Opening Statement

“Once Upon a Time…”

Those words have sparked many a childhood memory, stories and characters and places becoming real and tangible in countless ways. Little girls imagined themselves as the grand princesses sweeping into the ball and being whisked away by the handsome prince to his castle in the sky… Dashing heroes slayed dragons, evil queens and villains met their dastardly end… Animals could speak to them and help clean their rooms--Mom didn’t need to know!--and most of all, magic and fairy godmothers were real!

Or, at least, that’s how it could have been. No little girl is the same, so who knows what magical ideas took root in her imagination?

Let’s take a sec for intros. The two of us are full grown, educated, single, working women. We’re over the age of silly imaginations and have heavy doses of reality in our lives. We’ve been all over the place in our education, travels, work experience, etc. And we’ve got some concerns about what the heck is going on with the little girls of today and the influences that they are facing. In a world of Kardashians and Miley, who are they using as their role models? What influences are they facing? When we were kids, back before cell phones were a thing, we thrived upon stories of lands far away and the tales of those places.

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot about princesses--specifically the Disney princesses and how they are not good role models, how they don’t encourage girls to be strong, and instead set too high an expectation of body image as well as making them think that “Happily Ever After” is an attainable goal. With the new Cinderella movie, these criticisms seem to have just increased. But, we wanted to defend these princesses, for what they are and what they have done for us. Mostly they have taught us that if you are a good person, eventually good things happen to you. Which we believe is true--though we may have to go through hard times first.

We like our strong female characters; our Agent Carters, Buffys, and Black Widows. It’s nice to see women who can kick butt with the best of them. But there are different kinds of strong women--not every strong woman can (or will) take on the bad guy in a physical manner. There are different kinds of women. And we are tired of hearing women talk down about other women who make different decisions than them. This isn’t “going backwards 50 years.” It’s seeing that the things that have changed over the past 50 years means that we get to be who we want to be and make the decisions we want to make.

So, without further ado. The princesses from the animated films.

(We are ignoring all sequels.)