The Princess Blog

I have never been a fan of the Descendants franchise , which was originally created by Disney to take down Mattel's semi-successful Ever After High line of dolls, books , and webisodes. It succeeded in this endeavor thanks to  Disney brand recognition  despite being an inferior product. Coming out nearly a decade after the original , we have a fourth Descendants movie entitled The Rise of Red . This movie introduces a new generation of fairy tale offspring with countless changes to the classic stories, most of which are for the worse. Its only redeeming factor was a heartfelt tribute to Cameron Boyce , who played the son of Cruella de Vil in the original films. The Descendants franchise had very little working in its favor from the start, but it at least had a leg up over The School for Good and Evil  by basing the backstories of the Disney characters on their films instead of superimposing an artificial school setting where they learned to be heroes and villains. T...

Did you know that there are several fairy tale franchises that portray the legendary princesses as mothers ? One of the most famous is Ever After High , Mattel's series of dolls, books, and animated webisodes that ended abruptly a couple of years ago. I consider myself a casual fan of this series, watching or reading stories as I find them without going out of my way. I love the concept of fairy tale characters fighting to write their own story as well as the beautiful character designs that were cleverly engineered to sell as many dolls as possible. A couple of weeks ago, I hit the jackpot at a local library sale that had not one, not two, but three Ever After High books available for my reading pleasure! Until then, I had only skimmed through the first book in the series, The Storybook of Legends  by Shannon Hale , which was the only book with a faithful animated adaptation . The premiere series went on to release three other full-length novels. I got my hands on the second one,...

In honor of the upcoming Sofia the First spinoff , I decided to rewatch the series . When I got about halfway through, I began to think about how well it developed Royal Prep as a school for princes and princesses without pushing a narrative that the classic Disney Princesses attended, which would retroactively change their backstories. I love the idea that a magical princess school can exist in the same world as the Disney Princesses without forcing them into the narrative. As I've expressed in the past, I had a major issue with The School for Good and Evil  for claiming that every well-known fairy tale character attended their school even though most of them actually grew up impoverished and didn't have the resources to get any education, let alone a magical one. Ever After High  does this to a lesser extent by insinuating that all of the fairy tale characters sent their children to the school, which makes more sense because it's normal for parents to want their childr...

What stories are left to tell after a princess finds her prince and lives happily ever after? That's the question Mattel decided to explore when they created  Ever After High  in 2013. The series detailed the lives of the teenage offspring of famous fairy tale characters through dolls, books, and animated shorts. It was initially created as a companion franchise to their already popular  Monster High  series from 2010 and was clearly inspired at least somewhat by the Disney Princesses. Though this was not the first time fairy tale characters were documented to have offspring, it was the first story about all of their children attending school together and exploring their own identities in relation to their famous parents. The franchise was so successful that many other companies tried to create knock-off versions of it, including Disney with their cringe-worthy  Descendants  movies. Princesses having offspring dates back to the days when the fairy ta...

Queer fairy tales could not have existed until fairly recently sue to social stigma. Gay and transgender princesses are rare, but they are out there and will only grow in number as the LGBT movement gains momentum. Since Disney is still  testing the waters , we need to look to Japan, with its progressive culture of yaoi and yuri. Queer characters are fairly common in anime. When it comes to fairy tale tropes being turned on their head, there's no better example than Revolutionary Girl Utena. Utena's gender and sexual identity are rather complex. In some ways, she is very feminine with her long pink hair and gentle voice. She got caught up in the mysterious rose duels in the hopes that she would be reunited with a prince who comforted her when she was a young girl. Yet, Utena rejects social norms by wearing a boy's uniform to school, wielding a sword, and telling everyone that she wants to become a prince. She isn't exactly transgender, but she could be gender fluid...