Posts Tagged ‘jasmine’

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another exciting installment of Then Ninja Jedi. Expanding on a Facebook conversation I had last week, today’s subject is: Disney Princesses. You may be asking, “Robert, why do you, a 28-year old man with no children, care about Disney princesses?” Well the answer of course is “Shut your face, Disney is a cultural icon, and there are some major inconsistencies in the Disney Princess line that need addressing.”

Before I proceed, I’m going to put a pin in the obvious. The Disney Princess brand is thoroughly researched and vetted by a brain trust of marketing gurus and child psychologists, and is engineered by these soulless executive types to make the most money possible through sales of toys, clothes, lunchboxes, and anything else pink. So I don’t want to hear any comments about that being the reasoning for the lineup, I already know it.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s first look at the current lineup of Disney Princesses.

The official list is Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel and Merida. But there are some real issues with this list. Some of these girls are not in fact princesses, and one is not properly a Disney character. I’d say of this list, the percentage that should be on the list is about 2/3.

“What do you mean they’re not all princesses?” Here’s my reasoning: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, and Rapunzel can stay. Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, Jasmine and Rapunzel are shoe-ins because they are royal by birth. And despite being mundane things like scullery maids and bibliophile inventor’s daughters throughout their films, Cinderella, and Belle can stay because they married princes, either during or canonically after their films.

Pocahontas, Mulan, and Tiana, get kicked out for never being princesses; Pocahontas was a chieftain’s daughter, which isn’t the same thing, Mulan was never remotely considered a princess, and Tiana married a prince who abdicated his position. Merida shouldn’t even be in the conversation because she’s a Pixar princess, not Disney. Yes, Disney owns Pixar, but to be a Disney Princess, you should have to be in an official Disney theatrical animated feature.