Wedding. I didn't have any plans to, despite thinking that Harry & Meghan make a more relatable couple than William and Kate ever did. But that's a can of worms for another day. But then my husband had the coverage on, and I was curious what kind of dress Meghan Markle was wearing as well as what celebrities were invited/attending. (Sidebar: I love that the cast of Suits were invited...to the ceremony at least. I don't know why, but it makes me happy. I see it as genuine affection.)

But I digress again. The point is, I got sucked into the coverage and as I was watching the highlights, two things struck me. One, how modern, American, and black the ceremony was (for a royal wedding) and two, how Meghan Markle was basically Cinderella -- in appearance, not necessarily her life story, proud feminist that she is. When I saw her walking down the stairs, Disney fan that I am, this is what I thought of:

via Cosmo

And, thankfully, I'm not alone. Check out this article from Cosmo, and this tweet: 

A Disney fairy tale turned reality. Meghan Markle is the real life Cinderella #royalwedding pic.twitter.com/DpLoYZZXiT

— Umeh and 99 others (@UmehOMA) May 19, 2018

Aaaand now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Newsies on Netflix!!!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL:

I logged into my Netflix account the other day and was browsing the New Releases. I was looking for Thor: Ragnarok (it wasn't there, womp womp) and, instead, I found this.

Apparently, you can watch a taped broadcast of Newsies -- with, I think, the original cast.

My reaction:

I love, love, LOVE Newsies. The first time I watched it was in freshman year of high school, in ELP (lawd, I don't even remember what that acronym stands for...Economics, Legal, and Politics? Something like that?). We also watched Dave, which is a delightful (if not dated) movie, so clearly my ELP teacher's movie game was on point.

But I loved Newsies -- before I even knew it was Disney movie or that Christian Bale was in it. The music was infectious (of course, it's Alan Menken), it was informational but entertaining, and sure, it ran a little long, but it was just...fun.

So when they made a musical and, arguably, improved it -- yay girl power! -- I was there for it. I never made it to NYC to see the original cast, but bought tickets when the tour came to DPAC. And now I can watch it whenever I want.

And, can I just say? If this is what we can expect from Disney's new streaming service...

Take my money now, Disney.

Disney Princess Toms

Today, my first pairs of Toms arrived in the mail. I know they've been popular for awhile, and people swear they're super comfy, but...I'm always a little reluctant to join the bandwagon. But these had strawberries and oranges and carrots on them -- and they just seemed so summery.

Plus, I wanted to see if their sizing was accurate (it is) since I came across this news the other day:

I blogged about them a while ago -- and the big news was that they'd be featuring rarely seen concept art from the Disney Archives. 

Now we've got some close ups of the art -- and I have to say, the Snow White ones are my favorite, which is a surprise to me.

The Cinderella ones are actually pretty cool -- I have a friend who is probably eyeing the ones with the mice, since Gus is her favorite character -- and I really like the concept art of Cinderella's mom's dress that the mice fix for her. There's also a nice simplicity to the Glass Slipper ones, but I'm not sure they'll warrant the (inflated) price tag.

The Sleeping Beauty ones were the ones I was actually most excited for. Not because of Aurora (because let's face it -- the movie's named after her, but she's not the protagonist) but because of the Good Fairies, particularly Merrywether, who's always been a favorite of mine. But...meh.

On the plus side, at least Aurora's wearing the blue dress. The prevalence of her in the pink dress in the merchandise seriously annoys me. (I get that when Disney made Cinderella's dress blue instead of silver, they decided they couldn't have two princesses in blue dresses, but still.)

But the Snow White ones? I really like them! 

Maybe because she's the OG princess, or maybe because they're blue, but these are my favorite. Aaaand I'll probably be ordering a pair when they start selling them. 

And a Little Mermaid pair? I'll take those next please, Disney. 

I Cannot Even With This Mulan Mess RN

A few weeks ago, I went to the outlet malls with my mom. [This was before Toys R Us announced they were closing all of their stores. Legit closing -- not like those "Going Out FOR Business" sales you see at all those stores in the beach.] We popped into the Toys R Us outlet to look for Easter basket gifts and, of course, we ended up in the Disney section. 

Where I stumbled upon this:

Like...I don't even know what to do with this.

1. How old are they supposed to be? I get the Animator Dolls series -- especially when there's an actual younger version of the character in the film. But these? They look younger -- not like their counterparts in the film -- but at the same time, they still look adult? It's weird.
2. They don't even look like themselves -- Mulan looks like a weird version of that Dolls of the World Thai Barbie doll. And IDK what's going on with Shang. 
3. Don't even get me started on that slogan: "Princess Mulan brings great honor to her family." PRINCESS Mulan? I know she's part of the Disney Princess brand/franchise, but I've never heard her referred to as Princess Mulan. And where did her crown come from?!?
   And how exactly is she bringing great honor to her family? Not as a warrior, in that outfit. That pink thing, coupled with the fact that she's paired with Shang, would seem to imply that, after everything that happens in the movie, the way she brings honor to her family is through her marriage. 

You know I normally support/defend you Disney, but your merchandising people missed the mark on this one.