Wreck-It Ralph 2: The Disney Princesses Unite!

A few days ago, this post popped up on my feed:

A couple of important things to note:

(1) Alan Tudyk is back! Given that his original character, King Candy/Turbo, was the villain and (spoiler!) got his just desserts, and also given that Alan Tudyk has become Disney Animation Studios' good-luck charm -- I was worried that he wouldn't be in this film. Worries no more. 

(2) Taraji P. Henson's character looks awesome.

(3) Perhaps, most importantly, our first look at the Disney Princesses all together is here!

Here's a bigger look at the picture:

📷: Purewow via Disney

Again, there are a couple of things to note here:

(1) This is awesome. And you will never get me to say otherwise. I imagine this to be some sort of super-cool Princess secret society. Or, resort/spa where they can relax and get away from princessy-duties.

(2) Excluding Vanellope, there are 11 princesses present:

• (2a) Interestingly, Anna, Elsa and Moana are all here -- even though they haven't been officially inducted into the princess court.
• (2b) All the First Wave princesses are present -- Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora -- even though their voice actors are no longer with us. (I always assumed they'd have different actors, so it'll be fun/interesting to see who they cast.)
  Also--Aurora is in her pink dress. Don't get me started.
• (2c) 3/5 of the Second Wave princesses are present: Belle, Jasmine, & Pocahontas are there, but Ariel and Mulan aren't. More on this in a second.
• (2d) 2/3 of the Third Wave princesses are present -- Tiana and Rapunzel, but Merida isn't. (I'm not counting Moana yet.)

Given the panorama-type view of the shot, it's possible that the three of them are just off-screen (and maybe we'll see them in the trailer tomorrow). 

Shockingly, (she said sarcastically), the internet is a little upset about Mulan not being included -- thanks, Buzzfeed!

Which, I know they ask about Ariel in the sub-title, but still. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to count the princesses and figure out that not *every* Disney princess is there -- I counted 3.  But there's a lot of ignorance misinformation in this post. 

WHERE’S MY BITCH FA MULAN https://t.co/B2c6JUAtbx

— josh (@bernaldont) May 31, 2018

Like that whole jibber-jabber about how Mulan isn't *technically* a princess. Yes. We talk about this a lot in my class -- i.e., how do we determine a Disney princess? Do you have to be born one? Can you marry into royalty? And what about different cultures? After all, princesses are primarily (not exculsively!) a Western concept, especially in the way Disney portrays them. Is Jasmine a princess, as the daughter of a sultan? Is Pocahontas a princess, as the daughter of a chief? (Maui would clear this up.)  But I digress. -- The point is: when Andy Mooney created the princess franchise in the early 2000s, they had to come up with some criteria. After all, Tinker Bell was included at one point -- but then they went and did the whole Fairies franchise ($$$), so she was out. Any female character who is included in the Royal Court, is an official princess, regardless of birth, marriage, or any other factors. See below:

📷: WDWThemeParks

All 11 princesses are there -- and yes, this is before Frozen and Moana, but there hasn't been another "induction" since.

So then they point to these cast photos that were taken at the 2017 D23 Expo (which I thought I blogged about, but I can't find it. Which makes sense. I was so. very. pregnant. in July of 2017 and also running around after a 1-year-old.)

What these images tell us is that, from left to right in the second picture, Paige O'Hara (Belle), Irene Bedard (Pocahontas), Mandy Moore (Rapunzel), Auli'i Cravalho (Moana), Sarah Silverman (Vanellope), Kristen Bell (Anna), Kelly MacDonald (Merida), Anika Noni Rose (Tiana), Linda Larkin (Jasmine) and Jodi Benson (Ariel) are all there. When I first read this story, I assumed Ming-Na Wen (Mulan) wasn't there because of Agents of Shield commitments.

I'm just going to ignore this comment from the Buzzfeed post -- But interestingly the voice actors of Snow White, Cinderella, Elsa, and Aurora were not present, even though they are in the shot from the movie. -- because, you know, LOGIC. (Snow White came out in 1937, guys. It's a safe bet that Adriana Caselotti isn't still alive -- she passed in 1997 -- and even if she were, she'd be pretty old.)

So, yeah. Merida and Ariel will be there -- although no one seemed particularly worried about here in the Buzzfeed post  😢 -- and it's a safe bet that Mulan will be too.

So, let's just enjoy the awesomeness of all the princesses together and hope that we see them all in the trailer tomorrow.

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! 

You Can Be Feminine AND Feminist

I'm in the middle of Googling Mulan images for a post about the up-coming live-action adaptation, and I came across this image:

PC: Rebloggy

YAAAAAS.

This. All this.

One of the major criticisms thrown at Disney is that there are a lot of pretty, delicate, feminine heroines. This is true. Nobody is denying this.

But the implication -- or, sometimes, the overt, explicit, statement -- is that this BAD. That being feminine is somehow bad. Or weak. Or "less."

And I do see some of the counter-arguments: that Disney princesses are always feminine and that can lead to the assumption that only feminine girls can be princesses/heroines. That strong females are often the villains and that can imply that strong, powerful women are threatening and evil.

But the thing is...I'm not sure where "feminine" and "weak" became synonymous. Cinderella was basically living in a household where everyone hated her and heaped at least emotional abuse on her, and girl still got up every morning with a smile and a song. That is not weakness.

You can be kind and "girly" and wear pink poofy dresses (or more form-fitting blue dresses with a thigh-high slit) and like glitter and make-up and romantic-comedies and it doesn't make you weak. You can do/like all of those things and still be strong.

via Buzzfeed: 17 Times Disney Princesses Had No...Chill

**Disclaimer: NSFW Language**
If you're offended by that. As a child of two New York drivers, I tend not to be. (I also tend to find Bernie Sanders' accent very familiar and comforting, which I realize is probably not normal. It just sounds like family dinners and holidays to me.)

But I digress.

Anyway. Buzzfeed posted this a few days ago: "17 Times Disney Princesses Had No [Effing] Chill."

I love the subtitle: "Because crying on your bed always makes things better."

"17 Times" may be a bit of a stretch--since a large portion of the article focuses on the same scene, just different shots of it. 

But it basically is an account of every time the Disney Princesses cry.

Like Cinderella (1950):

Or Aurora (1959):

Or Ariel (1989):

Actually, Ariel cries *a lot* for a Disney princess. Most have that ONE SCENE; Ariel has like 3, maybe 4. Definitely one of the more emotional ones.

Or Belle (1991):

There's actually quite a lot of flinging oneself down on a surface -- a bed, a bench, a rock formation -- and sobbing.

The crying may decrease as we move forward in time...I can think of Rapunzel and Tiana and even Anna getting emotional, but I don't remember any super dramatic sob fests.

Charlotte might be the exception -- and this is like a textbook Ugly Cry:

And, as the Buzzfeed article does point out, these are all teenage girls. And puberty & hormonal changes are hard enough without having to deal with learning your entire identity is a lie or realizing that you just gave up your freedom and dreams to save your father's life.

So, yeah. They cry. 

You know who else cries a lot? Hermione Granger -- the anti-Disney Princess if ever there was one.

I remember reading an article once about Rowling's depiction of Hermione as constantly crying -- and it infuriated me:

"Yet throughout her role development thus far, Rowling allows Hermione to lose sight of her own strength and revert to stereotypic behavior and she facilitates this by employing gender-related stereotypic words to Hermione's behavior again and again. Repeatedly, Rowling has Hermione "shriek," "squeak," "wail," "squeal," and "whimper," verbs never applied to the male characters in the book. [...] Throughout the books, Hermione often bursts into tears.... [...] Her hysteria and crying happen far too often to be considered a believable part of the development of Hermione's character and are quite out of line with her core role in the book. They add nothing to an understanding of her persona or its individual caricature nor, for the most part, anything to the story. Thus, they can only be interpreted as "how [silly, weak] girls act," which is unfortunate from the viewpoint of feminist analysis." --Lana Whited 

As someone who is a self-professed Crier, I find this really insulting. I'll admit it -- I cry. A lot. I cry when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm stressed. It's just how I, personally, deal with emotions -- in part, I think, because they usually run fairly close to the surface. I can compartmentalize and suppress with the best of them, but, as a general rule, I'm very easy to read emotionally.

Does this make me any less feminist? I hope not. Just as not crying doesn't make a person any or more less feminist. Showing a character has crying or displaying emotions -- and like Hermione, many Disney princesses don't just cry -- they show quite a range of emotions, particularly the later we go, chronologically -- shouldn't be a reason for criticism.

Life is, for lack of a better phrase, going to suck every once in a while -- and I think it's okay to show that you don't have to maintain a preternatural level of optimism and cheerfulness when you encounter it. It's okay to falter, to stumble, to be "down." (Look at women in the 1950s -- when they were expected to be cheerful all the time, it did not end well for them.)

Disney Princesses w/Hair Matching Their Outfits (via Buzzfeed)

Leave it to Buzzed to have a completely random post about Disney princesses. Ah, the Internet.

This one is brought to you by the concept of "matching outfits with hair" -- which sounds really weird but, as the Buzzfeed headline points out, is oddly magical. (Mostly.) 

Check out some of the images below, and head on over to Buzzfeed for the full list. 

(I think the purple hair actually makes her look really old.)

(Aside from the fact that Elsa is my current favorite, this might be my favorite hair swap. It just works.)

(Belle just looks blonde here...which works with THIS dress, but maybe not any of the others...)

(Okay, is it just me, or does the raven-haired Aurora just look evil?!)

(Odd dress choice for Tiana...I would have done the green dress and matched her hair that way, but either way, she rocks it.)

BuzzFeed Presents: The One Thing You Never Noticed About Disney Characters

I feel like I should be surprised by the number of Disney-related things that appear on BuzzFeed.

But I'm not.

Although this one...a little mind-blowingly weird: the one thing we apparently never noticed about Disney characters. And I'll admit: I definitely did not notice it.

(c) Disney

Spoiler Alert: It's their fingernails. Or, lack thereof. 

It seems to be an inconsistent animation thing, because....:

(c) Disney

...villains apparently get bad-ass manicures. (I mean, look at those talons!) 

And sometimes, on the princesses, it just looks weird:

(c) Buzzfeed

Head on over to BuzzFeed to view the whole gallery/their thoughts on Disney fingernails. :) 

New TeeTurtle Design

I am a sucker for nerdy t-shirts -- sites like Teefury and TeeTurtle are awful for my budget. They're just so versatile. I mean--I wear them to Disney and get lots of nerd-love (from both cast-members and other visitors--it's like you've found a kindred spirit when you see someone wearing a Karen Hallion Disney/Doctor Who crossover shirt); paired with a blazer or a cardigan, they're great for work during the academic year; and I wear them a lot over the summer when I teach at the writing camp.

Today's new release was "Rebel Princess" -- and let's be real. It's probably going to arrive on my doorstep shortly.

And I'm not even a big Star Wars fan. But do know a lot of people who will appreciate the fact that Leia is included. (I need to rewatch them before I pass judgment on her damsel-in-distress, sexualized object status. While Leia is known for her white robes and side buns, I'd say that her metal bikini is equally iconic. But again, I don't know nearly enough about them to confidently say anything.)