The Cinderella Factor

“And they all lived happily ever after…”
Well, that was a long time ago. That was when a princess sat in a tower, or an enchanted castle, or even her own kitchen waiting in despair for her Prince Charming to come and find her and then sweep her off her feet to a fairytale life. Everything is birds, and flowers, singing mice, and a blissful wedding. Wait a minute…rewind the tape…let’s take a look at this scenario again. Ok. So, the girl has lost her shoe, and can’t find Prince Charming until he comes and brings it to her. And this one over here is asleep and can’t wake up until the prince comes and kisses her to wake her up? How about this one? She’s stuck in a tower and can’t come out unless Prince Charming comes up with a genius plan. Oh, and of course there’s that poor girl with those strange seven men who put her in that glass box to wait for the prince to come and kiss her to wake her up. Hmmm. Something’s wrong here. So you mean that the girl never goes and finds her own man? She is incapable of finding her own prince? She has to sit like a pumpkin, no pun intended, and wait for the handsome man to save her from her plight? Well, that doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t a girl be active in finding herself a husband? I guess the Brothers Grimm were a little sexist.

Sara Bareilles, a wonderfully pleasing new singer, has a song called “Fairytale” on her CD Little Voice. The opening verse says the following:

“Cinderella’s on her bedroom floor. She’s got a crush on the guy at the liquor store cause Mr. Charming don’t come home anymore and she forgets why she came here. Sleeping Beauty’s in a foul mood, for shame. She says none for you dear prince, I’m tired today. I’d rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming.”

I congratulate Ms. Bareilles for taking an alternate viewpoint on the princess’s that so many girls look up to. In her song, they find themselves sad or tired of what they have. Maybe it’s because they didn’t get to choose! They didn’t pick their own husbands. There was always a barrier that kept her from choosing for herself. Of course, she loves her prince in the beginning, but we never hear about what happens after the honeymoon, do we?

The unfortunate part of all of this is that young girls idolize these princesses! There is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty and live happily ever; I guess we should be grateful they’re not looking up to Paris Hilton, but is that really life? I think that they will find themselves sorely disappointed when they find out that if they lose a shoe at a party, Prince Charming, chances are, will not seek her out, but instead sweep the shoe up with the trash that all the other guests left.

These princesses and tales that these writers are writing are giving children the wrong idea of love. I’m not saying it’s fake, but I guarantee that if you flip through a book of princess stories, none of those girls try and go find themselves a husband. Either they all have aid, or they are prevented from doing so. I shall prove my point with some common examples:

Cinderella	Cinderella is not the worst of these princesses, but she’s one of the bad ones. Firstly, she cannot prepare herself for the ball. She has to have the help of her fairy godmother (or Leonardo Da Vinci depending on the version you prefer). Once she gets to the ball, she is limited to the amount of time she can spend trying to impress the prince. She loses all her charm, and a shoe, and has to wait for the prince to come and find her. I give kudos to the film Ever After because in it, although the latter happens, she does threaten a man’s life to get out of captivity so that she can return to the man she loves.
Snow White	Poor Snow White. Thrice she is almost killed by that evil little witch who was supposed to take care of her. So, first she’s given a scarf that releases all the breath from her and then she’s given a poison comb. Notice, both times, the dwarves are the ones to save her. She is incapable of all action. Then, she’s finally done in with the poison apple, and when the dwarves can’t do anything, they stick her in a glass coffin so she can be visible to Prince Charming, should he happen by. Only when he kisses her can she be revived and fall in love.
Sleeping Beauty	Sleeping Beauty is another princess that my pity goes out to. The poor dear is cursed from birth. I mean, the kid is probably only about a week old, and suddenly she’s going to die, oh sorry…sleep for 100 years, and the only thing that can save her is a prince’s kiss. Well, that’s just crappy. Stupid evil witches. Anyway, she pricks her finger on the spinning wheel, falls into a deep sleep, and even worse, she has a forest of thorns surrounding her castle. I highly doubt there were any emergency exits, either. So, she sleeps for 100 years, and then finally the prince (took him long enough) arrives at the palace, kisses her, and then she can love. Once again, the prince must kiss her for her to be saved. She doesn’t have to kiss the prince. He has to kiss her.
Rapunzel	Rapunzel is an interesting case. It’s not that she doesn’t try to find herself a prince, it’s just that (once again) she is confined by an evil witch and cannot leave her tower. When a prince does happen to pass her tower (notice she does not invite him up, but he sort of forces his way up by pretending to be the witch) she does bypass the witch in order to see him. The point is that, she has this overbearing, evil witch that has locked her in a tower because of, once again, a curse placed on her family as a child. What is it with the curses and towers?
Little Red	I know that Little Red Riding Hood is not a princess, but let’s examine her situation. When she arrives at the house, the wolf devours her, clearly showing no bedside manner. She then cannot manage to release herself from the wolf’s belly, but has to instead wait for the hunter to come along and cut the poor wolf’s stomach open, clearly putting him in a great amount of physical pain so that the girl may be released. Once again, has to wait for the strong, handsome prince (hunter) to come and save her from her barrier.
Jasmine	Jasmine does pretty well for a while, but suddenly the writers of at least the Disney version decide to put her back into shackles…literally. So, Jafar captures her and makes her his slave. She’s in her chains all mad and scantly clothed, and then Aladdin comes to save her. She does distract Jafar for a moment so that Aladdin can continue with his plan and she can be admired for this. The actual character is fine, but once again, authors are putting the princess in a position of incapability so that the man can be made the hero.
Ariel	Ariel is probably the most admirable of at least the Disney Princesses. When she falls in love, the man doesn’t even know that she exists. So already, her plight is slightly different than all the other princesses. She decides that she’s going to make a move and tries to pursue the prince without her father’s consent and with the assistance of the evil sea witch. Unfortunately, here is the first example of the common “assistance from magical creature of sorts = true love.” Then on top of it, she doesn’t have a voice, but of course her sheer beauty will capture the prince’s attention. Even so, she fails and turns back into a mermaid. Then, she has to battle off the evil witch with her true love. That’s all great, but notice she can’t battle the sea witch on her own to go find her true love. The prince has to be present. Once they battle her off, she doesn’t get the prince. She has to have her father turn her back into a human and give her a sparkly dress in order to please the prince. Assistance yields love is HUGE in this story. At least she’s the one to make the first move instead of Prince Eric.
Belle	Belle is the ultimate princess. She doesn’t really wait for love or go searching for it, for that matter. She’s actually quite a rebel, despite her captivity bestowed upon her by a supposed evil beast. What’s interesting about her plight is that the prince doesn’t have to save the princess, but the princess has to save the prince. It is because of her love that the prince may be a man and the castle and all its inhabitants shall return to their original state. I’m so excited to realize that there is a princess who doesn’t have to get saved but instead has to save.

The curses and barriers can be taken as a sexist creation in a male dominated society. They are both literal barriers and metaphoric barriers. They represent the limitations that women faced when it came to correct manners and conduct. A woman could not go out and get her own husband, but had to have a husband choose her. This image and idea that these fairytales are giving young children, especially young girls, is that if they have long silky hair, dress in the finest attire, have mice friends and fairy godmothers that can sing, go to an evil witch, lose a shoe, or fall asleep waiting for true love’s first kiss that they will get themselves Prince Charming. He doesn’t come that easily, though. He has to be found…he has to be pursued. It shouldn’t be, “Some day my prince will come,” but instead, “Some day I’ll find my prince…all by myself…without any magical help…or barriers….yah.”

So, in my opinion, fairytales are fairly harmful to the mindset of children, or at least girls, when it comes to falling in love. Unless children are just watching Beauty and the Beast, they are seeing princesses sitting and waiting for a handsome prince to come and save her from her wretched horrible situation. If a girl today were to sit and wait in her room sleeping in order to beckon Prince Charming, she would probably be waiting for more than 100 years. Kisses are wonderful things and they are signs of love, but chances are, they will not wake anyone from a deep cursed sleep.

Despite the extremely annoying films, music, and clothing of The Cheetah Girls, they make a good point in their song “Cinderella.”

I don’t want to be no Cinderella
Sitting in a dark, cold dusty cellar
Waiting for somebody to come and set me free
I don’t want to be like someone waiting
For a handsome prince to come and save me
Oh no will survive
Unless somebody’s on my side
Don’t want to be
No, no, no one else
I’d rather rescue myself.

I can slay my own dragons
I can dream my own dreams
My knight in shining armor is me
So I’m going to set me free.”

So, despite the fact that the Cheetah Girls are horrible and I really hate the movies and really wished I hadn’t been forced to watch them with my siblings, I was drawn by the lyrics of this song. Here, the girls weren’t drawn to the fairytale life, but wanted to go fight their own battles and find a man on their own. Why can’t all idolized princesses be like that? Eliminate the Cinderella factor! Long live Belle!