The Princess Blog

I've made some posts in the past about how more often than not, princesses are portrayed as good and queens as evil . Since this is so often the case, does that mean that the storybook princesses we love are not willing to fulfill their royal destiny as the hope for their kingdom's future ? While it's true that princesses often seek freedom from the confines of palace life, they don't necessarily want to run away from their responsibilities either. The problem is that princess stories usually reveal only a brief period from their heroine's life that takes place before the biggest trials and tribulations of reaching full adulthood. I expanded upon this briefly in my "Confessions of a Grown-Up Princess Fan" post, where I discussed how even though I still relate to certain aspects of being a princess, I have developed a sense of cynicism that I did not have the first time I watched their movies. Seeing the world through the eyes of a princess now feels mor...

It's no secret I love mermaid princess stories . Mermaids have the ability to transport us to another world where everything is calm, serene, and the impossible becomes possible. When I heard that Elena of Avalor  was doing a special called Song of the Sirenas , my mermaid heart lit up with joy. I was even more excited to learn that one of my favorite actresses,  Gina Rodriguez  of  Jane the Virgin  fame, was playing the new mermaid princess, Marisa! This was actually not the first time that Gina got her fins wet, as she donned a mermaid tail in the very first episode of Jane the Virgin. Elena's predecessor  Sofia the First had a special about mermaids called The Floating Palace  that featured mermaid princesses who made a few additional guest appearances in future episodes, but Song of the Sirenas  was far from a rehash of The Floating Palace . Elena of Avalor has really found its footing this season , and this latest special did not disapp...

It's barely been over a year since I reviewed "Sisters in Arms," the series premiere of Mysticons , and we've already arrived at the show's short-lived finale. They've been dropping like flies lately, haven't they? Sofia the First just ended last week, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is on its final run next month along with several other popular shows . Many of my favorite television series in the past have only lasted for two seasons, but they usually take some time in between for the writers to figure out where the story will go next. That, unfortunately, was not the case for Mysticons. It jumped through two seasons containing a total of forty episodes with virtually no downtime in between, leading up to this weekend's series finale "The Age of Dragons." Before I start, I feel obliged to apologize that this review is coming out a bit later than I had hoped as Nickelodeon has always been very inconsistent when it comes to updating shows on  their...

I was recently offered an opportunity to read an advance copy of The Last Dragon Princess  by Cynthia Payne . It's a good time to read about dragon royalty considering that Netflix is releasing their original animated series The Dragon Prince later this week. The Last Dragon Princess  currently has a release date of October 2nd. I think it will have a lot of appeal to people who enjoy dragon lore. It's not exactly written in the format of a fairy tale, but it instead incorporates Greek mythology and a lot of fantasy style world building. I think it would be most enjoyed most by people who liked stories such as  The Handmaid's Tale and Game of Thrones . Though not nearly as explicit, the book incorporates similar themes of conquering kingdoms and using women as a tool to continue important lineages. The Last Dragon Princess  takes place in a world of people known as "hisgeii." Those among them who are "shifters" have the ability to transform into d...

Back around 2012, a friend of mine sent me a press release about how Disney was making a new princess show about a little girl from a poor village who becomes a princess overnight when her mother marries the king. The endearing image of the little girl on the press release instantly caught my attention with her unique reddish-brown curls, playful expression, and gorgeous lavender dress that was dripping with pearl accents. Something about this description and image got me so excited for the series that I got to work right away on making a grown-up sized cosplay of Sofia's elegant gown. The series premiered on Disney Junior with a TV special called Once Upon a Princess  in which Sofia received her legendary Amulet of Avalor and sang about her insecurities for her future life as a princess heroine in the song "Not Ready To Be a Princess."  I loved her instantly. Over the next six years, she took me on a four season-long journey filled with Disney Princesses , fairies , me...

The final trailer  was just released for Disney's latest fairy tale endeavor, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms . This trailer gives audiences more insight to the content of the four realms of snowflakes, flowers, sweets, and the creepy distorted land that was taken over by the movie's villain, Mother Ginger. The trailer also confirmed that the man with the eyepatch from the previous trailer was in fact Clara's godfather, Drosselmeyer. While it still hasn't been confirmed in the dialogue that the soldier accompanying Clara in the trailers is Drosselmeyer's nephew, the Nutcracker turned human, it's fairly obvious at this point. Some people have commented that this movie looks like a remake of Tim Burton's 2010 live-action Alice in Wonderland . Both portray a classic heroine donning the uniform of a soldier to save an enchanted realm from evil. This feminist answer to the "one man's journey" trope brings in a new era that shifts the method in w...

A Crown of Snow and Ice  is the third book in Melanie Cellier's Beyond the Four Kingdoms series. It tells the story of Princess Celine, a character who has been present in many of her previous books. Celine is the little sister of Celeste from The Princess Game , Clarisse from The Princess Fugitive , Cordelia from A Midwinter's Wedding , Frederick from The Princess Search , and the best friend of Sophie and Lily from The Princess Companion , A Dance of Silver and Shadow , and A Tale of Beauty and the Beast . After reading about her so much in the past, I already felt like I knew her pretty well, but this book still had some surprises to offer. Like Melanie's previous books, it takes many liberties with  "The Snow Queen,"  the fairy tale it's based on, and places more focus on Celine's relationship with Prince Oliver than the on the chillingly dangerous Snow Queen herself. As such, it is a very different retelling of the story than Crown of Ice  by Vicki W...

Of the three live-action adaptations of "The Little Mermaid" that were announced within the past couple of years, only one of them has already finished filming and has a limited release in AMC theaters  as of last weekend. Many of us who are fans of the original fairy tale took issue with Armando Gutierrez's The Little Mermaid trying to market itself as a new take on Hans Christian Andersen's story  when the trailer bears virtually no resemblance to it. I liked when their Facebook page had the title A Little Mermaid , as that was more honest and made it sound like an original story, but it was soon replaced with the attention-grabbing title that would hopefully confuse people just enough into thinking it was made by Disney and convince them to go and see it. Ordinarily, I wouldn't even bother reviewing such a mediocre low-budget production that was made by someone without any prior film experience , but the fact that it had a theatrical release and marketing c...

"That's From Disneyland!"  is a free pop-up exhibit at the Van Eaton Galleries  all this month. It's now in its final few days, but you can still pop by for a quick look if you're local to Los Angeles. The display is an impressive collection of park paraphernalia from a man named Richard Kraft, who somehow managed to store wall-sized paintings, ride vehicles, and more in his home before offering it to the gallery for a limited time public display. When I got in the long line to see it, Richard made his way all the way down to the end to greet everyone and welcome them to see his collection. He asked what we were most looking forward to seeing, but no one was prepared to answer that since none of us had been inside yet. So, he gave a pop quiz and asked which of the following three items was not part of his collection: A Dumbo ride vehicle, a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride vehicle, or an Autopia ride vehicle. The lady behind me correctly guessed the Autopia one, and then...

Today is the day! The first season of Disenchantment is now on Netflix , and I'm here to tell you all about it. The trailer for the show contained lots of clips from the ten-episode season, which can be good or bad. It gave a pretty accurate portrayal of the tone, but it also revealed a lot of the jokes in advance. For that reason among others, the last two episodes of the season were the best because they were the only ones that had just barely been hinted at earlier on, including a most likely unintentional Mysticons reference . The rest of the episodes had their ups and downs. There were a few fractured fairy tale references, but most of the stories were original. The pacing was pretty good overall. Any violence was there purely for the sake of comedy, and it never got gratuitous. That said, I think I still prefer Futurama overall thanks to its colorful cast of characters and clever story ideas. Still, it was refreshing to see a Matt Groening show with a female lead, even if s...

We all had lots of fun playing with princess dolls as kids and brushing their hair until it became ratty and tangled. For those of us who are older, there has is the option of purchasing pricier collectible dolls that are made with finer details in their hair and clothes and come with their own stands for display purposes. While princesses have never exactly been lacking in options for collectible dolls, the Disney Princess Designer Collection that was revealed at the D23 Expo in 2011 was the start of something special. Each princess had her own designer dress that looked like it came straight off a modern-day runway. The collection was released alongside lithographs, cards, mugs, and other paraphernalia featuring beautiful matching artwork. The dolls themselves weren't sculpted from your typical Barbie mold. They had fully articulated wrist and elbow joints, salon quality hair that stayed perfectly in place, bigger painted eyes, and long realistic eyelashes that you could actuall...

With only three months to go until the highly anticipated Wreck-It Ralph   sequel , Ralph Breaks the Internet , the Disney gods have taken pity upon us mere mortals and graced us with yet another screenshot  of the highly anticipated princess scene that was previewed at the D23 Expo last year. This preview shows us what happened after the first official screenshot that was released, in which Vanellope unexpectedly invaded the princesses' private dressing room, making way for the hilariously defensive antics that we see clips of in the trailer . This newly released image from Entertainment Weekly reveals the resulting antics of Vanellope getting on the girls' good side and convincing them that she is a Disney Princess as well. The new screenshot portrays the classic characters converting to Vanellope's casual style of clothing as they lounge on bean bag chairs for your average teen slumber party, only with princesses. Missing from this particular image are Jasmine, ...

Only a few short months after I had finished her addictive Unfinished Fairy Tales series , Aya Ling  released a surprise bonus novella called Queen of Athelia  to bring Kat's story to a full close. Even though the book is listed as the fourth in the series, it is actually the fifth, as there was another novella that took place in between the first two books called Princess of Athelia . Like that one, Queen of Athelia  takes place entirely in the kingdom of Athelia with no references to goblins or trips back to the modern world that Kat grew up in. As a result, the story is surprisingly realistic, focusing on her responsibilities as a mother and heir to the throne with her husband, Prince Edward. It felt less like a fairy tale than the others did, but Aya Ling included a tongue-in-cheek joke about that in the narrative in which Kat points out that fairy tales always end with the wedding because no one wants to hear about all of the messy non-magical things that happen afte...