World Princess Week Wraps Up with Disney Princess Remix Special!

If you haven't heard the news, Disney is celebrating its princesses all year long with the Ultimate Princess Celebration. They took things a step further this week with the first ever World Princess Week, a week-long celebration dripping with princess merchandise, videos, specials, and music. Disney is a master of grand finales, so the festivities conclude today with a 30-minute special called Disney Princess Remixed: An Ultimate Princess Celebration airing on Disney Channel at 7:30PM PT/ET. The special is available to watch right now on both the Disney Now and Disney Plus apps. It consists of four remixed Disney Princess songs performed by teen Disney Channel stars and ends with the premiere of the official music video for the newest Disney Princess anthem, "Starting Now." Even if you're not a fan modernized Disney remakes, there were still plenty of fun princess things released this week to brighten our day.

World Princess Week logo with new Disney Princess artwork in the background

My favorite aspect of the Ultimate Princess Celebration is the beautiful new artwork that Disney released on Instagram of the princesses interacting with each other for the first time since Wreck-It Ralph 2. I love this beautiful imagery of my favorite Disney heroines hugging, holding hands, and sharing secrets with each other. World Princess Week enhanced these interactions by giving younger fans an opportunity to feel like they can interact with their favorite princesses directly as well. One method they used to achieve this is the Disney Princess Hotline, which allows young fans to call (877) 70-DISNEY and listen to a special message from Ariel, Belle, Tiana, Moana, or Jasmine with bonus messages from queens Anna and Elsa available online. Each princess relays a short story about her experiences chasing after her dreams and encourages her listeners to do the same and to remember to be kind to everyone they meet. I love the idea behind this, though I thought that Ariel and Jasmine were the only princesses who sounded like themselves.

Ariel pulls Tiana and Rapunzel in for a hugSnow White sings with Aurora and Pocahontas

Ultimate Princess Hotline - (877) 70-Disney

Belle hugs Mulan from behindMoana, Cinderella, Jasmine, and Merida lean in for girl talk

Character interactions in the Disney Parks are limited right now, so for World Princess Week, Disney released a new webseries called the Disney Princess Courage and Kindness Club in which young fans can live vicariously through little girls and boys who get the opportunity to meet with a Disney Princess from the theme parks, learn a lesson about courage and kindness, and do a fun activity based around it. So far, the club members have met Tiana, Ariel, Mulan, Moana, and Cinderella. I'm not sure if today was the last episode or if it will continue after World Princess Week, but I think this webseries is a cute idea. It made me wish that I had a kid to share it with! The webisodes allow us to feel a little closer to the theme park experience of meeting a Disney Princess in person even if we are watching from home. My favorite episode so far was the one where Ariel encouraged two girls to learn sign language, which was a wonderful throwback to my favorite episode of Disney's Little Mermaid series.


Disney Princess Remixed: An Ultimate Princess Celebration is the grand finale to all of these exciting World Princess Week festivities. The special is like a kiddie version of the many "Disney Nights" that take place on the show Dancing With the Stars. Like Dancing With the Stars, Disney Princess Remixed contains remixed versions of classic Disney Princess melodies in modern-day musical styles, but this special is much shorter, containing only four Disney Princess songs--"Almost There," "Part of Your World," "Home," and "Into the Unknown." Though I am not a fan of teen popstars butchering my favorite Broadway-style princess ballads, I was still impressed with the staging in this 30-minute special.

The performances were stitched together by a running narrative about a girl named Harper with an Alexa-style smart device that allows her to select princesses and singers to perform new versions of their songs. The technological aspect of the narrative was incorporated directly into the performances with stunning projections and backdrops. My favorite backdrop was for "Part of Your World," which had water projections on the walls and floor that made it feel like the performers were actually dancing under the sea. As much as I loved the flowing rose petals that surrounded the stage in the performance of "Home" from Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, I was horrified by the way this emotional ballad was desecrated into a punk rock ballad that didn't suit its melody or lyrics at all. I was surprised they picked that song since it's fairly obscure and wasn't even include in the 2017 remake.


The special concluded with the world premiere of Brandy's music video for "Starting Now," the newest Disney Princess anthem, and I was underwhelmed, to say the least. Brandy performs the song in a white dress with a bodice made of two enormous ruffles that hang off her shoulders and meet in a V-neck in the front. I thought it looked tacky, especially compared to the elegant dress that she wore in the 1997 adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. The rest of the video was interspersed with images of princess fans including boys, girls, women, and men. I appreciate the attempt for inclusivity and acknowledging that there are male Disney Princess fans as well as female ones, but it lacked the sense of wonder and whimsy that I got from Auli'i Cravalho's music video for "Live Your Story" in which she climbs through a magical library filled with imagery from Disney Princess movies.

Overall, I'm pleased with how Disney's first ever World Princess Week turned out. The princess interactions from the hotline and webseries made me feel a little closer to my favorite princesses while continuing to social distance. I wasn't thrilled about the Disney Princess Remixed special, but I did like the hi-tech visual effects and the fact that it was short. The new music video for "Starting Now" made me appreciate the original lyric video of Disney Princess clips even more. I'm looking forward to seeing more beautiful artwork of the Disney Princesses interacting with each other on the Ultimate Princess Celebration Instagram and the new Fairytale Designer doll series and artwork that will be released in October. How did you celebrate World Princess Week? Let me know in the comments!
I have always dreamed of being a writer and creating the next great fairy tale princess heroine. Princesses inspire us to be our best selves. While you're here, feel free to follow my page on Facebook, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and check out my books. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter.

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