Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Pocahontas’s Power to Choose Her Path

That one Disney Princess movie without a happy ending.

As per my requisite disclaimer, there is absolutely room for (a lot of) legitimate criticism of Pocahontas,
especially around its portrayal of culture, history, and race, and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of
the film or of Pocahontas, but rather offer a different perspective on her
film and specifically on Pocahontas as a Disney character in the Disney film, not as a real person.

Out of all the Disney films, though, I do want to add an extra disclaimer for Pocahontas. It has a lot of cringe-worthy and outright inaccurate and offensive racial portrayals. The song “Savages” in addition to having extremely racist terms used in it, equates Native Americans with the colonists, and while the message of the song would make sense in the Romeo and Juliet situation the film portrays it as, it does not work in the context of a real historical issue where there was a clear aggressively racist, genocidal, and plain morally wrong side (the colonists), especially when the oppression of Native Americans is still very much a thing. However, I want to focus this meta on Pocahontas’s fictional character within the film, because I think there’s a lot to like in terms of who she is. That being said, divorcing from context is hard, so there’s a tension there. If anything I say is insensitive, please let me know.

So Pocahontas opens with the colonizers setting sail from England with the song “Virginia Company,” which includes the lyrics:

For the New World is like heaven
And we’ll all be rich and free
Or so we have been told
By the Virginia Company
So we have been told by the Virginia Company

The emphasis on “so we have been told” sets up one of the themes Pocahontas’s character exemplifies: the idea of choosing your path versus following lies and promises given by people who are probably motivated by their own selfish desires (Governor Radcliffe). The riches the song describes are, of course, not there, but the colonists follow the hope of it and wind up missing the forest for the trees. Essentially, Pocahontas encourages critical thinking and moving one’s concerns from just one’s own life to one’s place in the world.

The beginning also sets up John Smith as a foil to Pocahontas. From the very beginning, he’s fundamentally concerned about himself, constantly talking about his wants and adventures. In the song, “Mine,” which emphasizes the greed of the colonists, Smith, who has no interest in gold, chimes in “hundreds of dangers await/And I don’t plan to miss one!” He’s only thinking about his own desire for the next thrill, telling the other colonists that he’s “been to dozens of new worlds” and doubts this one will be unique, and comments that he expects the Native Americans to be basically the same as other people: “If they’re anything like the [people] I’ve fought before…” His perspective is entirely centered on himself: he views adventures and new lands and other people also as things for himself, instead of seeing himself as part of a whole world.

Pocahontas is a bit different, but she also struggles to learn responsibility throughout the film. It’s noted to Powhatan in his introduction (when he asks where his daughter is) that she “takes after her mother” and “goes wherever the wind takes her.” Cut to Pocahontas and Nakoma (a good friend, this movie miiiiight pass the Bechdel test? It’s kinda borderline), and Pocahontas jumps off a cliff. However, Meeko jumps after her and is terrified, symbolically warning that even though her freedom is not the selfishness of John Smith, her choices still affect others both positively and negatively at times as well, as we’ll see them affecting her father, Kocoum, Nakoma, and more.

Powhatan tells her “you
are the daughter of the chief. It is time for you to take your place
among the people,” and gives her the necklace that belonged to her mother. Pocahontas is often compared to her mother: the first two scenes I mentioned, and Grandmother Willow also tells Pocahontas her mother once asked her the same question about what path to take in life. There is perhaps the suggestion that people are expecting Pocahontas to take her mother’s path, but as Grandmother Willow encourages, she has her own choices to make.

The answer, after all, as Grandmother Willow says, is to “listen.” Empathy and learning are paths to being able to make wise decisions, after all. This will be emphasized later when she begs her father to “try talking to [the colonists]” instead of resorting to war. Towards the climax of the film,
Smith comments that the colonists won’t want to listen to reason because
“everything about this land has them spooked.” A creepy figure then
appears, howling as if to emphasize his words–but it turns out to be
Percy, Radcliffe’s dog, symbolizing that what’s really spooking the
colonists is themselves.

When Smith and Pocahontas meet, he almost shoots her, and then falls in love with her, which is the story calling him out on the violence he previously bragged about.

When she runs, he tries to stop her from leaving by forcing her to stay via grabbing her canoe.

But Pocahontas is not having that. He tries to speak to her in English and they realize they can’t understand each other, so he offers her his hand–symbolic of listening. Notably after this the language issue goes away which again, don’t think too hard about it it’s a children’s story, but symbolically it seems to represent the idea that once they’re listening to each other, they can understand each other.

When Smith goes all White Savior on Pocahontas, claiming that “we’ll show your people how to use this land
properly… build houses” and Pocahontas points out their houses are just fine, he patronizing counters “you think that your houses are fine only because you don’t
know any better.“ And she leaves. Pocahontas is not here for your racist patronization instead of listening to her. They then launch into “Colors of the Wind,” with its fitting lyrics about how they all have a place in the world, but it’s essentially not all about them and encourages respect for “every rock and tree and creature.” You desires matter, but so do other people’s.

When she says she has to go because she can hear the drums signifying that her people are in trouble, the exact same scene as their first meeting plays out, except this time he lets her leave instead of trying to stop her. He lets her make her own choices.

When Pocahontas starts spending more and more time with John Smith, Kocoum warns Nakoma “tell her not to run of… she listens to you.” In response Nakoma snorts and says, “Sure she does,” because well, Pocahontas doesn’t, and she doesn’t tell her best friend what’s going on until it’s too late. This leads to tragedy when Nakoma tries to help her by sending Kocoum to help her because she worries for her friend’s safety, and Kocoum is killed. As he dies, he tears Pocahontas’s necklace from her neck, symbolically threatening to tear her connection with her mother’s free path.

And yet John Smith is unquestionably the one more at fault for bringing about the tragedy. Radcliffe tells an impressionable Thomas that “a man’s not a man unless he learns how to shoot.” ~~Oh hey white America hasn’t changed at all~~.

Smith then gives him
advice, teaching him how to shoot from his presumably many experiences shooting…

…but Thomas then uses the gun to save Smith but kill Kocoum.

Smith then takes the blame for Thomas, sacrificing himself for a kid who’s really naive and was only trying to follow in the footsteps of Smith, his idol. And Pocahontas then throws herself onto Smith, protecting him at the risk of her own life as well. As she runs to save him, she sings “I don’t t know what I can do/Still i know I’ve got to try” jumping over a gap between two rocks because symbolism.

This shows Pocahontas growing, taking responsibility for what is about to happen to Smith. They stop the war, but Smith is shot because he again realizes that he should take responsibility because he’s the one who came here in the first place (and the… smokescreen… reason the colonists were marching on them) and jumps in front of Powhatan to save him.

He asks Pocahontas to return with him. Her father gives her his blessing to do so. But she turns him down, though she loves him, because she says, “my place is with my people.” But instead of having her path written for her, she has made her own choice, and she made it by listening. It was time she take her place among her people, but she needed to define that place herself, and listen to the world around her to arrive there, instead of simply acquiescing.

And so he leaves and cue a tragic ending, but for the children. But Pocahontas’s character has a lot of power and emphasis on growing up and what that entails: learning, listening, guidance, making mistakes and growing from them. I really like her character a lot, and it’s certainly one of the more thematically… realistic as opposed to optimistic Disney films.

Up next, one of my favorites: Esmeralda! Yes I know she isn’t technically a princess but to quote the Genie from Aladdin, she’s a prince[ss] to me, so I’m writing about her 😛 For previous entries in this series, see here:

Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Jasmine’s Justice

Aladdin is a movie that I didn’t watch much as a kid (the tiger cave of wonders eating the guy in one of the first scenes terrified me), but is honestly one of my favorite Disney films now. Definitely top 5. Probably top 3. But even as a kid, I was a huge fan of Jasmine, so I’m excited to talk more about her.

As per my requisite disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Aladdin, especially around its portrayal of culture (that opening song is really… no), and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Jasmine, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Jasmine as a character.

The whole film really centers on this idea of justice and injustice, and the way society dictates who has worth and who does not. Jafar, Genie, Aladdin, and Jasmine all foil each other, and through their foiling we see how Jasmine is learning how to be a good future ruler, and learning what justice and personal responsibility really mean. Jasmine and the Genie define worth as the freedom to make their own choices, Aladdin waffles between that and power, and Jafar purely in avarice and power.

Jasmine is introduced to us with Raja, her pet tiger who is loving and protective of her, contrasting with the first giant sand tiger/Cave of Wonders we see in the beginning that eats people who aren’t worthy to grab the treasure (aka Genie lamp) within.

This sets up an expectation that Jasmine’s heart is a treasure to be won… except as she bluntly tells us later in the film:

“I am not a prize to be won!”

The film constantly shows people trying to objectify Jasmine and treat her like she’s nothing more than her station in life: princess and future wife. (Which is why while people criticize her outfit as being too sexy for kids–wtf midriffs aren’t sexy at all in various cultures–it’s certainly… ironic.) She’s told she has three days to find a prince (to marry before her 16th birthday) because according to society she’s a princess and that’s what the law dictates for princesses. Viewing someone only as the role they occupy–street rat, princess, genie–is something the film condemns. It’s precisely Jafar’s insistence on defining himself purely according to the role he has in society and its power (grand vizier, sultan, then finally genie himself) that leads to his down fall.

But just because the law says something has to be one way doesn’t mean it’s right. As she tells her father after she rejects another suitor in her introductory scene,

“The law is wrong… if I do marry, I want it to be for love.”

And she doesn’t just pay lipservice to this, which ties into Jasmine’s arc about learning personal responsibility (aka growing up). She takes matters into her own hands and sneaks out of the palace and plans to never return, telling Raja:

“I can’t stay here and have my life lived for me.”

Jasmine meets Aladdin when, in a parallel scene to his introductory scene, she grabs an apple to give a hungry child.

However, she didn’t realize she needed to pay for it, showing her naivete in understanding how the world works and the concept of consequences for her actions. According to society, she’s just a thief in that moment, and the law is overly harsh, forever branding someone as a thief by cutting off their hand. But Aladdin intervenes.

Aladdin, too, is introduced to us stealing bread and then after a lengthy chase, gives the bread to a pair of hungry kids.

Aladdin sings a song with the lyrics:

Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat

Otherwise we’d get along

Meanwhile the people chasing Aladdin shout names at him. Street rat. Scoundrel. Like Jasmine, he’s defined by his role in life (”worthless street rat” according to a prince Jasmine rejects who tries to whip two kids who stumble into his path), a role Aladdin was born into, and that’s why after they connect they both admit they feel trapped. (This is a tie-in to the Genie’s lot in life as well, as he’s trapped too.) Aladdin has no power; Jasmine and the Genie have infinite power, but that very power traps them too.

And Aladdin is still prone to some of society’s ideals in that he wishes for power, thinking it will grant him freedom, and as he finds out it does not. In his opening scene, he tells Abu that someday "we’ll be rich and… never
have any problems at all,” which of course isn’t how it turns out.

After Jafar (a corrupt politician, a fitting villain for this tale) has Aladdin arrested, Jasmine vows to get Aladdin released, but Jafar tells her he was executed for kidnapping her. She’s devastated, and of course it isn’t true, but it’s a way to show Jasmine that she does bear personal responsibility for her role as a princess. Even if she never asked for it, she’s got it, and she needs to take her power seriously. So she immediately responds by telling Jafar that when she’s Sultaness, she’ll have the power to get rid of him. Which is a good move but not necessarily a wise way of using her power, because Jafar then uses that as motivation to change the law so that Jasmine has to marry him (in other words, societal laws are flimsy).

When Aladdin arrives under the guise of Prince Ali, she tells him off for treating her like an object, like just a princess, and the only reason she gives him a chance is because when she tells him off, he confesses that she’s “right” to tell him off. In other words, finally someone is listening to something Jasmine says, empathizing with her.

We also don’t have a Little Mermaid situation. Jasmine quickly figures out who he is. Throughout the film, actually, from the marketplace acting to the end scene, Jasmine is portrayed as intelligent and quick-thinking, someone who seeks to be in charge of her own romantic interests and sexuality as well (Jasmine and Aladdin almost kiss in the marketplace and kiss before they’re engaged). Jasmine and Aladdin explore the world together, literally, which shows her learning to escape her own bubble and seeking to understand those born into different lives, which is important for creating a good ruler. Because what helps Jasmine and Aladdin, and late the Genie as well, escape from their societal trappings is connecting with people from different lots in life.

But society still seeks to thwart her. When Jafar takes over the kingdom (literally having the Genie uproot it), he demands to have Jasmine fall in love with him. It’s really not any different than what her father was trying to force her to do, though the Sultan clearly loves his daughter and expresses multiple times that he doesn’t want to force her to marry someone she hates.

But this time, Jasmine’s learned how to be crafty and wise with her power. She pretends to fall in love with Jafar to allow Aladdin time to sneak in, in contrast to her naive telling him off earlier. It works.

Then Jafar traps Jasmine in a literal hour glass, showing again the unfairness of the situation she’s been in since the beginning of the story–in which she has three days to find a prince to marry (before her birthday) and now her time is literally running out. Again, it’s kind of karmic to show that society is stupid and the roles people are trapped in can literally kill them. But fortunately Aladdin helps Jasmine break the glass, because connection saves.

And after that, the Sultan learns to take responsibility, proclaiming “am I sultan or am I Sultan?” and gives Jasmine and Aladdin their happy ending by literally changing a law.

The Genie is set free by the fact that Aladdin could relate to his feelings on being trapped. Empathy is true justice in the film, and a path to freedom and love.

Up next, Pocahontas! Which is def a problematic film but again, I’ll try to focus on her as a character because there is a lot to like there. If you’re interested in checking out the other metas in this series:

Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Belle’s Bravery (and Boundaries)

Time for one of the films everyone seems to agree is a great movie, and yet enjoys tearing apart with rabid cries of ~~burn the witch~~ Stockholm Syndrome.

As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Beauty and the Beast, some of which does concern the notion of someone who treats you horribly will change with kindness, and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Belle, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Belle as a character.

Also, before I begin: a word about Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is not a diagnosable mental illness; it doesn’t appear in the DSM-V (or any previous DSMs) and there isn’t really a clear definition. Belle does not, however, display symptoms, which I’ll briefly touch on below.

So. Let’s delve into one of Disney’s more emotionally complex fairy tales.

Let’s start by talking about the Beast, aka Prince Adam according to Disney, because the primary criticism with Belle is that she falls in love with him since he imprisoned her.

Adam is noted to have turned the enchantress away at the beginning to earn a curse that would last “until his twenty-first year.” I am to this day very confused because I don’t know if he was frozen at 21 years old or if he was actually eleven at the time of the curse (because it was said he had ten years to find someone). But if he was eleven, that wouldn’t explain the painting of him seemingly as an adult, but would explain why his staff were punished along with him, and would explain why he acts like a spoiled child, lashing out at everything around him.

The thing about the Enchantress’s curse is that she literally bestows the same circumstances that caused him to reject her onto him. Her “haggard” appearance disguised who/what she really was. In other words, she’s trying to force empathy on him.

Want to know what’s interesting about Adam? He tries to do the same thing to Belle that the enchantress did to him. After treating Maurice just like the enchantress, Adam, who is confined to the castle by virtue of his appearance (let’s be real he couldn’t have left, the villagers’ reactions prove as much), confines Belle to the castle. She’s young and has a promising future, and he feels like his has been taken, so he hopes she’ll fall for him by experiencing the same thing. It’s messed up, obviously–and the film always portrays it as such. It’s always framed negatively.

But the thing is, Belle doesn’t stay because she’s physically restrained. She could leave at any time, as we see when she runs away after the Beast yells at her. She stays because of her own sense of honor, which is something pretty much every other character is sorely lacking in–especially when it comes to the villagers. Of course there’s valid critique here, but it’s also like… a children’s fairy tale: don’t take it so literally.

The opening song, “Belle,” is literally about how Belle does not want the life she’s expected to have.

There goes the baker with his tray, like always
The same old bread and rolls to sell
Every morning just the same
Since the morning that we came
To this poor provincial town…

I want so much more than this provincial life!

Belle is bored. She escapes in books and fantasy, but she can’t actually leave because she dearly loves her father and thinks he needs her. During this opening song, we see basically what Belle’s life would be like if she stayed in this town and married Gaston. A beautiful girl is asked how her family is.

A man leers at a woman and she asks how his wife is (you think Gaston would have been faithful? I don’t).

And a woman juggling five kids and lamenting about prices.

What Belle expresses she wants is the story in her favorite book, which she describes as:

Far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise…

Oh, isn’t this amazing?
It’s my favorite part because — you’ll see
Here’s where she meets Prince Charming
But she won’t discover that it’s him ‘til chapter three!

That’s the entire plot of the film. Basically, Belle’s determined to go after her dream life and does get it–not because she agreed to be some Beast’s prisoner, but because the girl has some serious boundaries. She does not tolerate disrespect. She has self-worth and self-esteem in other words, and she won’t tolerate anyone’s disrespect of herself.

Belle knows the townspeople call her “funny” and think she’s odd, and while it bothers her that she doesn’t belong, she still stands up for her father, telling Gaston and LeFou off for calling him crazy, and when Gaston disrespects her interests by shoving her books into the mud and invading her space, she gets away as fast as she can. Not Gaston, and not Adam.

She also displays pretty good boundaries with Adam. When Belle first arrives at the castle, she demands to know who has imprisoned her father and basically sounds like a girl about to fight a beast for her father. She isn’t naive or stupid. Before she makes any kind of agreement with him, she demands he come into the light so that she knows what she’s getting herself into.

She makes it clear to him that he hurt her from the start, telling him off for not letting her say goodbye to Maurice. She doesn’t obey him, not ever–in good ways, like refusing to join him for dinner when he tells her it’s not a request, and in less good ways like exploring the West Wing (which is where the Beast, of course, keeps the rose, symbolic of the darker and also the more true and beautiful parts of himself).

When he loses control and lashes out–and there is no excuse for him–Belle leaves. She says it doesn’t matter she made a promise. He is terrible and she’s out of there. She only goes back when he saves her life, and even then when he’s like “you shouldn’t have run away!” she tells him “well I wouldn’t have run away if you hadn’t frightened me!” and brings the issue back to his temper, telling him he needs to control it. She doesn’t make excuses for his raging behavior, which is what you’d expect from someone with Stockholm Syndrome.

Belle does not change at all to please Adam. He changes to please her. And yes, I know this isn’t a good start for a relationship, but Belle is not in a romantic relationship with him at this point (though he likes her–or rather, he likes the possibility of breaking the curse to start with, and as he discovers Belle’s existence as a human being with interests of her own and loved ones of her own, he discovers his own humanity–which is frankly beautiful) and wasn’t dating him in hopes that he’d change. He changed before she fell in love with him.

I think it’s also crucial that Belle does not express romantic feelings for Adam while she is his prisoner. He has to let her go, first, and he does so because he sees she is worried for her father, because he sees her as a human being far more important than just someone who can break the curse. She is not an object, she is not a prisoner: she is Belle.

So regarding their relationship… in every sense it foils Belle’s relationship with Gaston. In contrast to Gaston’s disrespect of her interests (like throwing her book in the mud), Adam engages with them. He shows her a library, and he reads with her. He plays with animals like she does, and in response she empathizes with him as well, as seen in the scene where she realizes that Adam can’t eat normally, so she meets him halfway. That’s not a sign of insecurity; that’s someone who knows who she is and cares about someone.

When he asks if she’s happy and she says “yes,” but with a hesitant expression, he can read the sad look on her face, as opposed to Gaston who is completely oblivious every time he talks to Belle that she isn’t remotely interested in him.

Like, if we want to look for a genuinely honest portrayal of an abusive character, we need look no further than Gaston. Gaston attempts to force Belle into the same situation as Adam did, only worse in some ways because marriage is a condition: he has Maurice carted off to an insane asylum with the promise to free him if Belle marries him. Belle refuses because the girl was not going to agree to just any arrangement, not even to save her father. She has more self-worth than that. And this is the end of Belle’s relationship with Gaston, the culmination of her refusal to marry him; for Adam, it was the start of their relationship, and the story is again using this foiling to condemn his actions. Adam’s objectification of Belle dismantles as the film goes on, as he learns to relate to her and as she empathizes with him. That’s a beautiful portrayal of redemption, offering the optimistic look that redemption is possible and people can change, and people who are angry are hurting–but we don’t have to accept their mistreatment, because Belle never once does.

Thanks for reading! Up next: Jasmine, from Aladdin!

For previous entries in this series:

Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Ariel’s Adventurous Spirit

Here we go. The Little Mermaid, aka the movie that made me wish as a child that if I prayed hard enough, I would turn into a mermaid.

As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of The Little Mermaid, and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Ariel, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Ariel as a character.

Ariel gets a really bad rap, none of which she deserves. She is a full character: she makes mistakes, she learns from them, she grows. She does not ditch her family just for some guy; that’s legitimately the most simplified, reductive understanding of the story I can imagine.

Ariel’s story is the classic struggle of almost every teenager (hence why the film repeatedly emphasizes that she is sixteen) in a coming-of-age story: she is searching for an identity and floundering (heh, pun intended) in that search. She doesn’t know who she is, but she knows some of what she wants.

In other words, The Little Mermaid is the story, quite literally, of a teenager finding her voice. It’s messy and it’s filled with mistakes, but it’s also filed with hope.

So one of the most common critiques of Ariel is that she completely abandons her family and culture for Eric. That isn’t true on any level.

Firstly, the opening spoken lines of the film are literally Eric talking about how wonderful it is to be out at sea on his birthday (in contrast to other characters, who are puking) and asking for information on King Triton. Eric is interested in the world Ariel comes from.

As for her interest in the human world, well, Ariel is literally introduced to use gathering relics from shipwrecks instead of singing with her family. The interest in the human world is very much there, and choosing it over her family is a thing long before Eric entered the picture. And the film does not condone this at all.

See, when Ariel and Flounder look through the shipwreck, Flounder raises the very realistic concern of sharks. She teases him and doesn’t take it seriously (Ariel’s naivete is something I’ll touch on later). Her urging Flounder to come along results in him getting caught in a porthole, and then knocked on the head and almost eaten by a shark. The film is very clearly warning Ariel that while her interest in human things is all well and good, her choosing it above her family and loved ones is a problem.

However, Ariel doesn’t consciously do this. She forgot the concert of her family instead of just not caring, and while she risks her own life to save her dropped bag of goods as the shark chases them, when the shark later attacks Flounder, she willingly drops her bag of human relics to save him. And she outsmarts the shark to do so.

Ariel’s family, for their part, though, is not free of issues. For starters, of course, there is Triton’s virulent hatred of humans. However, in his hatred of humans and his complete dismissal of Ariel’s curiosity in his desire to protect her, he leaves her vulnerable to the danger lurking in the supposed safety of the sea: Ursula.

Triton destroys everything Ariel works towards. She’s already expressed a desire to be human in “Part of Your World,” sung before she met Eric. Eric just gives her the extra encouragement to work towards her dream. She likes learning. She wants to experience what she learns about.

Of course, we as viewers know Triton just wants to protect Ariel, and expresses to Sebastian that he worries he’s too harsh on her, and we see his guilty face after ruining Ariel’s collection. But he still did it, and didn’t say anything.

Her family commodifies her voice, showing it off. It therefore makes perfect sense why it’s what Ursula asks for, and why she sells it. Ariel does worry about not being with her family if she becomes a human. And Ursula taunts her for it, and gives her the bargain of belonging to her should Eric fail to fall in love with her. Why does this work on Ariel? Because, quite clearly, Ariel already sees herself as belonging to her father, as being completely under his control. He just destroyed the thing she loved to do, what she worked towards. He gives her no control over her life. But, the viewer is supposed to see it as a stupid choice.

Ariel legit almost drowns after being turned into a human. Flounder and Sebastian save her life by dragging her to the surface. Additionally, as a human, Ariel has no voice. She thought she’d find her identity as a human. But instead she has lost her voice, and she doesn’t get the guy because of her bargain.

Ariel’s biggest flaw is her naivete. She needs to learn that the world, both above and beneath the waves, is a place with kindness and with danger. She really doesn’t believe there will be sharks until there are. She buys everything Scuttle tells her without a second thought. She insists that “I just don’t see how a world that makes such beautiful things could be bad” about the human world. Ursula claims she has “repented,” and Ariel believes her. It’s almost like in his attempts to keep his daughter safe, Triton set up a tragic situation in which it directly led to danger. And this happens all the time in real life.

Anyways, Eric is a Good Guy and genuinely falls in love with Ariel without her voice–because he can see who she is even without it. He sees her adventurous spirit in the carriage race, the dancing, etc. The only reason Ursula becomes Vanessa with Ariel’s voice is because she expresses that Eric is definitely going to kiss her and Ariel will win their bargain otherwise.

And what’s so fitting about Ariel finally catching them and stopping the wedding is that Vanessa/Ursula is attacked by both land and sea creatures. Dolphins, birds, seagulls, starfish, and Max (Eric’s dog) all attack her. The land and the sea join together. Because Ariel is both human and mermaid; her identity is not in one or the other, but in both.

When Ursula drags Ariel below the waves again, Triton appears and literally offers to take his daughter’s place. He loves his daughter. It’s Ariel’s naivete’s fault, and she expresses as much, telling him “I’m sorry Daddy; I didn’t mean to!” But her naivete is in part on him. Yet Ariel’s lack of consideration for her family has now caused a terrible consequence: her father becoming Ursula’s prize.

And Ariel refuses to let Ursula get away with it. She and Eric both fight the sea witch to save her father, not just to save each other. They want to save the earth and the sea. They swim to the surface so Eric can breath and cling to each other, and then Ursula literally comes between them…

…and grows into the size of a mountain, proving that the problems you ignore in life are going to come back to destroy you. You can’t be naive and pretend they don’t exist. You have to face them. And sometimes, like Eric, you have to grab the ship that you almost drowned on and use it to defeat your now monster-sized demons.

The next scene is a legitimate repeat of the scene after Ariel saves Eric. She sits on the same rock. Eric lies on the same shore. The only difference is that this time, Triton is watching.

And he makes the mature decision to let her go. He cannot protect her, but he can hope that she’s learned her lesson and will make wiser decisions in the future since she didn’t run away after her decisions led to disaster but instead worked with Eric to save the world.

So, they marry. And guess what the last line Ariel speaks is? It’s also the last line anyone speaks in the film (a few song lyrics are sung, though).

I love you, Daddy.

Basically, Ariel’s journey is about learning to balance her family love with her own desires. At first she gives too much weight to her own desires, and Triton gives too much weight to his desire to protect her, and they pull and they pull like it’s a tug-of-war. But it was never either/or, and it’s not land or sea. They can work together to understand each other. They can take risks, and by allowing Ariel to take risks, she finally learns just how much she values her family and the sea.

Thanks for reading! Up next: Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. ~~Hint: it’s not Stockholm Syndrome.~~

For previous entries in this series:

Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Aurora’s Autonomy

Time for Sleeping Beauty, one of my favorite Disney movies. Unlike with Snow White and Cinderella, Aurora is not the main character of her film despite being the titular character. She actually only has 18 minutes of screentime. However, that doesn’t mean her character is irrelevant–her journey actually embodies the film’s themes of freedom vs. fatalism, and offers a message about objectifying women besides. Her parallel, Phillip, and the three fairies are the ones who undergo more direct arcs, but their arcs tie into Aurora’s character as well.

As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Sleeping Beauty and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or on Aurora, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Aurora as a character.

Aurora is no object, despite everyone’s attempts to objectify her and to reduce her to a side character, a role essentially forced on her by other characters and a role she struggles with. The only one who doesn’t objectify and stifle her, in fact, is Philip (and arguably her parents, but her relationship with Philip is the relationship the film gives more weight). She and Philip share a similar struggle for their own autonomy, to write their own stories. This journey they take is really what defines the story, and ties in nicely with expected themes in a fairytale for kids such as growing up.

I should also state that the adults who objectify Aurora are almost entirely well meaning, except for of course Maleficent. Her parents love her and are noted to have tried for many years to have a child before she was born. The fairies raise her and love her. But that doesn’t mean they are perfect in how they go about showing their love.

Let’s start at the beginning. The three good fairies arrive at Aurora’s christening, and Flora grants Aurora the gift of beauty.

Fauna grants her the gift of song.

And then Maleficent shows up and like any party pooper, projects her own anger at Aurora’s parents onto Aurora, cursing her to prick her finger on a spindle and die on her sixteenth birthday. And that’s when Merryweather intervenes, changing it so that true love’s kiss can awaken her.

Merryweather’s gift gives freedom in the middle of the fatalism offered by both the well-meaning Flora and Fauna and the malice of Malecifent. Beauty is not Aurora’s defining trait–kindness and empathy are–but as we see, Maleficent and her raven will repeatedly use Aurora’s fated good looks to find her. In other words, it can be seen as a way of objectifying her. Merryweather’s gift, for her part, still relies on someone else to save Aurora. As we’ll see, that’s a problem through the entire film–Aurora wants to do things on her own, but people continually refuse to let her. Consequently when she finally does do something more or less on her own, it’s not really on her own. It’s in a trance and it almost kills her.

King Stefan decides to fight against fate by burning every spindle, but it’s not going to be enough to stop Maleficent and the fairies know it, at which point Fauna proposes turning Aurora into a flower. Again, objectification. The other fairies point out Maleficent sends frosts to kill all Fauna’s best flowers and that would probably be what became of Aurora if she did so. Maleficent knows everything but “not love or the joy of helping others” and so they decide to adopt Aurora and raise her in secret as “It’s the only thing she can’t understand and won’t expect!” Maleficent does not understand beauty–hence the killing flowers–and she doesn’t understand internal beauty like empathy and kindness (the traits that Aurora will possess as well) either. The king and queen agree and the narrator notes that “their most precious possession, their only child, disappeared into the night.” Referring to Aurora as a possession is telling. People keep defining Aurora by who she’s related to and what her destiny is, instead of who she is and what she wants.

When Aurora grows up and goes into the forest, she sings, calling all the animals to her. She sings:

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder why
Each little bird has someone to sing to
Sweet things to a gay little love melody?I wonder, I wonder if my heart keeps singing
Will my song go winging to someone who’ll find me
And bring back a love song to me?

The lyrics point to Aurora’s empathy, in that she is relating to the birds (don’t take it too seriously, it’s a fairytale). Her kindness is karmic as it often is in Disney films: be kind to the least of these and they will be kind to you.

However, Aurora also voices a complaint to her woodland friends: the three “aunts” she has treat her like a child and try to keep her from getting to know anyone. The only time she can express what she wants for herself is in her dreams (which, by the way, pretty accurate describe exactly what will happen in the later story). She wants autonomy, to write her own story and go after what she wants, but she doesn’t want to hurt the people who raised her. It’s a tension pretty common in coming of age stories.

Philip then overhears her song and immediately comments, “Beautiful.” On his way to find her, his horse stumbles and he is thrown in the river, which is symbolic also (as Aurora’s dream is) of how in the later story he will have to go through ugliness and physical pain to reach what he deems beautiful. Aurora’s woodland friends then steal his clothes and run away towards her, again foreshadowing how things will be taken from him later on (his freedom, by Maleficent)–but this time he meets the voice he was seeking as a result. He needs help to reach Aurora this time, and he will during the later battle as well. Autonomy doesn’t mean doing everything on your own and ditching wise advice or your loved ones.

Aurora and Phillip’s well-known song “Once Upon a Dream” is really beautifully sung, and includes the lyric “visions are seldom all they seem.” This is a major theme in Sleeping Beauty: nothing in this movie is as it seems. Aurora thinks Phillip is a peasant and he thinks likewise of her. She thinks her name is Briar Rose and she’s an orphan: she’s a princess. In an effort to protect her, the fairies have kept her naive and in essence lied to her of omission, and it’s going to backfire.

As they dance, she ducks away from him and he has to convince her to come back by empathizing with her: singing the same song.

The song ends with them standing on a cliff, viewing the castle together (symbolic of looking over the future together). Again, to quote this amazing article about Snow White:

they share a song together, which is Disney/musical theatre code switching for “romantic/sexual love.” Generally speaking, the big waltz that Disney’s romantic duos share at the end of the movie is their act of sexual consummation—sex without sex on Disney terms

(Please don’t think I’m saying it’s sexual–it isn’t at all. It just has the same emotional weight/meaning as a sex scene would in a romcom.)

Back at the cottage, Merryweather expresses that their plans for the party should “consider what Rose would want!” The thing is… the fairies haven’t really been doing that. In fact, their focus on what they want for Aurora (pink or blue dress) leads to a petty fight that gives Maleficent’s raven a direct map to where Aurora is. Of course, they love her. They do. But keeping Aurora in the dark as to the truth is no different than the curse to put her to sleep. Aurora has been asleep sixteen years, and waking up to the truth is pretty brutal for her. When she returns home, Aurora tries to get her aunts to experience her joy with her, dancing with Fauna.

But when they tell her who she is, they hurt her. They’ve been thinking of what they think is best to protect her as their essential daughter, as a princess, as a good person, without considering what she wants, and she’s left sobbing.

Philip does the same with his father as Aurora did, since they are parallels: dances with his father in his joy. He doesn’t care that, to him, she isn’t a princess, and to Aurora he isn’t a prince. In fact, Philip tells his father she is a “peasant girl.” Hubert says “you can’t do this to me. Give up the throne? The kingdom? For some… nobody? … I won’t have it!” But Philip rides off anyways. He chooses his own destiny; this being a fairy tale, of course the girl he is in love with is Aurora after all.

Aurora complies with the fairies’ demands of her destiny and almost dies as a result. She also does not speak again for the whole film, which is fitting, because she has lost her voice to the best of intentions. The fairies take her into a room in the palace and bolt the door and pull the drapes, showing how they’re locking Aurora into something she does not want.

They put the crown on her head saying “it is thy royal duty” and she falls into tears and then into Malifecent’s trance.

When the fairies find her after she’s pricked her finger, her crown has fittingly fallen off.

Again with the message of things not being as they seem, the kingdom celebrates Aurora’s impending return with fireworks as the fairies cry over the princess, because the curse they tried to fight happened anyways. The fairies put everyone to sleep, which is fitting because they really are responsible for this situation. They will make up for it by helping Phillip, Aurora’s parallel.

Maleficent tells Philip (mockingly): “A wonderful future lies ahead of you. You, the charming hero of a fairytale come true.” She insists on writing his story for him, in other words, telling him the girl he loves is Aurora and he has to wait 100 years for her to let him out.

Phillip responds by fighting against his bonds and thereby her version of his future.

The fairies save Phillip by giving him the shield of virtue and the sword of truth–truth, of course, being what they did not give to Aurora. And it is indeed this sword of truth that eventually kills Maleficent even when the shield tumbles away during the battle.

They also warn him that the road ahead he has to face on his own. He controls his destiny. As he leaves the dungeon, the fairies lead him.

After the raven alerts the castle that Philip has escaped, Philip steps up and leads the fairies, symbolizing his growing up.

When Maleficent transforms into a dragon, the fairies hold Merryweather back from doing the actual fighting, though they do give him direction.

When Phillip kisses Aurora, everyone wakes up, showing the power of choosing your own path enlightening everyone. Hubert, Phillip’s father, remembering his son’s proclamation of love for a peasant woman, starts to cancel the betrothal of Phillip and Aurora, because he has woken up accepting his son’s agency for his own life. However, then Phillip and Aurora show up together, so all’s well that ends well.

Keeping Aurora in the dark really wasn’t that different than putting her to sleep. In the quest of her loved ones to protect her, they also ensured Aurora’s fate. Sleeping Beauty is, in essence, an almost-tragedy. However, Aurora’s internal beauty/empathy and karmic kindness are what save her, in that they are why Phillip falls in love with her. It’s that man she’s already in love with, the man she chose to love, who rescues her. It’s her love and her decision to love that helps set in motion the events that will eventually help her wake up and find freedom.

Thanks for reading! Up next, Ariel from The Little Mermaid. For previous entries in this series, see here:

Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Cinderella’s Courage and Compassion

Ah, time for one of my favorite princesses and perhaps the most common target of, for lack of a better term, haters. As a film, Cinderella is a surprisingly realistic portrayal of abuse and how abuse survivors cope, as well as an optimistic fairytale.

As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Cinderella and
this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of her film, but
rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Cinderella as a character.

Cinderella is too girlish! Cinderella waits for a man to save her! Or so the criticisms go. As for the latter, that’s blatantly not true according to the story, and as for the former, well… I’ll quote part of what I said in my Snow White analysis here, adapted for Cinderella:

If you… devalue her based on the strong presence of her
traditionally feminine traits while ignoring her very real and very
present strength[s], perhaps you should be reexamining your own sexism.

As for Cinderella herself, her defining traits are not that she cooks and cleans–she sings as she does so, but she also doesn’t voluntarily do any of it, unlike Snow White. She does however do almost everything out of compassion both for others and for herself. Why compassion is seen as a feminine trait is honestly another discussion all together and it’s disturbing that this does appear to be a common assumption. Compassion is good. The answer isn’t to not emphasize compassion in a female character (who, by nature of existing in a fairy tale for children, is going to be a relatively simple character), but rather emphasize it for male characters as well. Cinderella (1950) does also play with gender roles several times, notably with Lady Tremaine (the wicked stepmother) and with the Grand Duke.

This film goes out of its way to highlight Cinderella’s compassion as the trait that is most beautiful about her, though it’s certainly a valid criticism that the stepsisters are noted to be “awkward” (the film never uses the word “ugly”) and Lady Tremaine is noted to be jealous of Cinderella’s beauty–but also her charm, aka her personality.

It’s noted that Cinderella’s father married Lady Tremaine only because he felt his daughter “needed a mother’s care.” In other words, the man’s own insecurity and belief that he wasn’t enough led to him marrying the woman who would later abuse Cinderella. In other words, because he didn’t think he could be enough of a feminine influence on her, she wound up being abused. Damn you sensitive masculinity.

But it’s also notable that the father is noted to love his child very much, and that compassion is clearly very important to Cinderella’s journey. Under her father’s care, the chateau she grows up in is noted to be beautiful, but once he dies Lady Tremaine “squanders” the fortune on her daughter’s “vain and selfish” interests, letting the chateau fall into disrepair. The chateau can be seen as symbolic of Cinderella herself in some ways, but also of Lady Tremaine–the more energy and time she spends on her selfish jealousy, the more she doesn’t realize that her inner beauty is falling into disrepair.

Cinderella’s got a backbone. The girl is not a pushover even when she’s being ordered around. Starting from her very first proper scene, wherein she teases the birds for waking her up and tries to stay asleep. But she can’t, because she’s got to face the world, which is not as kind to her. She grouses at the clock, complaining that “even he orders me around.“ When Anastasia and Drizella accuse her of deliberately putting a mouse in her cup, she starts the conversation with her stepmother with “oh please, you don’t think that I–” She tells them “I’m still a member of the family.” She is smart. She is polite to her abusers, yes (often, unfortunately, that’s realistic and a survival strategy) and even kind to Lucifer, the privileged fat cat ~~(and the best character)~~. And yet Cinderella doesn’t take Lucifer’s bullshit, sarcastically telling him “I’m sorry if Your Highness objects to an early breakfast.” She has spunk.

However, Cinderella is also naive and prone to losing herself in dreams. Dreams are coded as positive in Cinderella, but also as something that doesn’t suffice as a long-term solution. Instead, dreams are tools that help you escape. For example, the Fairy Godmother’s illusion is basically a waking dream that enables her to reach her escape. But the Fairy Godmother also warns her the dream comes with a time limit, and she needs to pay heed to it (and almost doesn’t): “But like all dreams, it can’t last forever.” The next morning, Cinderella again loses herself to her daydreams, humming and singing and so lost in her dreams that she doesn’t hear her animal friends trying to warn her that Lady Tremaine is about to lock her in the tower. Which she does.

Yet without dreams, Cinderella could not have survived the years leading up to her dream becoming a reality for a few hours. As she directly states, while Lady Tremaine can take almost everything from her, no one can order her to stop dreaming. While Cinderella is trapped in an abusive situation, she desperately wants to leave, and she believes she will escape some day. A dream, for Cinderella, is escapism, because she can at least be free from something the film itself directly calls “abuse” and “humiliation.” Dreams are not silly; speaking as an abuse survivor myself, sometimes that’s all you have. In her song “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” she sings:

In dreams you will lose your heartache

Whatever you wish for you keep

Have faith in your dreams and someday

Your rainbow will come smiling through

No matter how your heart is grieving

If you keep on believing

The dream that you wish will come true.

Is it simplified? Sure. But that’s a beautiful message to give kids suffering. And given the dual coding of dreams as being something you cannot lose yourself in either, it gives a practical message of acting on your dreams as well.

Cinderella’s compassion is primarily shown through her treatment of the pesky animals, the ones that disgust her stepsisters (like mostly mice, but also birds and Bruno, the dog whom Cinderella warns the stepmother wants to kick out). But she encourages the mice to be smart and Bruno to learn to like cats (aka Lucifer) if only for practical reasons (because they’ll throw him out otherwise). I think this reveals a good deal of Cinderella’s mindset: that she does what they want her to do because she wants to survive. She wants a warm bed and food, and running away all on her own would ensure she’d lose that. Abuse victims do genuinely weigh their options like this, and choosing to stay (especially as a dependent, like Cinderella is) is not something that should be condemned.

The moment Cinderella hears that a mouse (GusGus) is in the rat trap, she stops what she’s doing and rushes down the stairs. In other words, while she can’t yet escape, she’ll be damned if she’ll let someone else suffer abuse in a trap they can’t leave. Not only that, but GusGus is terrified and Cinderella notes as such, and asks for someone who better understands (Jack) to talk to him, and even though GusGus is aggressive at first, Jack’s insistence that they like him and Cinderella likes him coaxes him out of the cage. In other words, compassion and kindness enable him to make a courageous choice and leave the cage.

GusGus is the opposite of Cinderella in some ways: he directly wants to challenge Lucifer until Jack begs him not to. He wants to fight, but practically speaking, it’s just stupid for a mouse to go up against a cat, and Cinderella too lacks the means to go up against her stepfamily. It’s a realistic portray of abuse. GusGus also repeatedly makes naive choices, but in contrast to Cinderella, he tends to be more active (taking risks that aren’t exactly the wisest). For example he gets attacked by the more powerful chickens in a quest for food and they steal his food (it’s foreshadowing to the later scene where the stepsisters will tear Cinderella’s dress from her), but Cinderella intervenes and she gives a downtrodden mouse some food.

Like Snow White, Cinderella’s kindness is rewarded, in that the mice and birds are genuine friends to her (it’s a kids movie don’t take it too literally). They help her make her bed, shower, etc. in the morning, and they then make her dress for her when she doesn’t have time to do it herself. And again, there is a realistic portrayal of abuse in that the stepmother dangles a false hope/dream in front of Cinderella: finish all your chores and get something nice to wear, and you can come–but she fully intends to never let Cinderella come by giving her extra chores.

Despite being a fairytale, in Cinderella, compassion is not always rewarded by things working out. The stepsisters are not just jealous of Cinderella’s looks and her own compassion, but the compassion given to her. They don’t want the beads or the sash, but Lady Tremaine manipulates them into tearing them from Cinderella. Again, it’s realistic to abuse, because parents will often mobilize and manipulate other children to target one.

This is Cinderella’s nadir, in which she sobs, “It’s no use. No use at all. I can’t believe. Not anymore. There’s nothing left to believe in. Nothing,” That’s pretty dark for a kid’s movie, but honestly… don’t we all know that feeling? I certainly do. Cinderella’s arc is about learning to be courageous and take steps in that courage, and this is the moment all of it deserts her, because the one thing she has that connects her to others–compassion–appears to have all been for naught.

What gives Cinderella the push of courage she needs to leave the chateau? The compassion of the fairy godmother. And the fairy godmother makes the ordinary things, the despised things like mice and Bruno (an old dog at risk of being thrown out) into magical things, again reinforcing the theme that the ordinary can be extraordinary, and that the real magic is in the compassion and love she shares with her friends (who are animals because it’s a kid’s fantasy movie). In the end, though the dress they made for her was destroyed, she still couldn’t get to the ball without her friends.

So Cinderella is off to the ball, and that’s when she will meet the prince–who is having to deal with his own issues. The Grand Duke is not nearly so abusively coded as Lady Tremaine, but he is kind of unreasonable and threatening towards his vizier. He also plays with gender roles in that he is the father begging his son to marry and make babies because he wants to hear the little feet of his grandchild. He literally dreams about it, and again shows the potential danger of becoming too attached to dreams in that he’s not very nice and is pretty controlling in his wishes to make dreams happen (aka, there’s not a ton of compassion). That being said he’s coded comically and does want his son to genuinely fall in love. Also of note: usually the nagging parent desperate for grandkids in fiction is a mother, not a father.

At the ball, the Prince’s sees Cinderella wandering around, lost and out of place, and goes to comfort her. His compassion leads him to her.

They sing a song together, and, well, to quote this amazing article about Snow White:

they share a song together, which is Disney/musical theatre code switching for “romantic/sexual love.” Generally speaking, the big waltz that Disney’s romantic duos share at the end of the movie is their act of sexual consummation—sex without sex on Disney terms

Again, it is not sexual. It just conveys the same emotional meaning for the characters as sex would in a romcom. It’s a fairytale for kids so of course they fell in love in a few hours–that isn’t meant to be a recipe for real life love advice. She also doesn’t know he is the prince and says as much when she leaves, telling him “I haven’t even met the prince yet!” as an excuse to run. In other words, contrary to the common narrative that she went out looking for a man to save her, she did not. She went out looking to have a good time and happened to find a man.

The song they sing is “So This is Love” and includes the lyrics “My heart has wings/and I can fly.” Because Cinderella–she’s free now. And throughout the rest of the film, she is free. The guards try to stop her as she flees under the time restriction but she makes it through the palace’s gates. No one and nothing–not the royal guards, not the chateau she grew up in, not the cruelty of her stepmother and stepsisters–can hold her back now. Even though she does go back to the chateau as many abuse victims do, her compassion has enabled her to make connections that will have set her free, and she will run to physical freedom soon enough.

Her stepmother realizes it too: once Cinderella hears the man she was dancing with was the prince, she drops the trays (symbolic of her servanthood, as she’s repeatedly shown carrying those trays) in shock, and as Anastasia and Drizella threw clothes and orders at her to help them get dress, she dreamily shoves them back into their arms and goes to get dressed herself instead.

When the stepmother locks her in the room, it’s the mice who face off with Lucifer, but this time not for mere food, but for their friend, and they free her. The mice dive straight into the teacups to get the key from Lady Tremaine, which is also a callback to an earlier scene in which GusGus was trapped in a teacup to hide from Lucifer.

The man is also about to give up and is distraught when Cinderella is finally freed but Lady Tremaine smashes the slipper. But Cinderella pulls out another slipper, again showing herself capable of helping other people scared of people in power over them. Her compassion saves her, and saves others around her. When Cinderella gets married the mice and old horse and Bruno, who all played a role in freeing her from Lady Tremaine and also escorted her to the ball, are celebrating with her. Because Cinderella’s story is meant to give hope to the people in her story, and to the audience.

A dream cannot save you, but it can give you a chance to escape by giving you the hope you need. Compassion and courage is what will save you. I think that’s a beautiful message within Cinderella.

Thanks for reading! Up next, Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty–which was one of my favorite movies as a kid. For previous entries in this series, see here:

Snow White’s Self-Esteem

Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Snow White’s Self-Esteem

You know all the hot takes about how Snow White is everything wrong with Disney Princesses? Well, what if I told you the film makes it explicitly clear she saves herself with her belief in her own worth and her willingness to grow?

I’m finally getting around to something I talked about months ago: defending Disney Princesses as characters with a lot to offer besides poofy dresses and songs that will never leave your head. I’ll be writing a post for every princess, probably going in chronological order by film release year. I also plan to do a couple movies where the characters aren’t official Disney Princesses, but are so in my heart (Esmeralda, Megara, maybe Jane?), and I’m probably not going to do Merida, because she’s the only princess whose movie I don’t particularly enjoy.

There are plenty of legitimate criticism of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It’s very 1930s in terms of its view of women and portrays Snow White happy to cook and clean and take care of men. That’s a legitimate critique and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of her film, but rather offer a different perspective on her film, and specifically on Snow White as a character. She’s not an exceptionally complex female character, but I think she’s a good one who works excellently in the story she’s in. She does indeed have an arc–one of growing up. If you evaluate her and devalue her based on the strong presence of her traditionally feminine traits while ignoring her very real and very present strength, perhaps you should be reexamining your own sexism.

I’m going to reference this excellent article on Snow White several times in this meta; I highly encourage you to check it out! I found it after my rewatch and was excited because it talks about some of the same things I plan to talk about.

So let’s dissect this film and Snow White’s character.

At the start of the story Snow White is dependent on the queen.

She’s her stepdaughter and despite being a future ruler and displaying many competent traits of a leader, she is not yet mature enough for to be a leader. The story traces her maturation, and throughout her arc, one trait stands out: Snow White has a healthy sense of self-worth, a far cry from an insecure girl waiting for a prince to save her.

When the Queen asks that famous question–“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” and the Mirror tells her it’s Snow White, the Mirror also adds “rags cannot hide her gentle grace; alas, she is more fair than thee." He then does cite Snow White’s physical traits, but grace itself may not be just physical (as it is not in the original fairy tale). Snow White’s beauty comes from within, and the Queen has absolutely none of that. Her stepmother’s jealousy can also be seen as stemming from her dislike of Snow White’s internal beauty. Snow White is a mirror that exposes her flaws.

It’s not her physical beauty that’s so much the issue (as the Queen’s willingness to sacrifice her physical beauty in the end so long as she gets to poison Snow White reveals): it’s that Snow White never doubts who she is and her own value despite the Queen doing everything to take it from her, ordering a princess to be a scullery maid. In other words it’s the Queen’s own insecurity that dooms her, and Snow White’s self-confidence that saves her.

Pan to Snow White. She sings "I’m Wishing” for someone to come and save her. One line is “I’m dreaming of the nice things he’ll say!” So basically, Snow White knows she deserves better than the way she’s being treated now, even though she’s making the best of it. She wants someone to be nice to her. That’s actually a fairly healthy attitude, and she’s not the first abused kid to want someone to save her. The thing is? The Prince does not take her away from this abusive situation. Snow White takes herself away from it.

The Prince apologizes for scaring her and then waits for her outside, below her window. They share a song, and at the end of the song, a dove, a symbol of purity, kisses Snow White on the lips, flies to the prince, and then kisses the prince on the lips.

As the article I mentioned earlier states:

they share a song together, which is Disney/musical theatre code switching for “romantic/sexual love.” Generally speaking, the big waltz that Disney’s romantic duos share at the end of the movie is their act of sexual consummation—sex without sex on Disney terms

In a fairytale, this is the equivalent of the sex scene in a romcom. (I’m not arguing it’s sexual; it isn’t. It just conveys the same emotional meaning for the characters.)

(As for the criticism that Snow White and the Prince fell in love in one day… it’s a fairy tale, aka a simplified story made to encourage kids. It’s not meant to be a life rule book showing kids how to live and what to expect in life; it’s meant to encourage them, to teach that the world can be good and suffering doesn’t have to define your life which given that this was made as the US started to emerge from the devastation of the Great Depression might have been relevant to people’s lives. I’m not going to delve into a historical criticism but suffice to say a story is going to address the needs and questions of its age. There’s a reason Elsa tells Anna you can’t marry a guy you just met in a film made in 2013 vs a fairy tale made in 1937. But along those same lines, if a story remains popular with young kids after 80+ years I’m going to suggest it has something else to offer kids besides pretty dress kiss with a boy at the end. Like, for example, a message of hope that most fairy tales intrinsically have.)

In order to kill Snow White, the queen commands the hunter take her to a place where she can pick wildflowers. This is kind of a Thing with Snow White. She finds beauty in the things around her, as the article says. That’s been consistent since her introduction where she’s scrubbing the stairs, sighs, and then gets up and sings about wishes and daydreams. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to encourage someone to find beauty/worth in the things around them, or to dream, because Snow White pretty clearly also sees herself as having worth.

While out with the hunter, she finds a baby bird crying. The bird has lost its parents and is symbolically a lost child, aka Snow White herself, looking for the people to make it safe. And she reaches out. Her kindness, her compassion for a lost bird (aka her self-compassion which she extends outward) enables the bird to fly away to safety, and is what prevents the hunter from killing her.

She’s naive but not stupid. At the warning from the huntsman, she doesn’t insist he’s wrong. She runs. She runs into a forest where everything is ugly and the branches transform into hands grasping at her, symbolic of how the best she was trying to make of her world has now been shattered, and ugliness has entered.

I think she’s earned a good cry. But all the eyes that were so terrifying to her turn out to be woodland animals, not terrifying monsters, and they come to her to check if she’s okay. The ugliness was an illusion created by fear. She frightens them when she sits up but assures them she won’t hurt them and tells them how she’s been afraid and befriends them all. Basically, this is showing that sometimes even though the world looks terrifying, it looks that way because of the fear inside you; there is still good in the world. And acknowledging fear is not a bad thing inherently, though she does then denigrate it a bit.

The song she sings is “With a Smile and a Song,” and some of the lyrics go:

There’s no use in grumbling
When the raindrops come tumbling
Remember, you’re the one
Who can fill the world with sunshine

~~I mean, I think grumbling is just fine.~~ But the statement that “you’re the one/who can fill the world with sunshine” again reveals what Snow White thinks of herself. She does not think of herself as someone who is worthless, a bad person, despite what her stepmother has done for her. Snow White has good self-esteem.

When Snow White goes into the dwarves’ house, she worries they have no mother (before she meets them) as she herself has no mother (again with the self-compassion directed outwards), and asks the animals to help her clean. She doesn’t do all the work on her own, in contrast to common criticism. She delegates, like a good leader. Also of note? She’s not the only character in the story who takes joy in her work and sings in it. The dwarves do as well, and they’re male.

The dwarves are also much more worldly-wise: they are nervous and fear Snow White is a monster when they discover her in their house. In other words, while Snow White has much to teach them about… cleanliness, but specifically also beauty in the world, they have to teach her about how to be an adult about it. Wise as a serpent but innocent as a dove, really. The dwarves have the wisdom but not as much of the innocence as they could have, and Snow White has the innocence but not all the wisdom she needs to grow into a woman and therefore truly escape her stepmother’s control. The dwarves know that the Queen is evil from the moment Snow White mentions her, though Snow White naively insists the Queen will never find her in their house. And then the dwarves will warn her not to let anyone in the house. But she does. Sigh.

It’s also worth mentioning that when the dwarves try to send Snow White away, she begs them not to, telling them that the queen will kill her–she is naive, but not ignorant, and values her own life. Snow White also negotiates being able to stay in exchange for cooking–essentially, she’s again redeeming the abuse she suffered by using the skills she gained from her abuse to survive. Yes, she seems to enjoy cooking and cleaning and looking after people. It’s still a skill we were explicitly told the queen forced her to learn as a scullery maid.

Snow White and the dwarves’ relationship is great. She is motherly, yes. She’s firm and not a pushover, proving that her sense of self worth does not stem from her ability to do these things. It’s also yet another example of her looking at the good in people and focusing on that rather than on evil. She knows she can accomplish good in the world, even banished to a cabin and away from the throne. She has confidence in this and exercises it. She’s the one who can fill the world with sunshine, and she knows it, and she’s also confident enough in who she is to learn and grow. It’s not as if Snow White has no insecurities–she does, as shown when she prays for her dreams to come true “and please make Grumpy like me” to God. She does want to be liked. She just doesn’t take her hurt over people not liking her out on others.

So let’s discuss “Someday My Prince Will Come,” the song that’s always taken out of context. Snow White isn’t talking about some hypothetical rando. She’s talking about someone she’s met and already fallen in love with. Idk I think when you’re forced to run away and thus can’t be with someone you love because someone is out to get you for a trait you’re born with, hoping that they will find you is rather understandable. Perhaps even, dare I say it, admirable. As the article says:

She isn’t sighing, passively hoping that some nameless, faceless “Prince” will appear and whisk her away. She’s not just waiting for a man to rescue her. She is fantasizing about her prince, her love, the man she already knows and adores, making good on the implied promise of their song and marrying her. It’s cheesy, but it’s a lovesick fantasy, as so many lovesick fantasies are.

Snow White still has faith in her loved ones to treat her well despite being treated terribly by someone who should love her. Basically this is a simplified version of Sansa and Cersei’s struggle in Game of Thrones, but told to be appropriate for kids. The good aspects of Snow White’s innocence are present here. Despite being betrayed by her stepmother, she still has faith in people who claim to love her.

In contrast, we have a return to a smug Queen. She realizes she’s been tricked with a pig’s heart and in a scene paralleling Snow White’s run into the forest, where she’s forced into a world with some ugliness to it, the queen literally makes her own descent into the horrific ugliness of the palace dungeons.

She climbs down a spiral staircase and the beady eyes of menacing rats watch her, but she’s not scared. She scares the raven in her study, as opposed to befriending creatures like her stepdaughter. The queen is naive like Snow White in some ways, but she doesn’t have the confidence to save her. Her fury that she’s been naive enough to be deceived causes her to rely only on herself, in contrast to Snow White’s good leadership via delegation. She declares “I’ll go to the cottage myself,” and she gives up the thing she’s been supposedly so jealous of Snow White for–her beauty–just to be able to kill the girl who points out all her flaws. Being the extra witch she is, she demands that the wind make her hate stronger. She revels in hate and in jealousy and ugly things.

Hence, why she makes a poison apple. It’s a symbol of who the Queen is. As she even says to Snow White, it’s a most beautiful apple, but it’s really poisoned. And she knows Snow White will be alone and will help “a harmless old peddler woman.” She uses Snow White’s insecurities–her desire to be liked–and her strengths–her ability to find beauty in everything, and specifically not physical beauty which Snow White has never shown any preference for as well as her desire to help the abused (as the queen is attacked by birds who know what she’s going to do), and her hopes for a better future (the queen tells her it’s a wishing apple “to make all your dreams come true”)–to convince her into letting her into the house and then taking a bite of the apple. Abusers do indeed prey on their victim’s insecurities and strengths, twisting them to serve their own purposes.

It’s explicitly not Snow White’s fault. But her naivete has consequences, and she can only be woken up by true love’s first kiss (are married ppl screwed), aka an adolescent symbol. Snow White is leaving her childhood naivete behind and growing up. As for the “He kisses her without her consent!” argument–like I do get it, don’t kiss an unconscious person, but that’s simply an incorrect understanding of the film in context. They’re in a relationship by fairytale film genre standards, and it was also going to save her life. That’s a seriously out of context argument. Snow White’s not getting buried because of her beauty is also a symbol again for how Snow White’s philosophy–being the sunshine–lingers even in the darkest of situations, like death, and is greater than herself, but also springs from herself. Like, the sun literally shines on her casket alone.

And her happy ending gives hope to her subjects (the forest animals) and is supposed to give hope to the audience as well.

And oh look, her happy ending–the castle they go off to live in–literally emanates from the sun too, a callback to the line from “With a Smile and a Song” about how you are the one who can fill the world with sunshine. Snow White created her own happy ending.

As for the queen, she climbs with difficulty a mountain (symbolic again and a contrast to her descent earlier) and tries to wrestle with a boulder in the middle of a storm–a callback to her request that the wind and thunder strengthen her hatred earlier in the film. She dies because of her own insecurity, because of the hatred she asked for. It’s tragic.

So in conclusion:

Snow White is an abuse victim who decided to still appreciate the beauty in the world and wound up saving herself and inspiring people along the way. Legend. It’s her sense of self-worth and confidence that is precisely what makes her such a good fairy tale female character.

^^me to opinions chalking Snow White up to a weak-willed girl with no sense of self-worth except for a man. She earned her trophy husband, ~~who, for the record, is not really any less developed than half the girlfriends of superheroes.~~

I will be looking at Cinderella next! It may not be up for about a week since I’m rewatching the movies to analyze them, and that will take time. Thank you for reading this, and feel free to let me know your thoughts!