The Princess Vlog

The Princess Vlog is my YouTube Channel, where I recite my posts under the guise of my animated self. If you enjoy this blog, please subscribe to my vlog on YouTube as well. For the story behind the Princess Vlog, check out my Story Saturday post about it.

How the Disney Princesses Stayed Modern for 80 Years:

The Rise and Fall of the Animated Prince:

Why Be a Princess If You Can Be a Lady-in-Waiting?

Don Bluth Princesses:

The Ultimate Princess Medley:

Princess Dream Medley:

Princesses of the Animation Industry:


Princess TV Medley:

Princess Year End Review 2019:


Princess Year End Review 2020:


Blogiversary Castle Tour:

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Review: Unicorn Academy (Netflix)

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As soon as I saw the previews for Netflix's new animated series, Unicorn Academy , I couldn't get over how similar it looked to Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders . Teenagers forming magical bonds with unicorns to save the world from evil? Yes, please! With a Jewel Riders graphic novel on the horizon, this is the perfect time to revisit that premise. Unicorn Academy is loosely based on a book series of the same name  that got picked up by Netflix and recently aired its first season. The premiere movie and successive eight episodes follow six unicorns and their riders on their quest to protect the magical realm from the evil Ravenzella, who performed reprehensible acts to previous generations, including the father of the main character, Sophia. The show contains a lot of teen angst and drama as well as rainbows, sparkles, and magic. Although Unicorn Academy features an entire school full of unicorn riders training to be protectors, it only focuses on the six students liv
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Review: My Sweet Monster

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I wasn't sure what to expect after the movie My Sweet Monster  was recommended to me and I found out it was released last year. There are very few movies I've enjoyed that came out within the past five years or so. Then again, there haven't been many animated princess movies for a while in general. My Sweet Monster  is a Russian CGI princess musical with a plot that feels like it could have been released in the '90s with environmentalist themes and a wacky setting. It's on par with lower budget animated films like Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest  or Charming . I appreciate that it was a musical, which is becoming less common these days, and that it isn't pandering to political themes, probably due to cultural differences in Russia. It isn't one of the best animated films I've ever seen, but it's refreshing for something that came out within the last year. My Sweet Monster  is about a ditzy princess named Barbara, voiced by Haylie Duff , who wants to
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Princess Fashion

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I've been seeing several viral posts recently about historical fashion lately. One was  a gallery of women's fashion every year from 1784 to 1970 , and another was a video re-enactment of how women got dressed in the 18th century . These got me thinking about some of my favorite princess fashions. Though princesses are not known to be  historically accurate , their fashions drew inspiration from many different places, and history is one of them. If you take a look at the way fashion has evolved over time, you can get an idea of which parts inspired the princess movies and which parts were altered. Something that surprised me in the re-enactment was how many pieces were assembled on a woman to give the appearance of a single dress. Today, most dresses are a single piece, but historically, gowns consisted of a corset bodice and a large skirt with a crinoline underneath. This was something I also noticed about Disney's  theme park princesses . Though they look like one dr
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Review: The Spanish Princess/White Queen Trilogy

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Yesterday, the Starz network  released the series finale of The Spanish Princess , concluding  The White Queen  trilogy of miniseries that began in 2013. Based on a book series called The Cousins' War  by Phillippa Gregory , the trilogy covers the women who stood behind the men in power in the English monarchy from 1464 to the 1530s, preceding the first two sovereign queens, Mary and Elizabeth. The White Queen , The White Princess , and The Spanish Princess  grant us a rare opportunity to see what life was like for medieval monarchs. Watching them reminded me of why I prefer the fairy tale versions of royalty. Those stories do not contain the gory deaths, gruesome births, and invasive politics that historical dramatizations like these exemplify. In fact, I had very little interest in watching the second season of The Spanish Princess until I watched some historical videos and learned that the king that Catherine of Aragon was married to was none other than King Henry VIII, who was
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Disney's Descendants Makes Even Less Sense Thanks to The Rise of Red!

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Fans "Wish" Disney Had Used These Abandoned Concepts

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Happy New Year, princess fans! When a new year begins, many of us think about things we can do better than the year before. There is no company this notion applies to better than Disney, which has been failing in every direction  now more so than ever. Their latest feature, Wish , was a genuinely solid movie that sadly did not make the profits it deserved. Following its theatrical run, many fans noticed that the concepts presented in the official  Art of Wish  book  would have elevated it from a good movie to a great one. Most of these concepts revolved around love and romance , which has been strategically removed from modern Disney Princess archetypes , despite being a staple of the brand prior to the past decade. Despite some early rumors that Asha might be the daughter of King Magnifico and Queen Amaya, the film's director Chris Buck explained in an interview  why he was adamantly against making her a princess, which may have been another mistake that could have altered the m
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Review: Time Princess - Shadows of London Visual Novel

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Why Didn't Sofia Meet Pocahontas?

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Sofia the First , everyone's favorite princess-in-training, has met every official Disney Princess  that existed when her show began with the sole exception of  Pocahontas . The power of her purple amulet granted her the ability to summon famous princesses whenever she was in trouble. Technically, she never met Anna either, but the episode  "Olaf and the Tale of Miss Nettle"  implied that she was supposed to meet her but got Olaf instead because her amulet was on the fritz. About a year ago, her amulet turned  pink  and granted her new powers. It now  sends her to help princesses , meaning that the chances of her meeting Pocahontas at this point are virtually nonexistent. Why did they acknowledge every other princess movie except this one? Actually, they did acknowledge the 1995 animated classic  in an episode of Sofia, but it was very subtle. In the 2015 episode of Sofia the First, "The Secret Library,"  Sofia discovers a hidden passageway beneath her c
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Deconstructing the Wicked Stepmother

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It was common in the early days of fairy tales  for the enemy of a princess or future princess to be her vain stepmother. There were many reasons for this, most of which are no longer relevant by modern standards, causing that trope to fall by the wayside. One outdated reason is that girls rarely left the house (or "tower" if you will) in the old days because they were expected to do housework and eventually become mothers. Therefore, meeting an enemy outside of their own homes would have been unlikely. Why do you think so many princesses long for freedom ? The other reason is that fairy tales are meant to encourage children to love and obey their parents, so it would be counterintuitive for them to go up against their biological caretakers. There are  a few rare exceptions , but these disturbing stories about horrible parents never made it into the mainstream media for good reason. Giving them stepparents who were brought into their lives at a later time solves this problem
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