The Princess Blog

In 1845, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story called "The Snow Queen" about a girl named Gerda who bravely journeyed through many dangerous lands to rescue her friend Kay, who was possessed by a cursed mirror and seduced by the beauty of a wicked queen . In 2013, Disney released a movie that had absolutely nothing to do with any of that. I go back and forth between hating Frozen  and thinking it was just okay. The more hype it gets, the angrier I become. When people ask me why, I get tired of going into the same explanation again and again because it's long and complicated. That's why I'm writing this post. Most of what I knew about Frozen  before seeing it in theaters came from the D23 Expo  in summer 2013. I went to several panels where I saw the early footage and listened to the filmmakers discuss their progress. At the time, I was very excited about it. Olaf's song was hilarious, and Elsa's disapproval of Anna's engagement to Hans se...

In 2014, Whitney Avalon  produced and starred in a new web series called "Princess Rap Battle." The series pitted princesses against each other to rap about why they were the superior heroine. It quickly started a trend in 2016 that was used for shows such as Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. One thing that made Whitney's videos stand out from other princess-themed web shorts is that she had some very famous guest stars, including  Sarah Michelle Gellar  and Disney Channel star  Laura Marano . Her first video,  "Snow White vs. Elsa,"  was very appropriate since it put the oldest Disney Princess head to head with the newest Disney Princess of the time. Rap is obviously not the genre of choice for a Disney Princess, but that's what made the concept so novel. It was especially hilarious to see the docile Snow White rapping out insults. In some ways, these videos could be interpreted as  princess parodies , but the princesses do act most...

I wrote a little about  Winx Club , the 2004 Italian cartoon, in my "Faery Princesses" and "Magical Girls" posts, but I had only seen the first two seasons at the time. Not only that, but I saw the second season over a decade after watching the first. As it turns out, the show has aired seven seasons over the past 13 years, so maybe I wasn't being fair to write about it after having seen so little. I decided to binge everything I had missed to find out. When I started to navigate how to go about watching the later seasons, I discovered that the show was a bit of a mess. There are three different English dubs, and it switched networks several times, with years between some of the seasons. It's no wonder I lost track of it. Was it worth making up for all that lost time? Here's what I discovered. Shows that run for longer than five seasons tend to come up with some absurd ideas toward the end to keep things going. Just look at the ridiculous conce...

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 ...

Yesterday, I explored the stigma that all queens are evil . Today, I'd like to follow up with an analysis of the stigma that all princesses are good. In the 1985 movie, Legend , Princess Lili gets seduced by Darkness and transforms into a "dark princess" in a revealing black dress, implying that her innocence had been taken away. Does being a princess and wearing a white dress automatically make a character sweet and innocent? The creators of  Child of Light , which I referenced in my "Video Game Princesses" post , had some fun with this concept by disguising a wicked princess to look like a good one. Ironically, the word "princess" is often used as an insult. Why? No one embodies the reasons behind that better than Princess Morbucks from The PowerPuff Girls . Despite her name, Princess is not actually a princess. She is the spoiled daughter of a very rich man who gives her everything she wants. Thus, she possesses all of the princess traits tha...

In  my "Animal Princesses" post , I mentioned that Lauren Faust was coerced by Hasbro to change Queen Celestia into Princess Celestia because little girls see queens as evil and princesses as good. Why is that? Surely, there were many benevolent queens throughout history and mythology. Have the  Disney Princesses  taken over the world so much that people believe that princesses ran the monarchy? I think it's more complicated than that. Wicked queens are usually stepmothers who seduce the king to gain power. Most princesses don't have mothers, and the few that do are very loving. What is the root of the problem behind all the queen hate? The Evil Queen from the  ever evolving tale of "Snow White"  strikes fear into children's hearts at the mere mention of her name, if she has one, of course. Since  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs  was the first animated feature film ever, it had the side effect of setting the groundwork for certain archetypes in a...

Did you know that yesterday was Don Bluth's 80th birthday? In case you're out of the loop, Don Bluth  is an animator who used to work for Disney until he teamed up with Gary Goldman and made a whole bunch of hit animated features on his own in the '80s and '90s. He is responsible for  Anastasia , one of my favorite animated princess movies of all time as well as  Thumbelina . To top things off, he created a cool animated game called Dragon's Lair that was in arcades and on laser disc. Despite his age, Don and Gary are still working hard to bring their fans great animation. They recently started  an Indiegogo campaign  to do a full-length animated feature film of Dragon's Lair . Don Bluth is very loyal to his fans and responds to nearly all animation-related inquiries on his website . In my opinion, Don Bluth's greatest masterpiece of all time was Anastasia  in 1997. The movie used state-of-the-art technology for the time period. I wasn't v...

Yesterday, I talked about how much fun it can be to dress up as a princess  for a day. Meeting princesses can be just as much fun. In fact, it's my absolute favorite thing to do when I visit the Disney Parks. I have an endless library of photos I've had taken with all of the Disney Princesses. It is the closest thing to being able to hang out with a cartoon character in real life. Disney performers are also not allowed to tell people that they play a character and must instead say that they are "friends" with that character, making the magic of meeting them feel that much more authentic. I have visited both American Disney parks countless times, and I have also been to Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris. I've seen the parks go through many changes over the years, mostly for the better. Princesses have grown exponentially in popularity, so Walt Disney World and Disneyland have been working hard to accommodate for this by building nicer rooms to meet the pri...

As a princess lover, I like to imagine what it would be like to live a day in the life of my favorite princesses. Thanks to the magic of cosplay, this is possible. The term "cosplay" is a mash-up of the words "costume" and "play." It originated in Japan in 1984, referring to fans who dress up at anime conventions. I learned about it through my high school's anime club, when its popularity grew heavily in America around the anime craze of the '90s. My first attempts at cosplay were feeble, to say the least. My skills took off when I studied a "Fashion Design" elective class at my school. I learned how to sew properly by both machine and hand using Simplicity patterns. After I bought a crinoline skirt at a Renaissance Faire, my gowns started to look perfectly princess. Since then, I have cosplayed as several of my favorite princesses. Cosplay is a very expensive and time-consuming hobby, so I don't recommend doing it often unless...

One trait that is synonymous among nearly every animated princess is her beautiful voice. I have wanted to do a tribute to some of my favorite princess actresses every since I started this blog. Princesses have inspired me to sing loud and proud throughout the course my life and have also gotten me through some difficult times. Their sweet and powerful voices were full of emotion and helped me relate to them and feel more deeply than I would have ever thought possible. These are some of my favorite rock star voice artists who have each voiced multiple princesses and have had the biggest impact on what a modern princess should sound like. Leading the pack is the legendary Tara Strong  who has voiced an insanely large library of iconic characters, including not one, not two, not three, but four princesses. Currently, she is most famous for her work as Twilight Sparkle, who became a princess in the third season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic . I'm looking forward to he...