*Car engine*
Matthew: Ohhh, I'm so nervous.
Mickey Mouse: Ohh boy thank you! We'll be in touch! Haha!
NEXT!
Matthew: Oh boy, looks like its my turn.
Wish me luck, ladies!
*Stomps*
*THUD*
Matthew: My name is Mathew Patrick and-
Mickey Mouse: NEXT!
Matthew: But-
Mickey Mouse: NEXT!
Matthew: Uhh, excuse me, but I-
Mickey Mouse: I said...(deeper voice) NEXT!
(Normal voice) I'm the mouse. You listen to what I say, theory boy, and you listen GOOD!
You'll NEVER be a Disney princess based on our qualifications. HAHA!
Matthew: But, what are those qualifications?
Mickey Mouse: It's Walt’s little secret!
You don't think our old racist movies are the only thing we keep looked up in the Disney vault, do ya? HAHA!
Matthew: FINE! You just wait, mouse! It's time I air your dirty little secrets.
*DRAMATIC MUSIC x1,000,000,000,000
HELLO, internet!
Welcome to Film Theory,
Making enemies with globally beloved mascots since 2015!
Today I look at one of the most twisted
And cutthroat cinematic universes ever conceived:
The Disney Princesses.
All to answer on burning question that we all never thought to ask:
"What allows you to qualify as a Disney princess?"
Now that may sound like it's a stupid question.
You're a princess, who happens to be in a Disney movie, DUH!
But the answer, actually, is nowhere near that simple.
You see, despite me going to Disneyland hundreds of times
And constantly being the old creepy dude who waves enthusiastically
To all the princesses as they parade past,
What actually got me started down this little vision quest of mine
Was the trailer for Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks The Internet,
Which included this scene where Princess Vanellope Von Schweetz
Goes to Oh My Disney website and enters the Disney Princess room.
Pocahontas: What kind of a princess are you?
Rapunzel: Do you have magic hair?
Elsa: Magic hands?
Vanellope: No
Cinderella: Do animals talk to you?
Rapunzel: Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big, strong man showed up?
Vanellope: YES!
Everyone: She IS a princess!
Cue everyone the internet collectively high fiving each other for that sick burn on male prince-types.
GOT EM!
*mic drop/feedback/clap*
Well, you got em until you forget that
Princes have literally risked their lives to save multiple women in this room.
Jasmine,
Ariel.
Yeah, Aurora. You did a real good job fighting back Maleficent,
When she created that moat of thorns around the castle,
And then turned into a giant dragon,
And started breathing green fire everywhere.
Oh, wait, no.
You were asleep during that whole thing.
It was Prince Phillip who did all that.
Just sayin' gals,
It's one thing to be an empowered female.
It's another thing to be an ungrateful jerk towards the guy who saved your life.
Now this scene is legitimately awesome.
Any crossover of this caliber is always going to exciting.
It is a literal 'Who's Who?' of Disney female characters from over the decades.
But, one thing it is not
Is an accurate portrayal of Disney princesses.
You see, the Disney Princesses is a separate media franchise created in the early 2000's.
It's like the NSYNC of Disney animated female characters.
And, believe it or not,
It includes only a very select portion of the princess characters.
From the animation studio's nearly hundred year history,
Only 11 characters are technically included as a Disney princess.
Pause the video right now,
And try to guess who those characters are going to be.
I'll give you a second or two to pause the video.
Alright, placed your bets? Good!
Some are pretty obvious:
Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora a.k.a Sleeping Beauty,
Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, and Jasmine from Aladdin.
If this were a game of Scrabble,
They'd be worth 1 point,
They're like the 'T's and 'E's of the Disney Princess world.
Worth 3 points would be:
Mulan, Tiana from Princess and the Frog, and Rapunzel from Tangled.
Those are the 'M' and 'P' tiles.
And the 10 pointerzees of our game would be:
Pocahontas, and Merida,
The first Pixar princess, coming from the movie Brave.
DOUBLE WORD SCORE!!!
Now, you may have noticed some pretty big snubs from that list,
Like, say, Anna and Elsa from Frozen.
Literal princesses from Arendelle in what is the highest grossing animated film of all time.
No, invite to this exclusive club for them!
How about Moana, also not on the list?
And it's not like they're too new either.
Most of the modern characters were coronated as an official Disney princess
about a year after the release of their movie.
Rapunzel, Tiana, Merida.
All of them had about an 11 to 12 month gap
Before they were officially christened a Disney princess.
And remember!
This list is according to the official list
Located at princess.disney.com,
An official site of disney.com!
This is the real deal here!
So, what's going on exactly?
What in Disney's eyes makes a woman worthy of being a princess,
And would Vanellope von Schweetz actually pass the test,
And merit inclusion in this room from Wreck-it Ralph 2?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is my goal today:
To turn these empowered women into lists of their core attributes,
So we can directly compare their worth,
And find out what methodology Disney is working with to determine their merit!
So, if we have any hope of figuring out the criteria for becoming a Disney Princess,
We're gonna have to reverse engineer things by seeing who's included,
Who's excluded, and then figuring out what attributes unite those two groups.
Now as I just mentioned, the exclusion of Anna and Elsa from this group shows that
Not all princesses in Disney movies go on to become Disney Princesses trademark.
But, that leads to the question:
Are all Disney Princesses trademarked actual princesses in Disney movies?
In other words:
Are they either the daughter of a king or queen,
Or are they married to a prince?
Well of the eleven, nine of them are easy.
YES!
But, two, Pocahontas and Mulan, require a bit more digging.
For Pocahontas, her father-
(Ugh.. I hate these moments when I copy/paste a hard name into a script,
And then come across it later in the recording closet,
Suddenly remembering that I have to pronounce the darn thing)
Her father, Wahunsenacawh, was a powerful chief of the
Sen-nah-ka-ma-ka?
Was a powerful chief of the Tsenacommacah Confederacy.
So, she's the daughter to a high-ranking ruler,
Ruler for lack of a better term,
Which would seem to qualify her as a princess,
However, there's a wrinkle here.
Pocahontas' tribe didn't have patrilineal inheritance,
Which means that Wahunsenacawh's sister's children
Would be the ones next in line to inherit any actual power, not Pocahontas.
That said, even though she falls into this weird middle ground of princess-dom
History seems to weigh in her favor.
In 1808,
James Nelson Barker wrote The Indian Princess,
Or La Belle Sauvage,
One of the first dramatizations of Pocahontas' life.
Even earlier than that, St. George's churchyard,
Where Pocahontas was buried,
Hosted the notice of the burial, of Princess Pocahontas,
And later the churchyard was laid out as the Princess Pocahontas garden in 1958.
So, even though it does fall into a bit of a middle ground,
Consensus does seem to say that Pocahontas can qualify as a princess.
As for Mulan,
Weeeeell,
Not so much.
If you're judging her by her main movie alone, she technically doesn't qualify at all
Remember,
Mulan is a commoner who enlists in the Chinese military to protect her father.
Sure, she saves all of China from the Huns and falls in love with Captain Shang,
But nothing about that qualifies you for the technical definition of a princess.
It's not until the direct-to-dvd sequel Mulan II, where, if you squint really hard at it,
She becomes a princess for like maybe five minutes.
You see, Mulan is hired to escort three of the Emperor's daughters to be married off to three princes.
Historically speaking, these guys would be better classified as warlords, but-
It's Disney!!
So they're princes and the marriages will help ensure peace in China.
When her love Shang falls off a cliff into a giant empty abyss-
-No joke this is something that really happens-
-Mulan assumes what any reasonable person would assume seeing a fall like that,
That he dead son! (?)
So she agrees to marry one of the princes for the good of all China,
So she's almost a princess, until Shang is revealed to have lived!
He hears of the marriage and rushes in at the last minute to stop it,
Thereby ending Mulan's entire claim to princess hood before it even begins.
So Mulan,
No, not a princess.
Almost, but not quite.
So Mulan really proves the lesson here that being an actual princess doesn't matter for
qualification into this elite group and if you want a real nail in this coffin
Mulan was included in the roster of disney princesses back when the group
was first created in 2000. Mulan 2 came out in 2004. So there is absolutely zero
way that Mulan would have qualified any angle that you slice it from so being
the dictionary definition of a princess does not matter apparently. Then what
does? What connects those eleven characters but still leaves out Moana,
Anna, Elsa, not to mention other classic Disney
females like Meg from Hercules, Esmerelda from Hunchback of Notre Dame and even
Princess Eilonwy from 1985's the Black Cauldron. A literal princess who is
based in Welsh fairy tales and was saving the male protagonist of her story
three decades before any of the strong women of modern Disney rolled into town.
I mean my mind immediately turned to box office performance since those last
three movies underperformed at the theaters but clearly that doesn't apply
to Moana and Frozen. Heroic acts? Clearly not since Moana has more heroism in her
little toe than Aurora who spends 90% of her movie asleep.
In fact it's Merida from Brave who throws a monkey wrench into a lot of the
qualifications you might expect to work here. I mean that is the entire premise
of her movie. Her queen mother attempts to convince Merida to be a perfect
princess and Merida fights back, "I'm the princess.
I'm the example. My whole life is planned out. But every once in a while there's a day
when I don't have to be a princess." First of all, like I mentioned earlier, Merida was the
first Pixar princess so being part of Disney Animation Studios to be a Disney
princess is no longer a qualifier here which just shows you how ridiculous
these qualifications must be secondly she was the first official Disney
Princess to not have any sort of romantic attachment every other one of
those eleven characters have themselves a beau. Sometimes hunky, sometimes chunky,
but there was always a man present. Merida? Nope. But the last difference here is
probably the biggest one. Merida doesn't sing
I mean sure there's a song about her in the opening of the movie but Merida
herself doesn't sing a single note in her entire film while every other Disney
Princess up to that point had. So what is it? What is this magic ingredient that
I'm missing? And how does Moana miss the mark? I mean
I can maybe understand Anna and Elsa. Elsa by the end of her movie becomes Queen
and Anna's in her shadow the whole movie and let's face it two pale-faced
princesses from the icy north aren't the most diverse additions to your princess
roster. But Moana literally checks off all the boxes: she's the heir apparent to
her father's chiefdom (maybe not a princess in name but certainly a
princess in function), that she sings and gets her own main theme song,
she performs heroic acts, she selected as special by fate, she represents a culture
and ethnicity not present in the existing 11 character roster, her movie made a
butt ton of money and it came out more than a year ago meaning that her
coronation is long past due at this point. I mean even her movie spells it out for her:
Maui: It's called wayfinding, princess.
Moana: OK, first I'm not a princess. I'm the daughter of the chief.
Maui: Same difference.
Moana: No.
Maui: If you wear a dress, and you have an animal sidekick, your a princess!
W-w-wait a minute. I-is that really it?!
I mean, sure, it's a joke, but it's being told directly to a character who has
obviously not met this invisible bar to being a Disney princess. Which I gotta
admit makes the subtext for this scene really weird but even though this meta
joke is played for laughs, Maui here might not be joking. When Andy
Mooney, creator of the Disney Princess initiative, was interviewed by the New
York Times about how he came up with the idea of grouping together the princesses
he had this to say, quote, "Standing in line in the arena of a Disney on Ice Show I
was surrounded by little girls dressed head-to-toe as princesses. They weren't
even Disney products, they were generic princess products they'd appended to a
Halloween costume and the light bulb went off. Clearly there was a latent
demand here. So the next morning I said to my team, "OK,
let's establish standards and a color palette and talk to licensees and get as
much product out there as we possibly can that allows these girls to do what
they're doing anyway: projecting themselves into the characters from
these classic movies." end quote. Translation: let's monetise the heck out
of the hopes and dreams of these young impressionable girls. But what if the
only two qualifications are: one dress and two animal, let's look at our list
of candidates again. Pocahontas? Dress and Meeko the raccoon and Flit the hummingbird.
Ariel? dress and Flounder the fish. Jasmine? Dress and Rajah the tiger. Mulan? Dress
and Mushu the dragon. Rapunzel? Dress and Pascal the chameleon. Tiana? Dress and
Lois the crocodile. Belle? Dress and Philippe the horse (or I guess you can
consider the Beast himself). Cinderella? Dress and her mice Jaq and Gus. Snow
White and Sleeping Beauty? Sresses and general
woodland creatures. Merida? Dress and Angus the horse, and now let's look at
that excluded list. Meg from Hercules? No animal. Princess Eilonwy from Black
Cauldron? No animal. Esmerelda from Hunchback? OK she's got herself a
dress and a goat, but she's also an outlaw who's treated as an object of sexual
desire by the men in the movie soooo she's got a couple other things working
against her in this qualification. Anna Elsa? Sure they have Olaf, but he's
technically not an animal and honestly they do make the cut when it comes to a
separate list of Disneyland theme park princesses, in which they're the only new
additions. Quite frankly animal plus dress is the only set of qualifications
that clearly delineates the princesses from the not princesses. But that still
leaves out Moana. What about her? She clearly has Heihei the rooster so
what's holding her back? It's the dress. Despite what Maui might call her
outfit, first off it's technically not addressed by dictionary definition which
is a one-piece garment for a woman or girl that covers the body and extends
down to the legs. However, Jasmine from Aladdin also
doesn't wear a traditional dress for most of her movie so that's not the main
problem going on here. What is the issue is what Moana's dress represents. Consider
this according to an interview with the site Tyranny of Style, Neysa Bové,
visual development artist and key costume designer for Moana, emphasizes the goal
of staying true to Pacific Islander culture, quote, "The biggest challenge on
the film was the limited materials. We only had two, 'tapa' and 'pandanus.' Tapa is
made from the mulberry tree bark. They pull out the bark and go through a
strenuous process of making a paste and eventually tap it all together
hence 'tapa.' Similar story with the pandanus weaving. Pandanus is actually a
tree and they pull the pandanus leaves and shred them into strips. These dry and
later you take each piece and weave it together. You can even braid it! We had a
specific rule, if you can find it in the island, you can make it." end quote. Staying
true to the materials, history and culture of the Pacific Islands was
essential for this movie and its characters. Now look at the eleven
existing princesses. Each and every one wearing pretty generic attire that
alludes to their culture of origin vaguely at best. Times are different now
and Disney is under more scrutiny than ever about its appropriation of other
cultures for money. It's an issue that hung over the head of Moana from before
the movie's release and continues to do so today, with specific
focus on the costumes. And if the goal of all the Disney Princesses is to have
young girls wear your dress and look like the character, Moana's outfit, while
terrifically designed and culturally sensitive from a movie standpoint,
becomes really problematic when you start churning out cheap copies to sell
next to your malls Sunglass Huts. So what makes a princess? Well according to
Disney it's not who you are, what you do or even who you choose to marry. It's
what you wear that counts, and isn't that the best message to send to little girls.
Next time in our exploration of Disney Princesses, we focus on that specific
scene from Wreck-it Ralph 2 because the roster is much wider in that room all in
an effort to determine whether Vanellope might truly become Disney's next
princess, despite what all the other girls might tell her. Speaking of what
you wear, theorist merch is now available for a super limited amount of time. Just
in the nick of time for back-to-school you are guaranteed to get it really
quickly after you order it. Admittedly this round of merch is mainly focused
around Game Theory. But don't worry, next time there will be Film Theory stuff
specifically. But if you want yourself an amazing heavy-duty backpack, an awesome
shirt that might not make you feel like a princess but will make you feel like a
million bucks, what has become my favorite pair of socks because of how
soft they are. A theorist pop-socket for your phone so you don't drop it on your
face while you're watching Disney movies lying in bed at night OR a theorist
notebook of your very own that might contain a mystery for you to unravel.
Click the link in the description below. Hey, you can tell a disney princess by
what they wear, why not be able to tell a theorist by what they wear as well.
Looking stylish in bright glaring neon green, I'd like to see a Disney Princess
pull that one off. Click the link in the description to check out that merch,
which every purchase comes with little bonus gifts sealed in there too, which is
pretty cool, we like to sprinkle in little surprises for you guys. Make sure you curtsy in the direction of that subscribe button
so you don't miss next week's episode where we take an analysis of Vanellope
Von Schweetz in time for Wreck-It Ralph 2. I'm excited about that one.
Anytime you get to expose blatant corporate greed, it's usually a pretty exciting time.
It's an episode that I'm always very excited to do, so anyway check it out, click the
subscribe button and most importantly of all, remember that's just a theory. A Film
Theory aaaaannnnnd cut.