Disney's live-action "The Little Mermaid" has been getting a lot of bad press since its release, which was almost expected. The biggest controversy was the casting of the mermaid princess, who was played by a black female singer, which was too much of a "political correctness at the expense of everything else" maneuver. We always think that Hollywood is stuck in its ways because it is politically correct, but in fact, the law of cause and effect is just the opposite: it is the mediocre Hollywood that is desperate to save itself, to maximize its audience, and to please (or at least "not offend") more people, which is why it is taking the initiative to move closer and closer to more and more politically correct, and also more and more winterized, pedantic political correctness. The big step towards political correctness.
In the case of classic anime adaptations, this stuff is about emotions, fans, and old viewers, not the nameless majority, the "more people who can't be offended". People want to see memories, not correctness. So, it's a lot of work and a lot of grumbling at both ends.
In this article, I would like to talk about the concept of female independence as reflected in the Disney princesses. This topic seems to be "politically correct" enough. Much of the content below comes from an online course I've done before: American Values in Hollywood Movies. "Princess" is often the first dream of every girl growing up, and she reflects the self-expectation of women in different times, so the evolution of the princess image in Disney movies almost constitutes a history of the concept of women in America.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Snow White and Cinderella, from the classic fairy tales, were making their way into Disney's original animated feature films. They were beautiful, gentle, homemakers, and kind to everything, whether it was little animals, dwarfs, siblings, or even their abusive stepmother. Such a kind of uncontested heroine, in the face of unfair fate, of course, there is no possibility of resistance and escape, can only quietly wait for the time to change, or rather, waiting for a male prince, in the guise of a savior, from the sky. This fully reflects the model of the perfect woman in the 1930s and 1940s: the blonde, blue-eyed white beauty standard, flawless in appearance and morality, but the subjective consciousness has almost completely disappeared. The only chance for a change of fortune is a marriage, which in turn depends on whether or not she will be lucky enough to get a good man by virtue of her perfect looks and morals. What is more ironic is that the so-called "perfect morality" itself contains a sense of submissiveness, a sense of "the world has abused me a thousand times, but I treat the world as if it were my first love", and a sense of "return the favor". In 1959's Sleeping Beauty, the setting was further extreme: the princess, who was always sleeping, could not speak, could not move, did not even have her own thoughts, and did not even have a few frontal shots; her only function was to wait and be woken up by the prince's kiss, as if she were a high-value prop on the magic stage, for which only love from a man could inject her soul. What's more, the antagonists in these movies are invariably women: queens, stepmothers, old hags. In the dichotomy of the male perspective, princesses and witches are nothing more than positive and negative symbols under the same set of standards, with the difference being that one is loved by men and the other is loathed by them, that's all.
After this, Disney went through a long princess gap, during which time American society was completing its baptism of conceptual advancement and redefining its own female imaginary. Finally, the animation world introduced something new: 1989's The Little Mermaid, considered the beginning of Disney's second generation of princesses, also based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Daughter of the Sea. Very different from the Snow White princesses, the Little Mermaid, though also an aristocrat of the undersea kingdom, has an air of American plebeian culture and an impulse of teenage pining. She is more like a girl-next-door, or even more like a rebellious girl in a school play: full of personality, capricious and bratty, and not afraid of self-sacrifice, but also to exchange for a sensational love experience. The princess no longer stays in the closet; the princess begins to take the initiative. Even weirder: the little mermaid is a redhead! The blonde in the standard white aesthetic is subverted. Echoing this, in order to embody the power of American cultural diffusion and implement a country of immigrants, Disney launched a bunch of minority princesses in those two decades: Jasmine in 1992's Aladdin's Lamp was an Arab, Pocahontas in 1995's Pocahontas was an Indian, and in 1998's Mulan featured a Chinese protagonist. 2009's The Princess and the Frog featured a Chinese protagonist. The Princess and the Frog" in 2009, but also appeared a black princess Tiana, in connection with current events, it is not difficult to find that it happened to be the year of the election of President Obama, so look, Disney is really "with the times" model. So the princesses not only take on the increasingly obvious significance of gender equality, but also piggyback on the symbols of racial equality, and in them, for the first time, the realization of a double right.
The experience of the second generation of princesses is often the exact opposite of the logic of the first generation's behavior: Snow White waits to be met by the prince, but the little mermaid takes the initiative to search for the prince; Cinderella comes from a poor background but gets the prince's attention, Jasmine comes from a noble background but falls for the boy from a poor family, Aladdin; Sleeping Beauty is awakened by the prince's kiss, and Tiana transforms the prince from a frog back to a human being with a single kiss - the same thing happens in the second generation of princesses, which is also the case in the first generation of princesses. -The same happens in Beauty and the Beast. The girls, having regained the initiative, dominate the fate of men in reverse, whether they can become men or animals. Not to mention the fact that Pocahontas can sensitize the invaders and dissolve the war between the communities, and that Mulan can protect the country on behalf of her father's army, the females in the animation are already qualified to assume and replace the social functions that belong to the males directly. Only, love is still a necessary element in the stories of these rebellious princesses, just like Jasmine and Aladdin, Tiana and the Frog Prince, and Hua Mulan and General Li. No matter how their personalities soar, no matter how much they despise the various suitors around them, with the end of their adventures, the best place for them to go is still a proper, back-to-family ending. The resolution of the marriage issue becomes a reward for them to step up to the plate to solve national, racial, and social problems: it's as if single women, even with all their successes, are not enough to make life complete after all. "The prince and the princess live happily ever after" still constitutes the public's ultimate understanding of women's happiness, and it all seems like a change of scenery.
This situation continued until the appearance of the third generation of princesses, and after 2010, the call for gender liberation rose more and more throughout the world, and as for Hollywood, it began to censor itself in the face of political correctness, and became more and more fearful, not hesitating to demand high standards in exchange for the safety of public opinion. As we said in the last lecture when we mentioned blacks. So, for the first time in the history of human culture, the "princess must have a prince by her side" trope, which has been perpetuated for hundreds or thousands of years, has been completely abandoned: in 2010's "Hair of the Magician", love is a thinly veiled and dispensable part of Rapunzel's quest for identity, not to mention the fact that the object of her ambiguity is not a prince, but a trickster, who is a prince, but a man of the cloth. In 2012's Bravely Default, Princess Merida rejects three tribal princes in her quest to change her destiny, all of whom are portrayed as crooked and unproductive. By 2013's Frozen, the situation is even more striking: independent and elegant sister Princess Elsa, whose main task is to learn to face her innate super-powerful magic, constitutes a metaphor in itself: how should women face up to their gifts, or are superpowers a burden, and an original sin, for women or not?
Princess Anna, the simple and cheerful sister, gradually matures from a young girl yearning for love, recognizes the true nature of marriage, and bravely leaves love and marriage to return to her sister, with whom she embarks on a great journey to save the kingdom. In this main line supported by sisterly love rather than male and female love, love is no longer a plus factor, on the contrary, it has become an interfering item that the sisters have to work together to overcome, and has become the counterpoint and test of sisterly love, and has even become an enemy to be overcome - because the prince has become bad, and the prince is taking advantage of the princesses, and the prince is the biggest villain and backstabber of the movie! villain and mastermind behind the scenes! The result is that, after refusing to become subservient to men, the princesses take it a step further and start refusing to become men's wives. In the end, Anna inherits the crown and is crowned as the head of the country, and Elsa becomes the Spirit of Nature, the goddess of the fifth element, and they justify their power and abilities, and justify never needing a man or love. In the second installment, they also find their matrilineal origins, note that it's matrilineal and not patrilineal, which means that their abilities, lineage, and gifts are only related to women of the previous generation. At this point, we can summarize: in the history of Disney, the first generation of princesses is characterized by "we can only rely on men", the second generation of princesses is characterized by "men need to rely on us", and the third generation of princesses declared that we don't need men at all! It's not enough for us to be ourselves, it's even enough for us to unite and defeat men. Princess movies, too, have evolved from the carefree daydreams of young girls kept in their boudoirs to a declaration of war for fellow suffering women fighting for equality, from a girl's fantasy to a feminist flag and oath.
However, if we calm down and think about it, we still cannot be too optimistic. First, whether gender equality is to be realized in the form of "the presumption of guilt of all men" is itself questionable. Secondly, the surrealistic nature of animation determines that it can always gloss over everything to avoid the important: not every girl can have the aura of the princesses, not every girl has the opportunity to have the freedom of choice of the princesses. Some people have said that if Elsa and Anna had a very authoritative and orthodox father behind them, their story would probably be different in an instant. Third, many gender bias, from the subtle molding, you do not even realize that it is still stubbornly exist: for example, the princesses, despite the ability, personality and even racial breakthroughs, but they have never appeared in the middle-aged, has never appeared in a fat, not to mention the appearance of a face value of the ugly girl, that is, age, size, appearance, these That is to say, age, size and appearance, which are the fixed criteria for male gaze, have never been shaken. Therefore, the huge net of intertwined patriarchal and patriarchal power is far from "establishing a rebellious princess and rejecting a scummy prince" and everything will be fine. In the end, "the girl wins the world alone" is still a long way from animation to reality.
In the case of classic anime adaptations, this stuff is about emotions, fans, and old viewers, not the nameless majority, the "more people who can't be offended". People want to see memories, not correctness. So, it's a lot of work and a lot of grumbling at both ends.
In this article, I would like to talk about the concept of female independence as reflected in the Disney princesses. This topic seems to be "politically correct" enough. Much of the content below comes from an online course I've done before: American Values in Hollywood Movies. "Princess" is often the first dream of every girl growing up, and she reflects the self-expectation of women in different times, so the evolution of the princess image in Disney movies almost constitutes a history of the concept of women in America.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Snow White and Cinderella, from the classic fairy tales, were making their way into Disney's original animated feature films. They were beautiful, gentle, homemakers, and kind to everything, whether it was little animals, dwarfs, siblings, or even their abusive stepmother. Such a kind of uncontested heroine, in the face of unfair fate, of course, there is no possibility of resistance and escape, can only quietly wait for the time to change, or rather, waiting for a male prince, in the guise of a savior, from the sky. This fully reflects the model of the perfect woman in the 1930s and 1940s: the blonde, blue-eyed white beauty standard, flawless in appearance and morality, but the subjective consciousness has almost completely disappeared. The only chance for a change of fortune is a marriage, which in turn depends on whether or not she will be lucky enough to get a good man by virtue of her perfect looks and morals. What is more ironic is that the so-called "perfect morality" itself contains a sense of submissiveness, a sense of "the world has abused me a thousand times, but I treat the world as if it were my first love", and a sense of "return the favor". In 1959's Sleeping Beauty, the setting was further extreme: the princess, who was always sleeping, could not speak, could not move, did not even have her own thoughts, and did not even have a few frontal shots; her only function was to wait and be woken up by the prince's kiss, as if she were a high-value prop on the magic stage, for which only love from a man could inject her soul. What's more, the antagonists in these movies are invariably women: queens, stepmothers, old hags. In the dichotomy of the male perspective, princesses and witches are nothing more than positive and negative symbols under the same set of standards, with the difference being that one is loved by men and the other is loathed by them, that's all.
After this, Disney went through a long princess gap, during which time American society was completing its baptism of conceptual advancement and redefining its own female imaginary. Finally, the animation world introduced something new: 1989's The Little Mermaid, considered the beginning of Disney's second generation of princesses, also based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Daughter of the Sea. Very different from the Snow White princesses, the Little Mermaid, though also an aristocrat of the undersea kingdom, has an air of American plebeian culture and an impulse of teenage pining. She is more like a girl-next-door, or even more like a rebellious girl in a school play: full of personality, capricious and bratty, and not afraid of self-sacrifice, but also to exchange for a sensational love experience. The princess no longer stays in the closet; the princess begins to take the initiative. Even weirder: the little mermaid is a redhead! The blonde in the standard white aesthetic is subverted. Echoing this, in order to embody the power of American cultural diffusion and implement a country of immigrants, Disney launched a bunch of minority princesses in those two decades: Jasmine in 1992's Aladdin's Lamp was an Arab, Pocahontas in 1995's Pocahontas was an Indian, and in 1998's Mulan featured a Chinese protagonist. 2009's The Princess and the Frog featured a Chinese protagonist. The Princess and the Frog" in 2009, but also appeared a black princess Tiana, in connection with current events, it is not difficult to find that it happened to be the year of the election of President Obama, so look, Disney is really "with the times" model. So the princesses not only take on the increasingly obvious significance of gender equality, but also piggyback on the symbols of racial equality, and in them, for the first time, the realization of a double right.
The experience of the second generation of princesses is often the exact opposite of the logic of the first generation's behavior: Snow White waits to be met by the prince, but the little mermaid takes the initiative to search for the prince; Cinderella comes from a poor background but gets the prince's attention, Jasmine comes from a noble background but falls for the boy from a poor family, Aladdin; Sleeping Beauty is awakened by the prince's kiss, and Tiana transforms the prince from a frog back to a human being with a single kiss - the same thing happens in the second generation of princesses, which is also the case in the first generation of princesses. -The same happens in Beauty and the Beast. The girls, having regained the initiative, dominate the fate of men in reverse, whether they can become men or animals. Not to mention the fact that Pocahontas can sensitize the invaders and dissolve the war between the communities, and that Mulan can protect the country on behalf of her father's army, the females in the animation are already qualified to assume and replace the social functions that belong to the males directly. Only, love is still a necessary element in the stories of these rebellious princesses, just like Jasmine and Aladdin, Tiana and the Frog Prince, and Hua Mulan and General Li. No matter how their personalities soar, no matter how much they despise the various suitors around them, with the end of their adventures, the best place for them to go is still a proper, back-to-family ending. The resolution of the marriage issue becomes a reward for them to step up to the plate to solve national, racial, and social problems: it's as if single women, even with all their successes, are not enough to make life complete after all. "The prince and the princess live happily ever after" still constitutes the public's ultimate understanding of women's happiness, and it all seems like a change of scenery.
This situation continued until the appearance of the third generation of princesses, and after 2010, the call for gender liberation rose more and more throughout the world, and as for Hollywood, it began to censor itself in the face of political correctness, and became more and more fearful, not hesitating to demand high standards in exchange for the safety of public opinion. As we said in the last lecture when we mentioned blacks. So, for the first time in the history of human culture, the "princess must have a prince by her side" trope, which has been perpetuated for hundreds or thousands of years, has been completely abandoned: in 2010's "Hair of the Magician", love is a thinly veiled and dispensable part of Rapunzel's quest for identity, not to mention the fact that the object of her ambiguity is not a prince, but a trickster, who is a prince, but a man of the cloth. In 2012's Bravely Default, Princess Merida rejects three tribal princes in her quest to change her destiny, all of whom are portrayed as crooked and unproductive. By 2013's Frozen, the situation is even more striking: independent and elegant sister Princess Elsa, whose main task is to learn to face her innate super-powerful magic, constitutes a metaphor in itself: how should women face up to their gifts, or are superpowers a burden, and an original sin, for women or not?
Princess Anna, the simple and cheerful sister, gradually matures from a young girl yearning for love, recognizes the true nature of marriage, and bravely leaves love and marriage to return to her sister, with whom she embarks on a great journey to save the kingdom. In this main line supported by sisterly love rather than male and female love, love is no longer a plus factor, on the contrary, it has become an interfering item that the sisters have to work together to overcome, and has become the counterpoint and test of sisterly love, and has even become an enemy to be overcome - because the prince has become bad, and the prince is taking advantage of the princesses, and the prince is the biggest villain and backstabber of the movie! villain and mastermind behind the scenes! The result is that, after refusing to become subservient to men, the princesses take it a step further and start refusing to become men's wives. In the end, Anna inherits the crown and is crowned as the head of the country, and Elsa becomes the Spirit of Nature, the goddess of the fifth element, and they justify their power and abilities, and justify never needing a man or love. In the second installment, they also find their matrilineal origins, note that it's matrilineal and not patrilineal, which means that their abilities, lineage, and gifts are only related to women of the previous generation. At this point, we can summarize: in the history of Disney, the first generation of princesses is characterized by "we can only rely on men", the second generation of princesses is characterized by "men need to rely on us", and the third generation of princesses declared that we don't need men at all! It's not enough for us to be ourselves, it's even enough for us to unite and defeat men. Princess movies, too, have evolved from the carefree daydreams of young girls kept in their boudoirs to a declaration of war for fellow suffering women fighting for equality, from a girl's fantasy to a feminist flag and oath.
However, if we calm down and think about it, we still cannot be too optimistic. First, whether gender equality is to be realized in the form of "the presumption of guilt of all men" is itself questionable. Secondly, the surrealistic nature of animation determines that it can always gloss over everything to avoid the important: not every girl can have the aura of the princesses, not every girl has the opportunity to have the freedom of choice of the princesses. Some people have said that if Elsa and Anna had a very authoritative and orthodox father behind them, their story would probably be different in an instant. Third, many gender bias, from the subtle molding, you do not even realize that it is still stubbornly exist: for example, the princesses, despite the ability, personality and even racial breakthroughs, but they have never appeared in the middle-aged, has never appeared in a fat, not to mention the appearance of a face value of the ugly girl, that is, age, size, appearance, these That is to say, age, size and appearance, which are the fixed criteria for male gaze, have never been shaken. Therefore, the huge net of intertwined patriarchal and patriarchal power is far from "establishing a rebellious princess and rejecting a scummy prince" and everything will be fine. In the end, "the girl wins the world alone" is still a long way from animation to reality.
