So…will your blog this week be about how you manage to reconcile your passion for Disney Princesses or Pretty Woman with your bra-burning, go fuck yourmanself feminist ideals?
I’ve paraphrased a little but the main ideas are all represented. How can you, you who spends your precious free-time blogging about your hard won right to do this that and the other, how can you be a feminist and worship Disney Princesses? That deafening metallic sound you can hear is not the sound of Cinderella’s wedding bells but rather the clang of a gauntlet being thrown down by my equally feminist-ing sibling, the Art-sist-ologer.
Can one be feminist and still appreciate (ok, obsessively love) romantic comedies or Disney movies?
Animated Disney fairytales were once upon a time (all puns intended) the realm of the cheap DVD shelves at your local supermarket; you stuffed one into the trolley before you left hoping that it would shut the kids up for a couple of hours while you finished the cryptic crossword. But it wasn’t always the case.
Snow White was released in 1937 to overwhelming critical and financial acclaim, due in part to its straddling the inter-war depression, but equally down to the fact that it was a really well-made film. A mixture of fairytale romance, songs, comedy and hand-drawn animation, Snow and her septet of dwarves launched a franchise of highly successful films. Back then there was no DVD, no videotape for your daughter to watch until the carbon frayed and certainly no mini-nylon dress for her to wear down to your local Tesco.
More fairytales would be released; Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and even Ariel, but the modern age of Disney Fairytales was born with Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Not only did this feature length animation borrow voices from actual Hollywood stars, it was the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture category. It would go on to be bested by Silence of the Lambs but this fairytale cartoon was treated like a proper film with proper actors and Celine bloody Dion belting out the soundtrack years before her heart went on and on and on and on and on.
Belle would be quickly replaced as bigger, better, megastar-powered films followed; Jasmine and Robin Williams, Pocahontas and Mel Gibson even Merida and Billy Connolly. But no one was prepared for the aural, visual and blue-sequinned cape-tossing onslaught that spewed forth in Christmas of 2013 when Anna and Elsa first built their snowman. Frozen has gone on to earn more money than any other Disney film and beat Toy Story to the title of highest earning animated feature. That is a lot of feminist mothers taking their daughters to see a cartoon recounting the tale of not one, but two princesses.
Disney Princesses aren’t anti-feminist characters. They never were. There is a little love at first sight and dresses and weddings; but there is also girls triumphing over adversity, girls preferring to read than to dance, girls as warriors and girls running away from oppression in search of personal identity and happiness. The films themselves aren’t going to win over Emma Watson or Angelina, so they have no chance with the Art-sist-ologer, but they aren’t just odes to men saving us from ourselves.
On the other hand, the Disney Stores, with their tiny high heel slippers, their mini magic wands, their pink sequins and fairy stardust, they are a whole different story. A story that is not animated or copied from the pages of Grimm or Andersen, a story that is grimly real and far more damaging than singing along to Part of your World.
When you wander into a Disney store you’ll notice that one side is lined with pastel princesses while the other is stuffed with soldiers and superheroes. Each side of the store marking out the gender divide like X and Y-chromosomes. Making movies and made-in-china-merchandising isn’t exactly the same thing even if the big men at Disney are cashing cheques from both. My sister hasn’t even seen the movies; she just wishes her 3 year-old would ask to wear mini carpenter’s belts and construction hats with her ball gowns and tulle skirts.
Disney Fairytales, fun and frivolous with a catchy tune and some silly jokes. I’m not expecting to be saved by a Genie, by an Octopus or by a Fairy Godmother…and certainly not by Prince Charming. But I too like a sing-along on a Sunday afternoon while I finish the cryptic.
Next up, the Cinderella story that took 1990 by storm. Julia Roberts was unknown, her wide smile and ubiquitous hair were but a glint in the eye of her agent. Richard Gere was best known for carrying Debra Winger off into the sunset in his white sailor suit #isthereasexierimage , back when he still had black hair, revealed as Debs snatched his white hat. Pretty Woman transformed Dick G into the silver fox that may or may not have played with gerbils but definitely did cavort with the Dalai Lama and Cindy Crawford and pseudo Buddhism.
Pretty Woman, which culminates with Vivian asking Richard for her very own ‘fairytale’ is in many ways a modern retelling of Walt’s masterpieces. Ironically Disney passed on the original script because they don’t do prostitutes at the Mouse House. Princess Vivian even gets a very fancy red couture princess dress and some serious ruby bling to wear to her ball. In exchange for 3 grand and daily BJs. #nokissingonthemouth
When it was released, I saw pretty woman 8 times at the cinema. There wasn’t Netflix or iTunes or even SKY+ so if you wanted to see a movie more than once, you paid for a ticket and sat in a darkened room. I’ve never before and never since seen a movie that many times at the cinema. What was it about Vivian and Edward that captured my imagination?
Do I wish someone would take me shopping and buy me a whole shop full of clothes? Hell yeah. Have you ever been to H&M in London on a Saturday? I have, and it’s akin to walking through shit-flavoured quicksand with piranhas hanging from your nipples. I would wish for anyone to take me shopping, to have the staff ‘suck-up’ to me rather than gape horrified at my request for assistance. I also wish for the size-6 waist I’d need to fit into Vivian’s Gucci wardrobe. Neither is likely to happen and wishing or dreaming is not getting.
I sit in meetings with colleagues wishing that buckets of cowpoo would fall from the sky each time one of them said they would ‘touchbase’ with me or ‘doubleclick’on my idea. I sit on the tube wishing that the small child resting comfortably on an entire adult seat while I stand would spontaneously vomit on his disinterested mother. I stand in a queue for a Portaloo covered in piss and shizzle wishing that I could pee against a tree. I stare at the blood smeared toilet paper, tears streaming irrationally down my blotchy face wishing I never, ever, ever had to go through the discomfort of another period. I wish that my ankle wasn’t fat and I wish that I could type this as quickly as I can think of things I wish for.
I also wish that men would stop using women’s bodies as weapons in their wars. I wish dickheads could understand that dudes with beards and books in the sky aren’t as important as real life actual people. I wish that Tony Abbott would spontaneously combust. I wish Madonna would release a good song again.
I have no intentions of signing away my independence and I don’t expect that I’ll ever get something for nothing. I certainly don’t expect that a man is going to whisk me away on a white horse and save me from the painful realities of the London transport network, shaving my legs and writing emails.
But I would really love that red dress.
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