Freud & Disney Princesses (part III)

Hello Sweethearts!!!

Its been a hot minute and we left off the last entry with the fabulous and intelligent Belle who led by example how being an outcast bookworm who thinks outside the box may be the one thing that saves the town from its own stupidity.

Or at least thats the one I'd rather leave off with...

Here's where Disney decided "Hey, its time to insert some diversity into this snow parade!"

Enter Jasmine (1992)


Nevermind that she looks like an Arabian hooker and I could deal with the fact that she sets a horrible example by disrespecting her father and setting insane hair expectations.
But Disney also seemed to think that realistic Muslims anywhere (let alone the middle east) let their daughters go out like this....



but even without all the blatant visual innuendo, she's still a 16 year old runaway who gave up her riches, and a lush palace lifestyle to sneak out, go into a strange ghetto with no money, no protection, and shacks up with a homeless thief.


Would YOUR parents let you bring home a strange hoodlum to inherit the kingdom you're supposed to rule?
Heart of gold or not, in reality, the Sultan would've sent a slough of palace guards and chased him off......oh wait. That actually happened. Jafar just kinda warped the whole parenting situation is all.

Abu seemed to be the only realistic one during the whole thing.
 "Come oooooooon!"



Next on our list of princesses is our lovely Native American representative...
 Pocahontas

This is a tougher analysis because I don't know enough about Native American culture and the traditional gender roles of the respective tribes, however, based on what I do know, she's not that different in the cliche thought process of...

"screw my benevolent father and best friend who just want me to be safe, I'll go running toward the white strangers who shoot at my people because NO ONE can constrain my curiosity! I'll jump off waterfalls and make out with perfect strangers in the woods if I want to! Its okay, I can make it better!"


I haz a diplomacy!!!!!

Yes...well... as nice as her intentions may have been, it still set a poor example of
1. hair (she didn't even HAVE a hair brush for cryin out loud!!!)
2. punishment (everything turned out hunky dory even though she disobeyed her father)
3. conflict resolution

Even though the initial intent was to promote equality in the face of mutual bigotry, the directors could've done a better job creating a strong female role model who doesn't have to rebel to learn a lesson but then I suppose there wouldn't be any dramatic climax.

But I will say that, like Belle, her accountability level was a step above the rest, which is good.

Next contestant is the lovely and powerful asian representative...
 MULAN!

Okay here is a princess (who's technically not really a princess), with more nads than all the princes combined.
She wouldn't just spout "world peace" at a pageant, she'd actually take steps to get it done somehow.
Granted that cross-dressing isn't the traditional route to achieve goals such as, oh I don't know, saving the country from invasion, but hey, it was a means to an end...

Come on now. Which would YOU rather have yelling at you every day? Totally worth the hair cut.


My favorite thing about Mulan was that her goal was not the guy (he was just an unexpected bonus), or even something as grandiose as saving China, but her only intention was to save her ailing father from almost certain death. Thats it. Self sacrifice and stepping up to the plate (even if you didn't quite think it all the way through).

Except for stealing and sneaking out, Mulan is the epitome of a bad ass, making feminists everywhere beam with pride.

Alrighty, who in the last 80 or so years has NOT been represented?
It was an interesting coincidence that the very same year we swear in the nation's first biracial president we also introduce our first African American Disney princess representative...

The lovely and ambitious Tiana!!!

Took them long enough didn't it? Here's where Disney kept the trend of strong female leads going with princesses who put their ambitions and family BEFORE finding the prince. All she wanted to do was open a cajun restaurant in honor of her parents and make a name for herself in the southern food industry. She didn't care about finding love or glory or the other traditional fairy tale goals. Just being a successful entrepreneur in 1940's Louisiana was dream enough for her (considering how difficult it was for African Americans at that time and place in history as it is).

Granted she spent the better part of the movie as an amphibian, she was the one who taught the misguided prince to stand on his own two feet and wound up rescuing him from various dangers including himself.

Aside from the whole "turning people into frogs and talking gators playing jazz trumpet" aspects of the film, Tiana's character traits are applicable in realistic situations.
1. honoring parents, 2. working hard for what you want, 3. being responsible and 4. kindness
All attributes that I would readily encourage in any child through this movie.

We're almost done!!!

Another princess I will address is none other than the long haired dreamer...
Rapunzel

She was more goofy than a serious character, but her timid, sweet nature is a much more acceptible role model for a little girl than Jasmine's curvy alluring image (unless you're a Kardashian).


Making the most of her imprisonment and temporarily popularizing chameleons as pets.

Her "prince" was little more than a common shameless thief, however, he quickly succumbed to the awesome power of the frying pan.
 "You think your mom will mind?"

Improvisation is the first step to adapting to life without doors or a way to defend yourself.

She just wanted to know her origins, why she's locked up and wtf are those lights all about!?
SHINY THINGS!!!!

All of which we take for granted (unless you're adopted)
Simple enough, right? Easy to appreciate great musical numbers and the way she stays true to herself and her conscience even through overwhelming disappointment and danger.
 and vicious viking mimes...

Last but not least we have a more believable ginger representative....
 Merida (sp?)
She's feisty, she's an adventurous archer, and she makes me feel better about my hair situation...

Even though she sold out her own mother to a strange witch just to win an argument, she quickly learns that defending her family and appreciating her mother's benevolent intentions is worth much more than the daily annoyances of princess-hood.

Well there you have it! A summative analysis of all the primary Disney Princesses! Comments welcome!

Freud and Disney Princesses (Part I)

I'm going to go ahead and use the idea I gave my friend and psychoanalyze Disney's princesses. Because many of us grew up believing the lessons they taught us were pearls of wisdom that we could carry on through our teens into our adult relationships. Right?

Believe in your dreams, your prince will come, singing birds will happily fly through your window and help you get ready in the morning, stepmothers suck and your entire purpose in life is to find your prince and live happily ever after...

Really?

Ok going in consecutive order, lets begin with...

 Snow White
Props to Walt Disney for ushering in the princess parade with this one, but she has to be my least favorite princess of all. Not just because of her high pitched whining speaking/singing voice, but also because of her blind trust of total strangers and her complete inability to rationally judge a situation.

Granted this was created for little children of 1939 and this was Walt's idea of how an innocent girl would react to her dire situation. But what exactly was the lesson being conveyed? Considering the time period and what was going on in the world, Hitler was rising to power, America was healing the wounds from the Great Depression and damsels in distress were still rampant ideas in the way of fairy tales. It is now a farcry from today's depictions of fairy tales...


WWII generation would've had a coronary at the thought of a princess weilding a sword leading an army. However, our feminists and free thinkers of the 60's and on would now applaud the empowerment of women as opposed to subjecting our children to the delicate and helplessness that is characteristic of a traditional princess. This is simply a product of our cultural evolution. Thank God.

Moving onto...

 Cinderella

This is probably the most-referenced princess when speaking of hope in the face of daunting social adversity. She was the very first one I learned of as a child and back then, it was about the big poofy dress, the magic pumpkin carriage and suddenly going from being invisible to being the center of attention. What girl doesn't want that?


"Oh honey, isn't this such a beautiful church?..........honey?"

It never crossed my 4 year old mind that the prince couldn't even remember her face, but that he needed a shoe to tell which girl was the one he danced with the night before. Or that you could find your soulmate if you only looked like a duchess instead of the housemaid/custodian you might be in real life.

 At least once a month there's a day when she'd rather use fire instead of soap and water to clean the house... Fire's sanitary, right?

Onto the next candidate...
 Sleeping Beauty (a.k.a. Aurora/Briar Rose)
How would it be if your life had turned out like hers?

1. You're born, you have 2 good fairies bless you with beauty and a nice voice (the 3rd of which may have been the gift of intellect before Maleficent showed up.... ironic that that could've been the one gift that may have spared her some drama).

2. Then some jaded witch curses your life with a doom prophecy because your parents didn't invite her to their baby shower (don't know why, she sounds like a hoot...)


3. You grow up completely isolated you from any social contact forcing you to hold conversations with forest animals

4. A stranger spies you when you're jammin' out alone and then proceeds to try to dance with you against your will (kinda like when you're at a club).
 "How YOU doin'?"

5. Then when you "fall in love" with this guy, you're informed that your entire identity is false, you can't ever see the hot potential sex offender you met earlier again, and you have to uproot from everything you know to live with parents you've never met to rule a kingdom you've never seen....

How do we handle such emotional trauma all at once? With comfort food and a nice long nap.
 "Oh Nyquil! YOU understand me!"

Then you wake up to the creeper you met in the woods, kissing your face and soon accept his proposal of marriage that just so happened to be arranged since your birth.

Moral: "You don't have any say-so in your own life whatsoever. But at least you're pretty!"

Onto the next princess contender!


For some reason between the 60's and 70's, Disney took a break from the whole princess enterprise, but finally in 1989, they said "Okay, we've had 2 blondes and a brunette. Need more diversity. Time for a red-head!"

This was my favorite princess as a child, but only because of Jodi Benson's killer pipes. She regrettably followed in the Disney princess tradition of not using common sense.


Young and naive or obstinate and rebellious? I'd say it was both that caused her to essentially sell her one redeeming quality to a witch in exchange for an extreme makeover for the primary purpose of winning a guy who only liked her for the very thing that she no longer has.

Witch or not, that's the kind of stupid decisions most of us make when we're 16, especially when daddy forbids it. But Disney did make some improvements as to how it ended (except for those awful poofy 80's wedding sleeves. Yeesh)

After she got her voice back, and even when she was turned back into a half-fish mutant, Eric still cared enough for her to risk his life. So when he saw the real Ariel, he still wanted to marry her. Of course the honeymoon would've been rather awkward, hence her father's selfless gift of making her permanent legs. Not a great body image lesson for young girls but a vast improvement from the previous princesses.

Moral: "If you sell out, change your appearance, he might notice you. But only if you can sing."

Who is our next princess?

Belle

Here is possibly the first breath of fresh air in the way of princesses as one of the few that behave as a strong, intelligent heroine rather than a wilting, helpless damsel in distress.

1. she's well-read and respects her father

(me in a bookstore)

2. she's brave enough to sacrifice her life for the people she loves



3. she calls guys out on their crap and bases her feelings for them on their character rather than looks



4. she's not afraid to have friends who are weird or different...




Aside from the whole "in love with a beast" and "poke through other people's stuff" things, she's a princess I'd actually like to be friends with.

Moral: "Stay true to yourself, be kind to everyone, and it will always come back to you."

I shall close this post with a thanks to Disney for making their photos so accessible via internet and I will continue analyzing the other princesses in another post. Keep checking back!

Shakespeare, Weenies and Gratitude

Am I the only one who still has mixed feelings about watching "Army Wives" every sunday? Its supposed to depict lives similar to ours... but how much of it is realistic and how much is heavy handed 'Lifetime' drama?
 

Since its getting so close to the 4th of July, the media's painted itself red, white and blue for the week, stores are selling flags out the yin yang and people are driving across state lines to buy decent fireworks for their weenie roast.


But, like every other holiday, the country-wide attention span is so short that it can only afford a few days of recognizing significant events (and honoring them with food and/or booze).


This is understandable when it loops right back around every year and the tradition becomes so monotonous that our children are bringing home macaroni diaramas and drawing pictures at school about an event they may be comepletely oblivious about.
 

In any case, its important to pause from the rush of any holiday (whether its something as big as Thanksgiving/New Year's or something as overlooked as Veteran's Day/Patriot Day), its important to pause and actually understand exactly what it is we're celebrating and why.

(God Bless America?)

Independence Day usually equals fireworks, picnics, barbecue and beer to the average person. To us it's possibly the one day a year that the efforts of our significant others are remotely recognized by the American layperson.

 

We experience this appreciation any time someone walks by in uniform, or we notice someone in a fresh regs haircut or a bumpersticker displaying their branch's pride.


"MY EYES!!!!!"


(I APPRECIATE YOU!!!)

When you're the one who has to stay at home when they deploy, every quiet moment is spent thinking about what they do and how dedicated you are to them...



but when they're home, life may resume how it normally does and we go right back to bashing their c/o's or commanders for being jerkholes when they come home in a bad mood and complaining about how the commissary never has YOUR brand of shampoo.



As long as we ourselves never take them for granted because we might just be the only one's who's opinions (aside from superiors) could actually make or break them as a servicemember.

So be sure to frequently remind them how much you love and respect them for their sacrifices to take care of you/your family and that they will be duly rewarded for a job well done when they get home...








...you were expecting something dirty?

You can haz MY cheezburger baby!!!!

We serve our country too, every time we boost their morale by thanking them for their service in just the right way... with booze, food and sexy time!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!