#i want a man am i anti feminist for thinking that? disney would say so now

[iminaworldofpureimagination]

DISNEY TAKE NOTES I'm so tired of this whole disney princess aren't real femnist because they have romances. as if romance is somthing women should be ashamed of its so regressive to have that mindset and its okay to need help from men im not sure how needing help from others is anti femnist just cause its a guy .

“don’t reduce this female character down to a love interest” does not translate into “this female character shouldn’t have a love interest.”

preventing female characters with strong, compelling narratives from experiencing love, intimacy, and affection is just as regressive as reducing them down to sexual accessories for male characters. it assumes that women must choose between a romantic interest and depth of character and ignores a far more productive message: that women are capable of possessing both. 

[seerdiary-sun]

You know what, fuck anyone who says "disney princesses" are anti feminist.

Those "princesses" are NOT from disney. They from the anglo saxon times baby!

And yeah, back then they were a little wild and crazy but lets be real, those stories, the ones Grimms wrote down, came from house women

Yeah thats right, to women that were all suffering (probably) were like, " yeah, this busty ass rich boy gonna ask to hear the stories I tell my children, im gonna make it clear that you shouldnt mess with us"

and the Grimms (who maybe were just big nerds) were like "thats fucking amazing Im writing that shit down" but they never respected women enough to credit them so their stpries were SHIT!

Nobody wanted to read about the dissection of stories from "old wives" in clinical, scientific manner.

So people were like "naw dog, this shit STANK!" and they were poor and shit and idk what happened to them but i dont think they had a good life.

But we dont care about that.

The love that a mother has for her child can not be hidden because it is inherently so strong (not always but lets stop being childish and always thinking about how something could have been terrible, like com on. You are making everyone miserable with such unhealthy pessimism [yes there is healthy and unhealthy pessimism and optimism] and more importantly you are making yourself THE MOST miserable)

fuck what was i saying?

anyway the mothers love could not be hidden so some sorry ass decided to revive the grimm brothers with edits back to the original story.

or no fuck wait, did one of the grimm brothers do that?

well whoever did it, they got money from it and everyone was like "yaaaaaahhhh we love yooouuu yaaaaaaahhhhh!"

and it was passed down through generations because of their (the mothers) timeless lessons held the great archaic knowledge of Life TM.

and it was all by women talking to other women and creating stories together.

And THATS WHY Cinderella is a feminist classic.

Not only was it the success story of women having their story told, but it was also about women who were so kind hearted getting what they deserved and never even bothered to ask for because they were THAT NICE and so a prince stumbled in and was like "you gucci fam? do you want someone to like, talk to? Do you want someome to deeply listen to you and care about every single word you say??"while rupunzel was just j chillin being bored as f.

Cinderella got her dreams to come true by having a night to relax and enjoy the ball and herself.

She made herself a dress and everything. She even asked she was like "can i have the night off please" and her mom was like, imagine a small dog barking, she was like "nah fuck that we hate how secure you are with yourself and others. we are super jealous and insecure about how you stay kind and soft no matter what life throws at you when it's clear we havent! i mean lookat us, we ugly because we dont think we deserve to be pretty! we skanky because we dont respect/love ourselves enough to believe someone would be unconditionally loving to us without wanting anything in return! So you know how it be, we locking you up!"

and Cinderella was like " damn that sucks. you guys go to the ball, imma take time to cope in a healthy way about this, by crying so see yall" and she cried and was on the way to picking herself back up again when BAM!

Someone help her have a solo girls night out, and she was like "damn thats real nice. ill follow your rules that you set, because i am thankful for your kindness, because i know personally, like PERSONALLY, how hard it can be to be kind without getting anything in return."

So she went, bopped at a party, not really trying to disturb anyone's night be3she is so honored that she was even there, met some random himbo who was a lil ditzy, but she aint here to judge because she is secure in her own self enough to not be prejudice.

12pm hit, bitch gotta go, accidentally dropped a shoe, we apologize for that later there is no time to hang, and the prince was like-

"beautiful on the inside and out woman, dont you know im a prince who can finacially and physically support you so you dont have to?!?!?!"

and she was like " i cant fucking hear you, i feel bad that i had this time for myslf so imma run back before i get in trouble for not helping out them girls who are skanky and need help"

then the prince was SO cool he was like " aight, i checked the nobles, aint none of them was her, we got to try the common folk - because my girl is SO noble, she probably live in a sewer idk, i just dont know, she made me realize common peasants are like, cool."

when he get there

no wait.

he has to send his steward because he's going to work on rebuilding his peasant aqueduct system, in case Cinderella living in the sewer. We dont know, we dont know. this amazingly kind and great listener of a woman makes me feel alive and makes me want to be good for my common people.

so he sent his steward. his steward, bless his heart, aint seen the bitch.

so his prince man was like " i trust you, i love you, take this prized possession of mine, my only connection to my homegirl, as a symbol of my trust, and with my love for you and her, im confident you will find her.

so steward man went off with a lot of love and anxiety to please his prince boy.

shoe doesnt fit them girls, neither would that union fit.

and Cinderella was like " oh damn, thats my slipper, imma play it cool and just simply ask to try it on, so that nobody suspects that i went and had myself a good time on someone elses account.

and step ma was like "no way, imma bfeak this slipper, because i need you emotionally to feel like theres hope for me, when you always kind"

and slipper broke, anxious steward crued.

cindy was like "damn, there goes my disguise. this man needs a slipper to please his bro and also right now, i feel like i was neglecting MYSELF by not believing i deserve this man. also that tight butt and good listening got me feeling things"

then the prince found his girl, cindy got to relax, evil step people were forced to take a hard look at themselves and finally decide if they were worth love from themselves.

and the sweage ducts, were cleaned or whatever.

the end

Cinderella rules.

Love wins.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Time for The Witcher episode 4!!

So the last episode was Intense(TM) and also I finally realized that the show isn’t happening all at the same time but it’s following multiple timelines, which, better late than never. Now things make more sense...

Alright, bando alle ciance and let’s do this.

“Ciri! Ciri” Cirilla: yes? “Not you, I was talking to Siri. What’s the weather going to be tomorrow”

That’s such a stupid joke. Unfollow me right now, it’s okay.

Glowy Forest Intensifies... oh, there’s people now. Forest Dora Milaje aren’t happy to see her, which is understandable, I guess. But the boss arrives.

Meanwhile, except not meanwhile, a man has had a very bad day. Apparently the nickname White Wolf has stuck. Remember when we thought the MCU was going to make Bucky into a Black Panther character as the White Wolf, official media outlet even used the White Wolf as a title for Bucky, and then it ended up in nothing? Sorry for the digression but I really hoped we’d get Bucky written by Ryan Coogler and I was really disappointed when that didn’t happen but *waves around* all of that happened instead. I mean, technically it’s not too late to make it happen but Bucky is a Disney+ creature now, so, bye.

Hello Jaskier! My boy! I missed you.

Ah, the new media image campaign is working. 

“You never get involved, except you actually do, all of the time” I love this XD “I don’t do emotions or attachments” character who does emotions intensely all the time and gets attached to everyone they meet paired with “sure Jan” character who calls them out is a very good dynamic.

Ah, yes, this is perfect. I’m sorry but dark brooding protagonist and bubbly comic relief sidekick is my secret weakness.

No offense, Geralt, but those clothes did need a good washing after your latest job, so don’t make that face.

Blah blah royal affairs I should probably pay attention to.

“I am not going to protect you” [*Spongebob font* five minutes later...]

But yeah, the princess is Cirilla’s mother, I suppose, and I’m sure the marriage that produces Scream Princess is super important. She is very pretty and has lovely hair. Sometimes I wish I had long hair I could braid artistically.

The princess doesn’t want to get married to some strange dude, but the queen is A Very Strong Woman(TM) and has no time for silly things like her daughter’s feelings over the most life-changing decision in her life. She’s an interesting character for sure, and the narrative doesn’t try to frame her as either definitely good or bad, which is interesting.

Oh! Rat Boy isn’t dead! That’s great. That makes sense narratively, native forest women who suffered genocide from colonizers wouldn’t kill an elf boy who went through the same thing.

Promised husband is a shitty dude. Queen Calanthe likes Geralt, which, relatable. But she and her entourage are racist assholes, and the next scene with Cirilla and Dara tell us that their anti-elf talk isn’t just talk.

By the way, now we know for sure how much time there is between Geralt’s timeline and Cirilla’s.

The queen doesn’t like feminine dresses. Lady is trying to overcompensate a lot. But her banter with Geralt is entertaining.

The first suitor is from Nilfgaard, and in hindsight it would have been a wise choice to unify the two kingdoms... C’mon, poor guy is just awkward, he doesn’t deserve the humiliation. Or is he the guy who’ll make war later? The pilot threw too much new information at me the other day.

Yennefer is bored... and apparently 30 years has passed since the last we saw of her. (I refuse to try to understand when in relation to the other plots that puts this scene. Things will click together at some point or I’ll just accept whatever happens and nod along.) And coincidentally she is paired with a woman who laments being only considered important as a baby-producing womb. Oops. Awkward.

Not relevant to the show but my parents never get inside my room as often as while I am watching something on Netflix.

Yennefer thinks life as a court mage sucks, queen Kalis thinks life as a baby-maker sucks. They envy each other for what the other has, but they’re probably both right.

Well, boredom is no longer a problem.

Oh, poor queen, her husband paid to have her killed because she’s only given him daughters. Two episodes in a row about female heirs to kings, plus queen Calanthe being female and having a daughter who’ll have a daughter. Theeemes!

You can’t be rude to the only person who is your only hope not to die horribly, girl.

Queen Calanthe is frustrated she isn’t a man, which we could guess. She also likes the simplicity of killing, which we could also guess.

Oh! It’s almost pre-decided husband’s time to claim the girl’s hand in marriage, but New Guy appears! He’s been cursed and Mr I Don’t Pick Sides Ever No Matter What, guess what, picks a side. The audience is shocked. No one could foresee this unexpected turn of events.

Noooo the baby!!! Yennefer loses a rare chance to acquire a baby. This is sad. Damn this show doesn’t shy away from killing children, such a different feel from most stories we’re used to.

These people are weird with destiny. Calanthe says fuck destiny, Geralt says lol mood but just because you’re a queen doesn’t mean you’re above sacred rules.

OOOOH Calanthe says fuck sacred rules and it does not go well. Is this happening because she tried to mess up with the order of the world and chaos said hi? Was the princess always magical or did this happen because destiny will have its way no matter what?

Ah, her grandmother had it, she never manifested it before until now, when circumstances awoke it.

Queen Calanthe acknowledges destiny, and of course they’re all dressed in green like the mages of Feminist Hogwarts aka Chaos School. I should have paid more attention to colors but green seems to be the color of magic slash chaos slash destiny.

Then bam, red. Men. Violence.

Everyone in the forest is also dressed in green... Colors aren’t really my thing, you might have noticed that I rarely analyze colors in Supernatural and I’m not particularly into what which color means and I only notice things when they’re very obvious like the purple of transformation-slash-death, so, yeah, I am not the kind of person who notices colors until they slap me in the face. I guess this is my slap in the face by this show’s color palette XD

Also consider that I watch everything with f-lux on, so I don’t even see colors the way they actually look, I guess that’s why it’s harder for me to notice colors when everything looks orange.

Alriiiiight *disables f.lux for current app*

Oh. Oh. So this is how this show looks like.

Awkward. This is so embarrassing.

I should rewatch the whole thing with real colors now... well, another time.

Anyway, Dara has drunk antidepressant juice, but it doesn’t work on Ciri, because she is Relevant(TM) to destiny so she can’t forget her past otherwise the plot destiny can’t happen.

Sleep well baby.

Aaah husband’s curse is broken! Yay.

Geralt accidentally acquires a bond with a baby. One baby dead and Yennefer’s potential bond with her lost, one baby on her way and Geralt’s future bond with her created. So this is all about parallels based on babies and births. Cool.

In the future, destiny has arrived and indeed wrought calamity on the court and the city. Someone makes something gross with Calanthe’s dead body--a spell to learn the location of Cirilla. Trouble is coming.

Oh! It’s him, he’s not dead? And taking something from Calanthe (that will be relevant later)?

Ciri drinks stronger juice and goes to the ancestral plane, er, I mean has a vision of a Very Important Tree, sorry I had Black Panther stuck in my head from before.

Well this is very interesting and things are starting to click together and yeah it’s a weird ride but I’m enjoying it! I suppose only at the end of the season you get the full picture of why and when everything has happened so I’m just sitting here metaphorically eating popcorn waiting for things to make sense on their own rhythm. There’s a theme of motherhood and babies and it seems that Geralt’s destiny is to become a metaphorical mother for Cirilla? Or am I mixing him up with a similar kind of character with a tendency to become everyone’s mom? Anyway, I’m looking forward to see what happens.

[blackcatsims]

Get To Know Me Tag <3

I was tagged by @tabbyrhsims4simblr and @racingllama in a couple of different get to know me tag type games, so I decided to respond with this hybrid by racing llama <3 which includes all the questions I was asked! Thanks for the tags guys, they made my day!!

Name / Nickname : Alexandria/Alex

Height : It’s technically 170cm but I’m immature as fuck so I’m gonna go on record and say that it’s actally 169 eyyyyyyyy

Zodiac sign : *adore delano voice* I’m a fucking Libra

Hobbies : Singing, gaming, patting my dog, yelling about feminist theory and treading my slow descent into madness

Favourite colours : Burgundy, plum and brown.

Favourite books : Harry Potter by some terrible white lady, The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley by Martine Murray, A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving, Animorphs by K.A. Applegate (FIGHT ME), The Ancient Future by Traci Harding, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, anything by Jacqueline Wilson but especially The Dare Game and The Illustrated Mum, Chasing After The Wind by Dale Harcombe and Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta.

Last song listened to : Monday, Monday by the Mamas & the Papas

Inspiration for muse : In the context of this blog, I think my #1 muse would have to be Nola from my Blood Legacy. She’s inspired, as many of you know, by my grandmother - also named Nola.

Dream job : I’d love to be successful enough as a musician to be able to support my family financially, but not successful enough that I became famous. I can hear my therapist’s heart palpitations from here. I’ve actually had a few different dreams in my life so I can keep going! I used to dream of being the owner of a sex shop called “The Love Shack”. I would also love to own a witch shop. Reading tarot cards, drinking tea and being surrounded by candles and incense all day sounds pretty much like heaven to me. I could plug my band in the shop too! It’s all coming together! Haha.

Meaning behind your URL : I’ve answered this one quite a few times before but I never get tired of it! My Mum and I started this blog together back in 20...10??? At the time, my username on the Sims website was BlackWeb6 (that username dates back to when I was an emo kid in high school circa 2005!) and my mum’s username was AliCats. So, naturally, when we decided to start a tumblr blog together for our simming adventures, we named it BlackCatSims!

Cats or dogs? Dog person 100%, but I can appreciate cats. They cute.

YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities? I kind of object to celebrity culture on principle but I must be a hypocrite because there’s heaps of famous musicians I borderline worship like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse and Mama Cass. So I guess my answer is....normal celebrities? Mostly dead ones? With the exception of Hozier. He’s still alive last I checked. HE’S STILL ALIVE RIGHT?!?!?!

If you could live anywhere where would that be? Rarotonga.

Disney or DreamWorks? I guess I technically have to say Dreamworks since I’ve dedicated my heart and soul to She-Ra and the Princesses of Power??? I’ll have to take my anti-corporation rant elsewhere lest my hypocrisy continue to shine through.

Favorite childhood TV show? ALL ABOARD THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS!!!

The movie you’re looking forward to most in 2020? What’s a movie?

Favorite book you read in 2019? Haha. Uhhh.....does reading Enya lyrics inside a CD insert count?

Marvel or DC? Which one do I hate more? Impossible to answer.

If you choose Marvel favorite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC favorite Justice League member? My fav Spice Girl was Feminism Ginger Spice

Night or Day? Day. I’m solar powered.

Favorite Pokémon? PONYTA FOREVER

Top bands: SO MANY AHHH I LOVE THIS QUESTION!!!! LET’S GO!!!!! *takes a deep breath* Crowded House, R.E.M., Stevie Nicks, Hozier, The Beatles, Nick Cave, Nick Drake, The Cranberries, Tracy Chapman, Eric Clapton, Janis Joplin, The Mamas & The Papas, The Seekers, Leonard Cohen (except his weird “put the pussy on a pedestal” shit like calm down suzanne), Simon & Garfunkel, David Bowie, Paul Kelly, Amy Winehouse, Evanescence (just slipping this one in here inconspicuously), Peter Paul & Mary, Ella Fitzgerald, Blondie (angry horny babe), Enya, Rasputina, Gin Wigmore, Snake River Conspiracy, Within Temptation, Nightwish (Tarja <3), Amy LaVere, t.A.T.u. (never forget the bitches who helped you realize your sexuality) and you know what they’re not real but I’m gonna end this list with one of my favourite bands of all time: JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS!!!!

Top movies: ^^^ Jerkin’! Tretorns are the new Adidas!

America or Europe? Well I’ve never been to America but I’ve seen pictures of that orange cheeto shit-stain ra(c/p)ist who has a lot of money and power for some reason so I’d like to stay as far away from that as possible because it makes me so scared to be alive that i have just decided I am definitely not going to talk about this here next question.

Tumblr or Twitter? Tumblr

Pro-choice or Pro-life? Pro-Choice because I’m not a misogynist or a large smelly poo.

Favorite YouTuber: definitely that band arty-rex they’re great

Favorite author? I dunno man. I haven’t read a book in a while. I like all the ones I listed earlier! I just haven’t read them in ... a while ....,,,,,

Tea or coffee? Both!!! Coffee when I really need to get moving and tea for every other occasion on the planet. Stubbed your toe? Cuppa tea! Found a penny on the street? Cuppa tea! Cuppa tea? Cuppa tea!

OTP? *takes long drag of cigarette* I haven’t heard that acronym in years....

22. Do you play an instrument/sing? Yep :) You can check out me and my Dad’s band on instagram or find us on youtube!

I hereby tag anybody who wants to do this, and @teekalu, @sulanisunrise, @kscriba, @kimmmygibbbler, @stretchskeleton, @ratboysims, @helloduckie, @pxelbeans aaaaaaand @onceuponasimblr <3 <3 <3

[simonjadis]

Anon I’m ASSUMING that these are from the same person; apologies if they are not

I would say that my feelings are similar to yours, but not quite identical ...

Disney’s handling has been imperfect, and some of the mistakes have been made the highest level (I know that people give Kathleen Kennedy a hard time, but if rumor is to be believed, some of the interference that made IX kind of weird came from higher than that)

for example, Kennedy said in an interview that she tries to find people who just make big, successful movies to make sure that these are also big, successful movies. I can understand that as being a safe bet from a business stand point, but that’s not the same thing as finding someone passionate about very specifically telling good, new Star Wars stories, which we did not really get in the Sequel Trilogy

(one of the most common theories that I saw from TLJ apologists was that people didn’t like that it was new/different than what they were expecting, which was really not the issue for me or my friends. Also it was just a speedrun of parts of Episodes V and VI)

I think that I’m “too close” to Star Wars to see it as a financial asset rather than a beloved universe full of characters and stories that I adore, but I don’t think that “literally just rehash the Original Trilogy for two movies and barely acknowledge any other part of Star Wars until IX” was a good idea

Rey deserved her own story. and Luke deserved to not be retroactively robbed of his

as for George Lucas, I do think that years of backlash over the Prequels sucked the fun out of it for him. Also, who doesn’t want four billion dollars? it was a sweetheart deal for Disney, of course

the sad thing is that this meant the end of Clone Wars, because Disney took one look at Lucasfilm’s budget and was like “OH NO YOU CANNOT SPEND THAT KIND OF MONEY ON A CARTOON” which is why Season 6 was paid for by Netflix and why Maul: Son of Dathomir was a comic

I love Star Wars Rebels and I’m not trying to knock the show at all, but the budgetary difference was palpable. Clone Wars did have it a little easier because of the Clone Troopers (all having the same face), but on Rebels, you notice that 90% of the Imperials are the same guy wearing a hat with his visor obscuring most of his face. market scenes show just a few people (but plenty of Storm Troopers)

the designs of the main characters -- Ezra, Hera, Sabine, Zeb, Kallus, Thrawn, Kanan, etc -- are great and loving and detailed and most of those change a little over time, but there’s a reason that we only see so many planets on Rebels. look at the huge armies and crowds in Rebels. my friend @drunkkenobi​ is the first who pointed out to me that in Clone Wars, you sometimes see lines of ships (Space Traffic) and each ship in line will be unique, distinct from the others

it’s not Rebels’ fault that they didn’t have that kind of budget. that’s also why their space battles (and space ships) never quite look right. meanwhile, for Clone Wars, if they wanted a particular scene or ship that went over their planned budget, all that they had to do was ask Uncle George

eccentric billionaires funding expensive media isn’t necessarily the most sustainable model for storytelling, but it sure worked out well for Clone Wars and for The Expanse

(Jeff Bezos personally called up the head of Amazon Prime programming, who had already been considering acquiring the extremely good but expensive show, and was like “hey the cast from this show is at a thing where I am, I’d love to just tell them that their show is saved, give me it?” and we saw as many new locations in Season 4 as we did in the first three seasons)

but streaming -- where you actually get money directly from customers who then, through their activity on your platform, show you exactly what they want to see aka what is keeping them on your platform -- offers a new opportunity for high quality genre media. remember, scifi and fantasy were EVERYWHERE in the ‘90s and the early aughts, and then because too expensive for regular TV unless they had huge audiences. only through streaming do we have these new Star Treks, The Witcher, and the real possibility of a new Stargate series

why do I bring up streaming? because

The Mandalorian goes to show that Disney can 100% do good Star Wars. Rebels was good, despite its budget, but can you imagine how much better it would have been if it had aired on Disney+

as with the DC movies (three of which are good and I’m also excited for Birds of Prey), the solution to the our-movies-made-a-lot-of-money-but-aren’t-strictly-speaking-good is literally just “let the people who do the cartoons make the movies”

and now we’re getting a final, seventh (half) season of Clone Wars! twelve episodes looking better than the show has ever looked!!

if you’re like me, you probably thought to yourself “gee, only 12?” and, cynically, you figured that it’s a trick -- announced at ComicCon in 2018 to build up the first wave of hype for Disney+

and it is ... but it 100% worked on me, I signed up for Disney+ and will pay anything for Clone War

my HOPE is that this is a test run to see if people really like high-quality animated Star Wars stories enough to continue with it. there’s only so much clone wars that one can cover (my suspicion is that we will see Ahsoka fake her death during Order 66 in these eps, so yep, that’s the end of the Clone Wars right there)

imagine a well-written series with everything that Clone Wars had in terms of content and visual quality, but it’s set after Episode IX. to my frustration, IX ends with effectively the same worldstate as VI which essentially means that nothing much happened in the Sequel Trilogy. but imagine a series set after IX. we could see a new set of (Force-wielding) characters. we could see Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose during some episodes. Rose could finally get to do something that’s not an insulting fool’s errand (she deserves so much better!!!!!)

we don’t need a new Big Scary Empire/First Order thing, just organized crime and pirates and Hutts and bounty hunters and individual planet systems going to war as the characters try to assemble a NEW New Republic (gods I hate the unchanged worldstate)

now, I know that Star Wars Resistance is not ... reassuring. this is the only screencap that I have from it because I couldn’t get into it. it’s not the animation (I enjoyed Tron Uprising and Iron Man: Armored Adventures and this is the same kind of deal), but three things:

-I watch Star Wars for the Force primarily; other stuff can be cool but I need the Force

-I will never care about ships racing and really I don’t care about an individual ship flying; I’m a Command Ship kind of space nerd

-apparently the writing doesn’t improve much during the first season. people tell the main character to not do something, then he does it, and disaster ensues. that’s ... it’s fine, it’s fine to exist as a show, it’s just not for me

obviously, not all Star Wars media is for me, but when something -- like TLJ or the Sequel Series as a whole (even though VII and IX are enjoyable) or Resistance -- disappoints me, I would never accuse it of “ruining Star Wars”

Star Wars is a whole franchise. the breadth of canon isn’t all wiped away by some disappointments. was the MCU ruined by Age of Ultron? no. it was a bad movie but from the same franchise that gave us The Winter Soldier and Thor Ragnarok. hell, Dawn of Justice doesn’t “ruin” Wonder Woman or Aquaman or Shazam. bad movies aren’t contagious

for the past several years, the Entitled Dude crowd has felt empowered. they were radicalized in the altright/redpill/MGTOW/meninist/nazi/gamergate/comicsgate/etc spheres of the internet and now they just have a reflex where they see any sort of representation and decry it as “SJW,” which they also seem to think is a bad thing

in the same way that well-meaning people on tumblr can get radicalized into being antis/puriteens, people with certain vulnerabilities on reddit or youtube can get sucked into a world that tells them that they are the default and that other people existing is “political” in media and in real life, and that people being upset by outright cruelty towards them is both funny and means that the cruel person is the victor. they need therapy and studios need to not listen to them

unfortunately, sometimes there are movies that are bad despite having things like solid representation. Ghostbusters 2016 was a delight, but my friends and I with whom I saw TLJ (all of us queer feminists) left the theater angry. we’ve bitten our tongues a lot (even if it seems otherwise) because publicly criticizing the film too often leads some incel monster to chime in with agreement, and we’re just like

the redpillgate crowed et all is a natural ally of conservative white evangelicals, even though the former group is generally made up of New Atheists (the short version is atheists who hold socially conservative views because racism/misogyny/transphobia benefit them without using christianity as an excuse). it’s kind of like how terfs will side with conservative hate groups because, though they’re natural enemies, they both despite trans people just for existing

unfortunately, when you’re looking at who went to see a movie or who hated it, not everyone posts with an ID card saying exactly their demographic. which is only going to make studios like Disney even more nervous about including queer content in Star Wars and in the MCU (I mean real queer content with characters whose names don’t have to be searched on a wiki)

that was a bit of a tangent, but yeah. sorry if I missed anything

[alexsprincessparty]

The Little Mermaid: Alex’s Feminist Crisis

I've been waiting for this day to come, because finally I get to watch My Favorite Movie of All Time:

Clearly we are talking about The Little Mermaid. I'm sure this is going to be a rather difficult one to deal with because this is a film that is often criticized for a not-great portrayal of a female; in fact Ariel is considered by many to be the Worst Princess. Yet, by others, she is still beloved by many. See, Ariel is, to me, Marmite Princess. You either love her spunk, her curiosity, her determination, maybe her red hair; or you hate that she fell in love with a man she knew for a minute, gave up everything she knew (and everything that made her special) to be with him, and was kind of a brat to her dad. These are all very valid reasons to like or dislike Ariel! It's a film that warrants about as much praise as it does criticism (again, Snow White, in my opinion, has more issues than most princess films). So this is probably a good time to weigh those pros and cons. Hold on to your dinglehoppers and get your snarfblats, because we're heading out to Atlantica for a spell.

The Little Mermaid is Disney’s adaptation of a Hans Christian Andersen classic about a young mermaid, curious about the world above the sea. In this adaptation, the mermaid is a called Ariel, and she is the youngest (and most rebellious) of seven sisters, who all awkwardly 1. look nothing like her and 2. all have names starting with A. She likes to spend a lot of time going to the surface to show all her weird human stuff (she’s a hoarder with a huuuuge collection of it--she puts most comic book collectors to shame) to her seagull friend, Scuttle. This really displeases her racist anti-human dad, King Triton, who continually forbids her from going to the surface. One night she goes against her father’s wishes and watches a ship above, as they hold a big birthday party for a dashing prince named Eric. Ariel is enamored with Eric. Like, full-on heart eyes. He’s a living Tiger Beat centerfold, John Stamos circa 1989 was shaking (John Stamos circa 2017 just kinda became him). Suddenly a storm arrives, the ship goes down, but Ariel saves Eric. When Ariel returns home, she is hopelessly in love, which leaves daddy curious, but changes his tune when he finds out it’s a human his daughter is in love with. He destroys Ariel’s hoard grotto, leaving her in tears. She is then lured by a pair of eels with a deal--we know someone who can give you what you want. They lead her to Plus Size Icon, Ursula, a caecilian sea witch. She offers to give Ariel legs for three days, in exchange for her flawless singing voice, and if she can kiss the prince before the three days are up, she can keep the legs, but if not, she goes back to Fintown. Ariel obliges, and spends some largely non-verbal time with her prince, him completely unaware that she is the mystery woman who saved his life. When Ariel comes too close to her kiss, Ursula intervenes, disguised as Eric’s mystery savior, and puts him in a trance that leaves Ariel completely hopeless. After her friends intervene and restore her voice, Ursula takes the now-mermaid-again Ariel back to the sea to fight for her father’s freedom, because SURPRISE! she’s got him now, too. With Eric’s help, the evil is defeated, Triton relents, allows Ariel her legs back, and her prince, Happily Ever After, yadda yadda yadda.

WHEW. You can tell I’ve seen this...more than a few times.

The Little Mermaid comes at a pivotal time in the company. Not because it’s the first time Disney has made a Princess film since 1959, but because...well, at this point, things are Not Great at the company. We are coming out of what is called the Dark Age of Disney, where its films are just not going great. The Black Cauldron is a critical and commercial bomb, and The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Company didn’t go so great either. Basically, Disney is banking on Ariel to rejuvenate the company. Ultimately, she does, and the Disney Renaissance begins. Because my mom remembers 1989 better than I do (I was born November of the following year), she says that Ariel was kind of like the Elsa of her time. Everyone wanted to be Ariel. In 2018, everyone still wants to be Ariel, as grown-ass women claim to be mermaids. Including myself. Yes, I am calling myself out. But this is just the impact Ariel has had on women of all ages. In fact, Ariel is the most famous portrayal of a mermaid of all time (a fact I mentioned to Jodi Benson herself /humblebrag). For more on this, please watch the Little Mermaid documentary, Treasures Untold. (I can’t remember if this is the one that accompanies the 2006 Platinum Edition release of the film, but it’s eye-opening regardless.)

Let's begin with the pros.

-ERIC WAS NOT THE REASON ARIEL WENT TO THE SURFACE. I REPEAT, ERIC WAS NOT WHY ARIEL WANTED TO BECOME HUMAN. This is a common misconception for anyone who apparently missed the entire "Part of Your World" number. Clearly, Ariel had a fascination with the human world before ever setting sights on Eric, in fact, if she wasn't so keen to explore the surface, she probably would have never even seen him. She needed a motivation to get up there, and to paraphrase another sea-based Princess, the call wasn't out there at all--it was inside her. If anything, Eric was more of a final straw. Also, if Flotsam and Jetsam hadn't intervened, she probably would not have taken such drastic action. Ariel didn't just cry because Triton destroyed her statue of her crush. Keep in mind he destroyed the ENTIRE grotto. All of Ariel's gadgets, gizmos, whosits, whatsits, thingamabobs, dinglehoppers, snarfblats, you name it--all up in smoke. Stuff she probably spent YEARS collecting. I know I'd be pissed if someone wrecked my Sailor Moon collection. (Also it probably meant that Triton would have an even closer eye on her so it was definitely all over for her--I'd cry, too.) 

-In the original Little Mermaid tale, when the mermaid gains her legs, walking is incredibly painful for her. Whenever she walks, she feels the sensation of walking on knives. Ariel, seemingly, does not. I am 100% okay with this. Also, when the mermaid does not get her prince, her sisters cut their hair off and give to the sea witch in exchange for a knife. With the knife, the mermaid is supposed to stab the prince, have his blood pour over her feet, and that will make her a mermaid again. She refuses, because she's not so jealous she would kill over it. Instead, she flings the knife out to sea, throws herself onto the water, and dissolves into seafoam. Whether this is good or bad probably depends on how much of a purist you are for the original, or how much you like despair porn. Personally I don't think the wages of Ariel's (admittedly, crappy) decision should be death, so this is fine by me. Sure, a generic Happy Ending is kind of a cop-out, and it would have been interesting for Disney to play it closer to the original, but Disney won't simply kill off a Princess. Come on, now.

-Animation-wise, this is probably one of Disney's best. This is one of the last of its kind, being 100% hand-drawn. They would revisit this style with The Princess and the Frog and later Winnie the Pooh (2011, not the Many Adventures), but not since Pooh, since I guess CGI is more profitable. Go figure.

-This film also boasts some of Disney's best songs and best score. This is the first film in which Disney worked with the power duo of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. This tradition would continue until Aladdin (Ashman passed away shortly before the release of Beauty and the Beast, but still had songs featured in Aladdin). The only better Disney songwriting duo, in my opinion, might be Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Frozen, Coco). But we do not meet them for a whiiiiile.

-Ariel oozes personality compared to a few of the other princesses we have met so far. She is motivated, knows what she wants, is fearless, and delightfully curious. This also is her biggest downfall, but we'll get into that in a second.

-Ursula, too, is a GREAT example of a villain. Like with Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, her beef is not with our title princess, but with her father, and she uses our princess as more of a pawn in her plan (so, nothing personal). So the woman vs woman issue in Snow White (and later Tangled) is not present here, though it might look like that on the surface. Also, it's been pointed out that Ursula can shapeshift, but prefers to take the form of a plus-sized caecilian sea witch. Basically, she's fat-positive! See, even the villain is progressive. Well, kinda.

-Vanessa (Ursula’s alter ego) is hot. There, I said it.

Do I really need to go into the cons? ...Ugh, it really pains me to criticize this film so heavily.

-It is troublesome that Ariel gave up everything she had for a dude who she barely knew, admittedly. While I insist that Eric was not her sole intention, still, him being the sort of bait (again, remember Flotsam and Jetsam's role in this) and Ariel taking it are all...dodgy.

-Ariel's greatest strength is also her greatest downfall. Her curiosity leads her to a sunken ship and to the surface, thus defying her father (and the iconic "I'm sixteen, I'm not a child" line) and Sebastian in the process. This, obviously, is...not true. Unless this film takes place in Scotland, where 16 is the age of majority (what up Merida), or one of a few African countries (such as Cameroon and Niger), who define the age of majority as early as 15. Which brings me to...

-WHERE ON EARTH DOES THIS FILM TAKE PLACE? For most Princess films, its location is pretty cut and dry. Snow White seems very German. Cinderella, possibly French? Brave obviously takes place in Scotland, Mulan in China, and Pocahontas and The Princess and the Frog in different areas of the North American continent. But The Little Mermaid is an anomaly. Most people just claim Denmark because of the nationality of Hans Christian Andersen (as well as the iconic Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen), but by that logic, you could claim the same for Frozen, however, Frozen takes place in a fictional Norwegian kingdom, not in Denmark. The wildly colorful sea life lends itself to a possible Caribbean setting, Denmark still checks out for the human world. But who even knows, really.

-A few racist caricatures in “Under the Sea”: The “fluke, the duke of soul,” the “blackfish” (who sings), and the Carmen Miranda fish that grabs Flounder out of the blue. I’m under the impression that the “blackfish” was supposed to be an homage to Ella Fitzgerald...but it just comes off wrong.

-I wish we could have had more opportunities to see Ariel conversing with her sisters. She has six of them, there's really no excuse, unless she is purposely distancing herself from them? But like, geez, what would be the beef? Did Attina place her crown on Ariel's vanity seat for her to sit on?

-Can Ariel write basic English? Just out of curiosity.

I do have one complaint that The Little Mermaid kind of set this pattern of mermaid movies being kind of samey, where the mermaid has to become human in order to chase after a man or something of that nature (I love Splash, but that’s one of those films). However, if you're looking for some new kind of mermaid flavor, I might recommend The Mermaid by Stephen Chow (if you can find it subtitled, it's in Chinese), or Freeform's Siren series.

Final thoughts: If you love something, you really have to be honest about it. In my case, I know where the issues lie with The Little Mermaid, and I admit them--begrudgingly. As with many Princesses, Ariel is not without her misconceptions, yet also not without valid criticisms. Ariel's message, on the surface, is that men are to be desired and women should chase after them. But in order to really understand Ariel, you have to dive a bit deeper: If you want something, go for it, rather than wishing and wishing.

Rating: 5 out of 5 dinglehoppers

Thanks for joining me for this (admittedly, difficult) party. Join me for my next one where we look into the misconceptions and misogynists of Beauty and the Beast. No, not that one. Dream Big, Princess!

[pinklordgalileox]

Growing up

So, I’ve been thinking quite a bit on what it means to grow up and become an adult, especially in terms of how you see adulthood as a child.

When you’re a child, you say, “I don’t want to work a boring 9-5 job, trapped in a cubicle all day!” You think, I want to enjoy being grown-up and free. I don’t want to worry about be over responsible and getting caught in rules for rules sake. Especially when you’re in highschool, and it seems the to all the adult around you “growing up” is trimming yourself, getting rid of parts of you that you like, but that fit with “being an adult”. It very much seems when you’re a child - even a very old child in your upper teens - that growing up, means turning into a different person. I always thought of it that way, I always told myself that I’d fight that, tooth and nail.

And …

I never had to.

Yes, I worked an office job at a cubicle. I work at a desk. I do laundry without needing to. I clean the house once a week of my own free will. But I don’t do these things I turned into some bizarro-version of myself.

I like having money. Money means, movies, books, music, Disney Land World Resort, and –next year – Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Money means, less worrying over bills, and more Netflix binges. A steady job means always knowing when I’m working, and when I’m free to shit around. Cleaning is controlling my environment. It’s my apartment and I can do whatever I want with it. I can put things exactly the way I want them to be, and I happen to be somewhat tidy. (Living with a horder as a child was challenge.)

If anything, growing up has made me better at being the person I was in high school. I am anti-big business, left-wing, progressive, feminist, proudly-black, proudly-queer, anime-loving, and nerdy, and there’s no one who can talk me out of it, because these positions are things I’ve thought about and settled on. Actually I can’t really understand the fear of becoming different when a person “grows up”. You can grow; you can grow apart from a person; you can change and be different. But I think the only way you really change as you become an adult is settling down, settling into the person you really are.

C. S. Lewis - bless his Christian apologist heart, he probably would have hated my pagan ass – once famously wrote:

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

If that can be said for fairy tales, those stories linked so seemingly inexorably with childhood, then certainly it can be said for anything.

So to all those adults to told me I needed to put away my childish thought so as I moved into later stages of my life, GROW UP!

[jedivoicon-blog]

The Problems the Media  Has that No One Has Done Anything About

Here’s a newsflash for you, Media: we all know you want money, so suck it up and do your jobs. The public is ultimately DONE giving you unneeded money. Felix is innocent, and there is nothing more to say

Recently, YouTube’s most subscribed-to YouTuber, most commonly known as PewDiePie, underwent a series of media attacks due to the Fiverr video named “Death to All Jews”. There have been reactions to this incident all over the media: Youtubers defending their victim friend, online newspaper articles attacking the man, and viewers scrambling for evidence that PewDiePie did absolutely nothing wrong. The point of this article is to put all of this chaos to rest and to proclaim the ultimate movement which needs to be made by the entirety of the media. The definition of media in this context: all newspapers, online and offline, news channels, YouTube channels, blogs and bloggers, journalists, and any other form of media which is not listed here. The ultimate movement of the media, which all viewers are pleading for the media to take part in is this: lay off.

Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, has been given unnecessary recognition for his offensive comments and “jokes” about anti-semitism. However, over the decades following the unfortunate events of the 1940’s, the media have made crude comments, worse than that of Kjellberg, that have been overlooked by almost everyone. The question is: why does this happen? Walt Disney, the founder of the well-known animation company Disney, was rumored to be a Neo-Nazi, but every subliminal message they sent out in their films and cartoons was ignored by the public and the media. This still occurs today as Disney backstabs the Jewish peoples, feminists, black peoples, the Orients, and the Latino peoples, as well as many other unnamed races. Why does Disney, an animation company loved by children and parents across the globe, get a pass for these hidden messages, but Kjellberg gets attacked by the media all over? There is no one specific answer.

Felix Kjellberg is not totally innocent in what he did, but he is no criminal. He simply played around on a website, and the Internet, being the effed-up place that it is, screwed up his intentions, making him seem like a villain. Is not everyone guilty of this in one way, shape, or form? This claim was backed-up by Philip Defranco, a vlogger on YouTube, who said, “It makes sense why Disney and YouTube would sever ties… it made sense from a purely business standpoint, I don’t support it, I didn’t want it to happen, personally, I found it disgusting… he [Kjellberg] was often misrepresented in any of his inclusions of anything Nazi related.” Another popular YouTuber named Mark Fischbach, better known by his fans as Markiplier, stated, “Respect: it’s something I feel has been lost lately… we’re all humans… I want to be very clear about something, Felix is not an anti-Semite and Felix does not advocate hate… we are all equal and deserve to be treated with respect.” Nobody pays attention to the defense that YouTubers like Defranco and Fischbach are offering to Kjellberg, for they are so blinded by the attention on him and the “wrongs” that he committed.

The media is by far the most hypocritical thing anyone has ever come across. It claims that black lives matter and only report the prejudice and the murders of the blacks, but then, they diss on said race, bringing their devoted viewers to believe that the murders are done justice. The same thing happens with the Orients, Latinos, the handicapped, women in the sex industry, homosexuals, transgenders, and every other unnamed group of people except tall, straight, white males who were born in the United States. Am I the only one who has noticed this? The answer is no, but if this answer is correct, then why has nobody done anything about it? The media has too much power. It is corrupting the minds of our children, teaching them the wrong things about ISIS and Donald Trump. Remember that these affected children are the very people who will be ruling the world one day. It is our job, as the people, to strip the media of all the unnecessary power which we the people have given it. Why do the media have so much power? We have given it such. We give the media power whenever we believe what it says. We give the media power whenever we don’t catch the subliminal messages which it hides within the fabric of its articles. It is high time we take away this power. The media has become more than a news-sharing network: it has become an influence on the government, on the younger generations, and is absolutely everywhere.

I believe the media is the most irresponsible pile of shit the world has to offer. No one can believe a single thing the media produce because all the facts are twisted and bent into a disfigured mess that no man or woman can truly understand. No one knew what to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Even more, the media has been focusing less on the actual issues of the world and more on the unnecessary issues that needn’t be shared. The media has dissed Felix Kjellberg for saying things about Jews, however, as anti-semitism has occurred for centuries, the newspapers decide to single out a young man instead of the popular animation company Disney, which has been anti-semitic for decades. The media have also reported silly things like homosexual marriages and trans-gender transformations. This is unnecessary to know about.

I, of course, am not saying that the media should become completely powerless. The media were originally meant to be a news-sharing network where the necessary world events are shared as facts, and it should revert back to this setup. Facts should not be bent and twisted by opinion, for they are what they are: facts. If such is done, no one will know what to believe, and soon, the facts will be morphed into disfigured statements which are untrue. This very thing occurred during the 2016 election campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The opposing sides of both candidates viciously attacked the man and woman running for the head position in the Oval Office. Never before has the Internet been blown up by such horrid statement of untrue brutality. The fact that no one bothered to try and stop that madness shocks me and compels me to believe that social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are irresponsible when it comes to such incidents. I, however, strongly believe that the media should take up all responsibility for the lies it has told.

The ultimate message: lay off of Felix and all other unnecessary media topics once and for all. Felix is a man, no worse than any man. He is no different than Donald Trump, just how he is no different from his fellow companions Mark Fischbach and Sean McLoughlin (JackSepticEye). I suggest that the media focus on the actual issues occurring in the world today, such as the tension between NATO and Russia and the conflict in the Middle East with ISIS. These events can shape history, not the silly comments one man was rumored to make against a race. Think about it, Media, what’s more important? Why report the lives of innocent people who simply want to live in peace? If the littlest thing becomes your greatest story compared to events that must truly be shared, then it has proved what your number one priority is. The answer: money.

[lifeofgabb]

Dream Big, Princess

A Feminist Defense of Disney

           Thank you so much for opening up this discussion. As a feminist growing up in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I have enjoyed the evolution of heroines throughout my childhood. Growing up, I enjoyed movies like Kiki’s Delivery Service and Spirited Away that featured strong woman protagonists. However, I found that the protagonists of some of these films could be problematic for me. Chihiro of Spirited Away was a particular problem for me as I found her to have a whiney, Luke Skywalker-esque quality to her character. While her character develops, she develops in this idea of the strong, independent woman; a toxically masculine idea that will be touched upon later.

           You do bring up a good point though when it comes to finding heroines that want something more out of life than marriage, like Belle, who is desperate to leave the small-town thinking of her village. Her newest incarnation even has her shown as an inventor and innovator as much as her father is, which is important because this is the version of Belle that today’s children are the most familiar with.

           I, too, wish that there were more characters like Pocahontas, fighting for the protections of the environment and the land she lives on while using her literal moral compass to stand for what is right with passion. On top of this, she was smart enough to encourage a relationship between her tribe and the settlers that allowed them to be respectful and compassionate toward each other and the land they are using to support their lives. She did all of this too, while rejecting an arranged marriage set up for her by the men of her tribe (Pocahontas, 1995).

           While I will admit that Disney does have a penchant for removing family members, this tradition came long before they started making fairy tales into movies. This trope of broken families or lost parents often serves as a setup to insert and introduce the villain of the story. Step-parents, adoptive parents, and the like are very often the cause of turmoil in a heroine’s story. These original stories from medieval (or earlier) writers were meant to teach children life lessons in a way that was “safe” for children. To learn more, please see Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment. However, most of those stories from Disney are their early and traditional films. Today, we have Rapunzel who, while separated from her parents, found them and was supported by them, only because of their ongoing love and support demonstrated through the release of lanterns on Rapunzel’s birthday. These lanterns served as motivation for Rapunzel to find a way out of her tower and see the world and see those lanterns that she had watched from afar for eighteen years (Tangled, 2010). We also have Mulan, whose biggest fear was disappointing her family and parents. She has both of her parents, and is supported by her father when he tells her that “the greatest gift and honor is having [her] as a daughter” after she has just been publicly dishonored for failing in her meeting with the matchmaker (Mulan, 1998). Most recently, we also have a heroine that not only has both parents, but a grandmother as well who serves as a spiritual guide throughout the heroine’s journey (Moana, 2016).

           This also brings calls into question the idea of representation and why it matters. To call for heroines that have an intact family structure, is to call for the invalidation of young viewers who do not share this family structure. To make that call is to say that having two supportive parents is the only way to succeed or achieve anything, but the harsh reality is that this family structure is not the only one that exists, and we cannot ignore that. There are many separated parents, widowed parents, or absent parents in the real world. What began as a trope to move plot forward in stories coming from as early as 9th century China, has now become a mode of inclusive representation for young viewers of these Disney films.

           While we are on the topic of representation, Disney is also often under fire for whitewashing their stories. For the earliest three princesses, this may be true. However, those stories take place in times and parts of the world that are generally seen as predominantly white. Meanwhile, after the thirty-year hiatus of Disney princess films, only the first two of what is considered the “Disney Renaissance” were white. The heroines of films released by Disney between the years of 1992 and 1998 were people of color, with the exception Megara from Hercules, which takes place in Greece and is considered as “white passing”. Ten years later with the release of The Princess and the Frog Disney introduced another woman of color as its heroine, and since then, Disney has looked for stories to create from different parts of the world, to make their stories more inclusive so that people feel connected to and represented within these stories. This concept of whitewashing is particularly evident in Miyazaki’s films. Coming from Japan, where paleness is the epitome of beauty and the ultimate goal for most, his films, while they are brilliant and beautiful storytelling, lack diversity.

           Most importantly, we have the concept of imagination, innovation, and creativity, particularly aimed at a goal other than finding a husband. For me, Merida’s plan to get out of marriage was extremely imaginative and innovative – she used her skills and her strengths to fight for herself because no one else would. She went on an entire journey to get out of the prospect of an arranged marriage to one of the suitors presented by the lords of her kingdom. There is also Tiana who is imaginative, innovative, and deliciously juxtaposed to her best friend Charlotte. Charlotte in this film epitomizes the ideas that Disney had been criticized for presenting up until 2009 when they released The Princess and the Frog. Tiana uses her imagination and innovation to dream up a restaurant, that she does eventually get to open, and even just survive while she is a frog in the bayou because of the mistake of a man.

           There has been a long line of Disney heroines with strong morals and the courage to act on them, and they have been the most guiding in my life. Ariel, before meeting Prince Eric, wants nothing more than to learn about a culture different from her own and repeatedly contests her father’s blind dislike for humans (The Little Mermaid, 1989). A few years later, Jasmine defied not only her father, but the laws and traditions of the land by refusing to meet with suitors from across the globe – who were only there because a law stated that she needed to marry before her next birthday. Jasmine rejected the role of a pawn in the games of men, giving a generation of women a moment of recognized self-worth when she states, “I am not a prize to be won” (Aladdin, 1992). Jump ahead again to The Hunchback of Notre Dame and we get Esmeralda, a woman persecuted by a man who only wants to have sex with her. She continuously stands up to this man and acts against him and the way he treats anyone has a categorized as “other” or “less” (1996). Jump ahead again and you land on Moana. She denies her father and the traditions of her island in order to save it. She goes on a quest in an attempt to correct the mistakes made by a man looking for attention, recognition, and power (2016). We also see a uniquely woman-centric moment of empowerment in Frozen; these two sisters teach young girls the importance of sisterhood and the importance of women supporting women, especially in a society so eager to set women up against each other (2013).

           There are still some heroines that have been left unmentioned. Why? Not because they are unimportant or there is nothing we can learn from them, but because it is true that their stronger qualities are not as apparent as their more passive ones. Snow White (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959) are likely the most passive heroines that Disney has ever or will ever produce, but what can we learn from them? All of them were after a life that was different or better than what they had. Snow White was chased from her own home by an evil, jealous queen, she was too trusting and therefore teaches us to be wary of the world and who we meet in it. Cinderella was heinously mistreated by Lady Tremaine and her two daughters and still remained kind. What is the importance of kindness and what kind of life can we lead when we meet the world with kindness, even knowing what kind of wickedness exists therein? Sleeping Beauty simply wanted the freedom to follow her heart and make decisions for herself, which at the end of the day is a pretty basic desire.

           It is important to state as well that the “Disn-ification Process” is entirely up to the discretion and responsibility of the parent. However, Disney takes their role in a child’s development very seriously, as we can in their new movies and television programming. Many of the young girls I know are not even familiar with the original Disney iteration of the most passive heroines. Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora are rarely given screen time for their original films. But, they do appear in Disney’s programming for children. Sophia the First features lessons of anti-bullying, self-worth, and empowerment for young girls taught by early princesses. Today’s programming also features a show Doc McStuffins, who dreams of being a doctor while still attending her ballet classes. All of this, I think, is pretty progressive for children’s programming, and that was all before this month’s announcement of an openly gay primary character on one of Disney’s after school programs that already covers the topics of non-traditional family structures, unplanned pregnancies, and other struggles of being in middle school. Over the last several years, Disney has not only developed more progressive and inclusive storylines, but they have set the standard for the rest of the industry. They are responsible for changes to the industry that are shaping the way we write about women for children of all ages.

           Why in today’s society do we find stories about falling in love to be a distasteful anti-feminist act? One of feminism’s most prominent platforms is love for all; to give everyone with freedom to fall in love and get married (if they so choose) without denial or persecution.

           Why is it that a feminist heroine must demonstrate masculinity? That trend of toxic masculinity becomes problematic for all genders because it promotes the repression of emotion and a refusal to communicate and share the load. Let us take a look at some of Disney’s more male-centric stories for this example. Disney has showed the dangers of the rigid and overly militant toxic masculinity in its portrayal of the evolving relationship between Captain Jack Sparrow and Commodore James Norrington. Jack is a man marked as a pirate. Why? Because he freed slaves. James is a man brought up on the belief that pirates are the scum of the earth and that no act of compassion or kindness can redeem them (re: Jack saved the life of the woman James loved and he still clapped Jack in irons). While Jack’s motivations are questionable at best, he finds himself in the position to make decisions that will either benefit him or a larger group of people, he usually picks other people. James can only see Jack as the self-serving and law-breaking pirate (neither of these facts are untrue), which makes it easy to maintain a disdain and contempt for him. However, James falls into the toxically masculine trap of an idea that what he is doing is right solely because it is being done in the name of the law. That is dangerous because it allows him to justify putting a large population of people (pirates) in danger by turning the heart of Davy Jones over to the head of the trading company that happens to be controlling the British navy. This blind faith in the law and in himself does not allow for self-reflection until a feminine character (Elizabeth) calls him out. That is a toxic quality that is seen all too often in hero characters, as well as these new “strong, independent female protagonists” like Katniss from the Hunger Games or Tris from the Divergent Series who are stripped of their femininity in order to be heroines.

           But when did we get the idea that being feminine and enjoying one’s femininity are inherently anti-feminist? Those two ideas of being feminine and being feminist are not mutually exclusive ideas. A girl that loves pink is not a bad feminist. A girl that likes princesses is not a bad feminist. Princesses are not an anti-feminist idea. It is princesses that lead me to other works of fantasy. They fostered my deep love of storytelling and my appreciation and respect for the works of Joseph Campbell and Samuel Beckett. These princess movies can do for kids today what superhero comics did for children years ago, and Disney knows it.

[runesrule]

Force. Strength. Power. (A study in feminist influences.)

In 1943 William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, said “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine architype lacks force, strength (and) power.” He also believed that Diana Prince’s attractiveness was a part of her power, an idea which would probably be eviscerated as anti-feminist today. Maybe it is, if you ignore the key word ‘part’.  

Her attractiveness is only a part of her power, a part that probably lends her an under-laying sense of sense-confidence. (I say under-laying because I will bet any money even the awe-inspiring Diana Prince worries about thigh jiggle and stretch marks) I am sick to death of this attitude of scorn society has towards girls who put a lot of effort into their appearance. Look; I’m not one of them. If I put on mascara and foundation at the same time, I’m probably going to meet the Queen. If you think that I’m not cheering on those girls who rock up to the shops with their faces contoured, eyebrows drawn on, red lipped and smiling with brilliantly white teeth, you are so very, very wrong my friend. 

I would have, once. 

I was a tomboy. A skinned knees, tree-climbing, wore shorts under my school dresses and multiple sports bras because my chest embarrassed me, Tomboy™. I was in a masculine environment out on a cattle station in Western Australia, and soft things just don’t last out there. Then I went to boarding school, where you had to be Something, so the Something I chose to be was the Tomboy, the Good Girl. 

In the way of female influences in media, there’s three heroes that I stood out to me then; Alanna the Lioness of Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet, Mulan of Disney’s Mulan (duh) and Evelynn O’Connell of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. 

(There was no third movie, mmkay? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Rachel Weis is the only Evie, and that’s the end of it.) 

If you haven’t read anything by Tamora Pierce, firstly what the actual hell is wrong with you? Secondly, in brief, Song of the Lioness is the story of a nobleman’s daughter named Alanna with a magical Gift who wants to be a knight, but then the Patriarchy happens and she is instead supposed to go and study magic. Conveniently enough, her twin brother would much rather go and study magic rather than be a knight, so they switch places. Thom gets to remain a boy, while Alanna has to disguise her gender in order to follow her dreams. Hijinks ensue. The third book of Song of the Lioness was literally called The Woman Who Rides Like A Man, so between Mulan and Alanna, my take-away seemed to be that if you wanted to earn the respect of men, you had to act like a man. 

It’s a narrative that is not-so-subtly played to absolute death. Everyone knows the token Strong Female in blockbuster action flicks who has absolutely no defining features other than being One of the Boys, being in love with the protagonist and eventually dies because cleavage doesn’t repel bullets. 

(I am not criticising her choice to show off her cleavage, only to situation in which she chooses to do so. Like, girl, why are you parachuting into a war zone on a black ops mission in a tank top?) 

Then of course, there is Evie O’Connell. I blame her almost entirely for my ill-fated foray into studying archaeology. 

(I say ‘almost’ because of course there was also Lara Croft, but in retrospect my obsession with Lara Croft had less to do with wanted to be her and more to do with- ahem, anyway. Safe to say, I look back on it now and think ‘How the heck did anyone—including myself—ever think I was straight?’) 

Evie taught me that if you wanted to be even slightly feminine, you had damn well better be the smartest motherfucker in the room. Or, at the very least, have your very own Rick O’Connell to come and save you when you inevitably awaken a cursed mummy. 

I know vividly the first person who made me rethink my idea of femineity= weak. That the pretty one would always need rescued by the hero, and since I would much rather rescue my own goddamn self, being pretty was out of the question. Allison Argent, of the train-wreck that is MTV’s Teen Wolf changed my life. No, really. Along comes this absolute definition of the Damsel in Distress. She’s pretty and blushing and fluttering lashes. Then she commando-rolls out of that doe-eyed love interest box with a compound bow in one hand and a tube of lipstick in the other. 

Allison Argent said “Why can’t I be strong and still go to prom?” she left me re-evalutating my life. I started experimenting with my style: I owned dresses, and pretty tops and panties that match my bra. I step out to go to the movies and I put on a day pink lipstick in the rear-view mirror of my car. I splash on red lipstick as bright as blood and paint my fingernails to match and suddenly my silly, tiny black dress is made of Kevlar. Suddenly, I’m bullet-proof.  

Some days, red lipstick is power, because the guy at the bar ends up looking at my tits and doesn’t notice when the bartender serves me before him. Sometimes, Doc Martins and a trucker cap are power, because I can walk into the shops and nobody knows I haven’t washed my hair in, like, a week. Some days, pink lipstick and perfume make me feel powerful, because I’ll walk into a grey Melbourne day wearing spring-time on my skin. 

Why should any one of these things make me less? Less what? Less respectable, less feminine, less strong? 

Empowering women doesn’t mean teaching girls that they should act more like boys to be strong, because strength is not—despite what you may have been led to believe—a solely masculine trait. Empowering women and girls is as easy, and as heart-wrenchingly difficult, as teaching them that they don’t have to act like boys to be powerful. Their power is in their resting bitch faces when a stranger on the street tells them to smile, baby! Their power is in bleeding for a week straight and carrying the fuck on, in living and breathing despite men policing their goddamn bodies at every corner. 

Empowering women starts with Saturday morning cartoons, Disney films and the way newsreaders talk about the victims in rape trials. 

It starts with the way we talk about each other, and the figures we see all around represented in media, film and television. Maybe, empowering your son or daughter starts with looking at the shrieking damsel in distress on TV and commenting ‘Ha! King Arthur wouldn’t be anything without Guinevere to manage the castle and broker trade while he’s busy fighting Mordred’

[motherofrainbows-blog]

Princess: The Dirty Word

Why is being called a princess an insult? What gives the word the sting? The backlash that sends people running to their keyboards and pounding out riots?

The answer is simple, it is associated with weakness. Girls are the weaker sex, the gentle people who sit at home and nurture the children. While the men go out and wage war with their guns and their swords. Hunt with their bows and arrows, return a hero bearing meat on their backs.

It also puts in mind the image of the classic damsel in distress. The stupid girl sitting on her castle window in a tower somewhere, praying for a prince to come along and save her. Making friends with animals to pass the time and falling in love the second anyone bothers to say a grand hello.

In essence, the word princess is meant to invoke a feeling people have felt for centuries. Powerlessness, weakness, being thrown down under the bus and screaming as you watch the tires rip up your face. It makes us feel powerless and broken down, as if the only useful thing we could do is sit there and do as others tell us. That is what princesses do, after all, isn’t it?

No.

Princess has become a victim. Not of her own doing, but by the people all around her. Men, women, people who have come along and poured crap all across her good title. She has been put in a prison where there are only two categories she could fall into. Classic age, or modern day. Someone who sits in the window waiting for prince charming, or someone who slashes his throat and proclaims she doesn’t need anyone but herself. Many people would be inclined to believe that the latter is the better of the two. But I propose we analyze both stereotypes of the princess, and think on what each means.

The classic princess for certain is the very reason the term has been allowed to become derogatory. For far too long, men made princesses weak. In European countries princesses were treated, more or less, as baby machines with a giant sack of money attached to her. Dowries used to sell girls away into a life of servitude and, often, abuse from her lord and husband as well as a double standard of infidelity. Of course there will always be exceptions to this. Queen Elizabeth, for example, lived a long and proud reign as the Virgin Queen. An independant woman in her own right, someone who didn’t look to a King for every decision she made. Mary Queen of Scots was renowned for her affair with James Hepburn, otherwise known as the Earl of Bothwell, granted their circumstances were far from ordinary in the cases of royals. But in stark contrast, there are thousands upon thousands of records of kings and princes having ‘favourites’, ‘mistresses’, and ‘concubines’ and all sorts of sexual contact outside marriage...Yet no backlash.

In comparison, the modern day princess is someone who does not, bluntly, take shit from a man. She can wield weapons just as good as anyone else. Stand up to her enemies for herself without a touch of fear. Look that attractive prince right in the eye and tell him she doesn’t need his romance. She is a proud and independent force whose only support she needs is herself. Examples in modern day culture, let us focus on the infamous case of...Disney princesses. Moana has made records in recent media for being what many people consider to be the first truly independent disney princess. She fights, she stands up for what she believes in, is of equal power to her fellow protagonist, Maul. Whatever comes at her she bounces back and doesn’t let anything keep her down. And in so many ways, she is grand and inspiring for little girls all across America. But she also represents something else, a modern day classic that I believe is highly troubling. Part of the reason people love Moana so much is a very simple fact...she has no romantic interest.

Here, my readers, is where I see the issue.

Why, in order to be considered revolutionary and feminist approved, is there a requirement to be single?

Of course women need to be able to care for themselves, there is no question in that. Every person, whatever their gender is, has a right and a need to be able to exist without a romantic partner. You need to be able to understand and care for yourself before you should ever consider sharing your life with another. And when it comes time to meet that person, they need to be just right for you. Whatever that means to you and not anyone else. This does not mean you should disregard the advice of others, but they are not the ones who have to exist within the relationship. If there is not a threat within it, you feel safe, happy, and secure every day with that person, whomever they may be, I would think it is safe to assume you have found your match.

That being said, there is always going to be someone who prefers the company of themselves. That is okay, I am in no way trying to attack the people who are single and proud. Currently, I myself am one of these people. But someday, personally, I would like to share my life with someone. This is not the case for all people. But for those who do, I know I want to live in a world where this is accepted. Where I do not have to sit and listen to other women, and sometimes men, tell me that because I am in a relationship, I am not feminist. I want to live in a world where a princess can have a romantic interest, and still be considered a powerhouse who can fight for herself. Because true love has no limitations, it does not hinder your ability to defend or live for yourself. True love only add to that gratification you get from yourself, and it will come in the form of another person. That does not mean you depend on them, it means you love them. You can stand life without them, but you prefer your life to exist with them as long as you are both healthy and happy.

This is why I question this common belief, that you can only be an independent woman if you are alone. That is not true, nor will it ever be. You can always be your own person, it is a matter of choice. Choice of who you love and who you associate with, or who you chose to be in your daily life on your own. And your partner can be the very same way, woman, man, agender, whichever they are. You can always be able to care for yourself, and still have a healthy relationship.

So why are princesses with love interests degraded? Because, unfortunately, often times in media we are confusing real romance with theatrical romance. The ‘love’ you see on movie screens is not often what real love looks like. Though of course, as with everything, there are always exceptions to this rule. And people love to put up the classic image of a woman giving up everything for her love. Or her love giving up everything for her. But is that love? Or is that a good plot devicey way to make people burst into tears in the theatre. Think about it. “Oh he loves her so much, he gave up his entire career for her!” “He would give up his life for her!” “She would die for him!” So on, so forth.

Looking at another example from Disney, Belle gave up her entire life for her father and lived as a prisoner with the Beast. Of course, in the end he ends up changing and becoming her Prince Charming(Prince Adam). Their love affair has always been a sore spot for many people, for several different reasons. Abuse, beastality, anti-feminist. And as it stands, some of these claims are very true. As much as I love, and always will, the Beauty and the Beast films, there is no denying that the instant Belle fell in love with the Beast she was quick to give up her idea of “More than this provincial life”. Even though I would like to think that in the end, after their ballroom scene, they go and galavant the world just like Belle wanted, introducing the Beast to everything he had missed during his trapped state...Reality is that they likely stayed in the castle, had children, and lived the typical monarchy life.

Now, it is time I addressed something many people have thought, does being a housewife, or living the stereotyped role of a woman make me Anti-Feminist?

No. The entire point of Feminism is that women are equal to men. If, in your relationship, your say and right is just the same as your partner’s, then you are not Anti-Feminist. You are just living a life that is not considered to be the classic Feminist role nowadays.

Again, the typical Feminist ideal forces women who are comfortable living a different way to think they are hindering the cause of their fellow women. Isn’t that the exact opposite of what feminism intends? Isn’t the driving force of the movement to be accepted for who you are, whoever that is, and being given the rights and privileges just like anyone else?

Yes.

Then why have we been brought to this point? There is nothing wrong with single living, there is nothing wrong with being a single mom, a housewife, someone without children, an independent ‘boss ass bitch.’ Women are women. Men are men. People are people. They can live however they chose to, as long as it does not hurt or demean others.

Then why does the term princess still cut? And why, now, in a time where women have more rights than ever before, are we limiting our ideal ‘princess’ to a single woman? There are all kinds of women around the world. Of all different circumstances and races, manners, thoughts, and bodies. No woman should ever have to feel Anti-Feminist because she fell in love. And no princess should ever have to be degraded, and thought less of, because she fell in love.

Love does not hinder, it makes you grow.

The term princess refers to someone who has a royal title, the negative connotation comes from people who have made her seem weak. Who have limited her in her life, and changed her to a cut example out of a sheet of paper and plastered her on the walls and said “This! This is a princess, because I say it is!”

But now is not then, and I propose to everyone that we rethink the term princess. Like how other groups have reclaimed their names in the past, why can women not do the same for princess? Princesses can be strong, they can be weak, they can be anything and everything in the world because she is a person. And people are not limited to what people believe they are, or should be. People exist because they are unique, and princesses are just the same. People, a name. They only have whatever power it is you chose to give them.

Picture a movie, if you will, of a princess who is independent and strong, but also has a love interest. Also proud and strong of who they are. They do not hinder each other, they complement one another and build them up to be a better person because of the love they share. Two people, in one relationship, striving always to be better not just for the other but for themselves. When the giant crushing moment in the movie happens, they both collectively rise each other up because two forces working together can overcome challenges. Just as a single one can.

Picture a world in where girls say they are princesses proudly, and everyone looks and them and says “Yes, you are a princess.” Without assuming damsel in distress, or pink lace bows and fancy dresses. But whoever that person is, just with the title princess before their name. Something that makes them happy, and proud of who they are.

That is a princess. Someone who can be anyone they want to be, with whomever they want to be with, or not at all. They are themselves. Not a derogatory word that tears them down. They are proud, and they are strong, even if not physically, mentally, or whatever strength you want to be.

They are a princess, and nobody has the right to take that away from them.