Mom & Pop Culture: Princess Week!

There is also a book called The Secret Lives of Princesses by Philippe Lechermeier. The book is all about the different types of princesses that exist. I like it because it gives the idea of princesses some depth, some princesses are selfish, some stay single, and some princesses are educated. My six year old loves it and will go through the book to find out which princess she will be for the day.

My homegirl is never ever included in the Princess stuff but I think you'll find she is a super influential princess for women/girls now in the 16-25 age range and she's pretty amazing. She's definitely more influential than Snow White, and probably more than Aurora and Cinderella, leaving you with a line-up of pretty rebellious Princesses.

That said, it seems like Disney's working on character development (Tiana & Merida of Brave), but it would be interesting to wonder how the Princess brand could be more freaking empowering for girls. I've written Cinderella and Snow White off as worthwhile role models (I will just clean for you until I'm rescued) but Belle would be a great literacy advocate and Ariel a marine biologist/activist.

That said, what about love? People (even children) like love stories and the Disney movies inevitably does that. How does anyone depict a love story that's okay for children?

I loved Dealing with Dragons and Ronia, the Robber's Daughter growing up. I always favored the strong ladeez.

What I find really, really annoying, aside from everything you listed, in the whole Disney princess franchise is how they turned Aurora's dress from blue to pink. For me, that's kind of "the last straw". Growing up, my favorite Disney princesses were Mulan and Pocahontas. But I always preferred the witches, in any case.

But this whole issue reminds me of something that hit a lot closer to home when I was growing up. I live in Serbia and we have this whole cult worship thing with regard to national epic poetry. And these poems are a large part of our education in that we learn a buttload of these poems (or parts thereof) by heart in school, and a lot of our lessons in literature center on them. Now, there's lyrical and epic poetry, lyrical being women's poems and songs and epic being men's poems and songs (!!!!!!!!!!). And then, there's this one epic poem (and these are all 'folk' poetry) called "Hasanaginica", which tells of a woman married to a Turkish lord, who, eventually, kills herself, because she is presented with a choice between going against the patriarchal ideal of what a woman should act like, and well, acting differently. Now, this poem was praised by the likes of Goethe and is a kind of 'national pride' over here, and we learn about it three times in school, when we're 11, when we're 14 and again when we're 18. How critical the 'learning' is going to be depends solely on the teacher. But, the gist of it is that we are taught that Hasanaginica does the right thing by killing herself. Which is fucking awful.

Now, being a complete nerd, and actually a fan of national epic poetry, I read a lot of the stuff when I was a kid, and among other things, came across a poem called "Ljuba Hajduk Vukosava" or "Hajduk (which is basically bandit or vagabond) Vukosav's Lover". The poem tells of a certain hajduk (pronounced heighdook) Vukosav who was captured by the Turks (who are the bad guys in most of these poems). The Turks keep him in a dungeon for three years, and he sends a letter home telling his mother to mourn him and his wife to remarry. His mother and sisters go into mourning, and everyone's hounding his young wife (we never get her real name) to do the same because it's expected, but she just laughs at them. Then she goes to the village barber and asks him to cut off her hair and make her look like a man, and he, being completely fabulous (and this is me imagining him) does so, and she goes home and puts on the most expensive armor EVAR. Then she goes to the Turkish stronghold where her husband is being kept and tells everybody that she was sent by the sultan to take the prisoners and their captors to be executed. She's supposed to spend the night in the fortress, but she tricks the Turks so they don't see her change clothes (i.e. don't see she's actually a woman). In the morning she goes down into the dungeon, kills the guard and wallops her beloved over the head a couple of times until he passes out, so the Turks won't suspect anything. Then the Turks pay her a lot of money so she won't take them to the sultan for execution, and she takes the money, slings her unconscious husband over her horse and rides out. At some point he wakes up, and she asks him if he recognizes the armor, he does, but he has no idea who she is, so, at first she tells him that she's his wife's new husband, but when he goes into despair, she takes off her helmet, apologizes for knocking him out, and they ride off into the sunset with the loot they took from the Turks.
Now, that's the kind of gal I wouldn't mind learning about in school. I'm not saying she's a feminist character or anything, and yes, the woman going into peril to save her man is a frequent trope in folk poetry in Europe, but doing something about your predicament (and also, making off with a shitload of money in the process) is a hell of a lot better than having to wait for some dude to come along and marry you in order to get your happy ending. And it's definitely better than killing yourself because doing otherwise would be against the rules set down by patriarchy.

Any recommendations for non-typical princess books that are so obviously non-typical? Back story: My 6 year old niece is obsessed with princess stuff. Her mother is very much of the "traditional" roles type. Women should only work if they have to, men are the head and the decision-makers, marriage and babies are what all women should aspire to, being a "good" wife is being subservient, etc. I'm very much the opposite and she's made some snide comments about my views that let me know she disagrees with me. I'd like to get my niece some princess books since she loves princess stuff, but I think those posted in the article would be a bit too obviously feminist and my sister-in-law would just dismiss them as me pushing my crazy views on her daughter. I worry about my niece growing up thinking that her point in life is to only be somebody's wife and I'd like to get her something that shows that princesses can do whatever they want, but I have to tread lightly since she's not my kid and all.

My favorite princess story is 'Ella Enchanted' by Gail Carson Levine. And if you've seen the movie... I'm sorry. Do yourself a favor and go read the book now. Ella's character in the book is a strong young woman who goes on her own adventure to figure out life for herself. Yes, she does end up with the prince (as in most fairy tales), but a. they actually establish a friendship instead of just sharing a "magical" kiss and b. things happen on Ella's terms, too. Definitely a good twist on the Cinderella story.