MovieChat Forums > Sleeping Beauty (1959) Discussion > What's wrong with dreaming...

What's wrong with dreaming...

posted 10 years ago by Weber4278
26 replies | jump to latest

...about true love?

This is just something I have to get off my chest, so sorry if it feels like a rant but I see this same criticism directed at the older Disney Princesses all the time these days (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, and Ariel etc) and that is that they are bad examples for young girls because they spend all their time dreaming about finding true love instead of going out and kicking butt etc.

It's an argument that seems to have made it's way to the Studio as well because Disney these days is moving away from the romance to the comedy, and any love depicted in the latest films are the kind between a mother and daughter or between sisters.

Now I'm not saying it's wrong for Disney to explore other sorts of relationships, nor am I against portraying Princesses as strong women.

But here's my problem with this new train of thought, and I decided to post this here since poor Aurora seems to get the brunt of these types of criticisms...and that is "since when does dreaming about finding true love make you a weakling?"

What is wrong with wanting to find a man you can love?

It's like in order to be a strong woman these days you better not ever get married and have children!

Romance...is only for those submissive girls who want to be controlled by a guy!

The truth is this whole argument really goes beyond Disney since I see it all the time in the real world these days and it's really annoying...to be considered a 'strong woman' you have to be a CEO of a major Corporation and a total *****, God forbid a woman dreams of being a mother or a housewife!

I always thought equality meant a woman could choose whatever she wants to be, I didn't know you HAD to be 100% career minded (and completely cynical and dismissive of men) in order to be considered 'strong'. 

Anyway just had to rant, and again this is just my opinion.

While I grew up with the 90's era films...I'm beginning to favor the older Disney movies more as I get older, and while 'Beauty and the Beast' will always be my favorite fairy tale...Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are quickly becoming my favorite Disney girls. I just love how sweet, kind, and genuinely warmhearted they are compared to the more...spunky 'modern' Princesses.

[–] phillindholm 10 years ago

Yes, some people feel that way, but not all. The stories (and the films) will endure because they are Classics. Let those who oppose them write their own original stories, instead of ''re- interpreting'' legends beloved for generations. All THAT shows is a lack of imagination.

[–] TutuAnimationPrincess 10 years ago

All Disney films have influences based on the times they come out, but the idea that Disney is becoming dominated by modern feminist ideas has been way exaggerated. I think today's princess films have beautiful and great messages and are in no way trying to enforce an anti-man agenda. I also believe that the amount of people critical of the classic princesses is way lower than some might think. Every Disney princess movie has it's wonderful strengths and while I don't love them all, they all offer their own individual and interesting perspectives.

"If life is getting you down and needs uplifting, then please come dance with me!"

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] screwballl 10 years ago

Romantic love is a bourgeois illusion. To emancipate the human personality we must destroy it advance the revolutionary potential of the consciousness of the working class.

[–] Weber4278 10 years ago

I hope you are joking screwball.

If not, I'd like to see you tell my parents, grandparents, and best friend and her husband, that what they feel for each other is an 'illusion'.

Romantic love, like all forms of love is beautiful and special.

[–] ZakkWyldeMyLittlePony 10 years ago

IMO, nothing

RIP
Jeff Hanneman
1964-2013

[–] number9-4 10 years ago

I totally agree. I am both career- and romance-minded, and the implication that there's something wrong with wanting a relationship (even though I work my butt off 40+ hours a week at a career I went to college for, so it's not like I'm sitting around waiting for a guy to take care of me) really bugs me.

I don't want to be in a relationship because I need a man to help support me financially or because I have low self-esteem and want someone else to call the shots or something. I want it because it's 100 percent normal and human to want to experience real love; yet it's often demonized in our PC society. Women who want it look weak, old-fashioned and anti-feminist; men who want it look weak, clingy and effeminate.

To be fair, I think it's partially because the old princesses are portrayed as less take-charge in their own lives than some really hyper-feminist people want them to be; but in reality, what options did any of them really have? They lived in a completely different time. What else would Aurora have to look forward to in life than true love? Ruling a kingdom she doesn't want to and just found out she's heir to? Staying in the same home with the same three women who have been her sole companions all her life? Women didn't have exciting careers to look forward to back then; but even though they do now, it doesn't mean they should be shamed for also looking forward to a loving relationship.

[–] cheedo 10 years ago

I think some people, especially women, can be very bitter when they don't have a loving committed relationship and see others even in fiction who do. And with the wave of feminism hitting Disney came the belief that even if women do get relationships, they still need to be superior to the man. Belle and Pocahontas are morally and intellectually superior to their guys. Rapunzel, a tiny little girl, can beat up Flynn and is also his moral superior. Tiana is unrealistically more competent in every single way that matters than Naveen, who she initially looks down her nose at for not sharing her ambitious attitude. And so on.

Unless it's gay marriage, some people have this really childish resentment towards loving couples. And women who want to be married or, God forbid, have an evil man take care of them, are seen as stupid and weak and should be ashamed of themselves. Every woman needs to be an unrealistic action girl, a ballbusting CEO, a snarky bookworm or tomboy who can beat the boys at anything. Femininity is bad, unless it's got something wild like jumping off cliffs and using kitchen utensils for weapons a la Rapunzel to make up for that.

The Classics are very strong women and deserve love as much as anyone. People who hate them have probably just been taught to hate any woman who doesn't measure up to their impossible ideals of perfection as women should.

BUT THERE ARE NO GOATS HALFMAN

[–] watcher101 10 years ago

There's absolutely nothing wrong with dreaming about or wanting true love. The reason why so many people are complaining about it in these movies is because they're taking it to mean that you can't truly be happy without having true love. More sexist people say that Disney is saying that a woman needs a man in her life to be happy or vice versa, but they're just ignorant. That's why with movies like Frozen and Maleficent, those types of people jumped at the opportunity to get their point across, even if their point isn't even in the movie (i.e. both Anna and Aurora having their curses broken from love other than the kind between a man and a woman). They really need to pull their heads out of their asses.

[–] annedoe 10 years ago

Actually the two earliest princesses (Snow, Cinderella) they technically weren't looking for love. They just wanted someone to treat them as an equal which the EQ and LT and the Step-sisters didn't do.

[–] rbrtck 10 years ago

Actually the two earliest princesses (Snow, Cinderella) they technically weren't looking for love.

You're right about Cinderella (who at least declined to state what she was dreaming about), but Snow White did sing "Someday My Prince Will Come"--she didn't obsess over this constantly, but it was a dearly held dream of hers. Anna does the same thing in Frozen, but for some reason nobody who would hold it against her even remembers. I guess she gets a pass because she saved the day in the end, but it still doesn't change the fact (and there's nothing wrong with it anyway, but we're talking about ultra-"feminist" critics here).

What this all boils down to is how people constantly see what they want/expect to see, and how they have hopelessly stereotyped the Disney princesses of various eras. Aside from a few fundamental traits, they're all different, but they still get pigeonholed into various groups that are either "good" or "bad" role models. In general, people--even professional movie critics--don't remember a thing about them. For example, every time they're pleased with a trait that the latest princess has, they forget that the last several (or more) had the very same trait that the critics themselves praised as new back then, too.  Actually watching the movies and paying attention tells a very different story from what we usually read in various media and on the Internet--and this includes the oldest classics--but it seems that people will continue to see what they want to see regardless. 

[–] rbrtck 10 years ago

I think some people, especially women, can be very bitter when they don't have a loving committed relationship and see others even in fiction who do.

This is something that I would be reluctant to surmise myself, but there just might be something to it in some cases.

And with the wave of feminism hitting Disney came the belief that even if women do get relationships, they still need to be superior to the man. Belle and Pocahontas are morally and intellectually superior to their guys. Rapunzel, a tiny little girl, can beat up Flynn and is also his moral superior.

I won't argue against the fact that these girls have the moral high ground, although I will point out at least one exception, namely Meg in Hercules, and that this issue is mostly evened out by the ends of their movies.

As for Rapunzel beating up "Flynn" she sneaked up behind him and bashed his head with a frying pan--you could potentially kill someone like that without actually overpowering them. That said, in this case I think they were going for the old Pint-Sized/Petite Powerhouse and/or Cute Bruiser tropes rather than trying to make women seem superior. Added appeal for boys, which is something that Disney often have in mind for these movies, might also have been a direct factor in making Rapunzel somewhat of an action heroine. And it's something different, which makes it more interesting for the filmmakers themselves.

Unless it's gay marriage, some people have this really childish resentment towards loving couples. And women who want to be married or, God forbid, have an evil man take care of them, are seen as stupid and weak and should be ashamed of themselves. Every woman needs to be an unrealistic action girl, a ballbusting CEO, a snarky bookworm or tomboy who can beat the boys at anything. Femininity is bad, unless it's got something wild like jumping off cliffs and using kitchen utensils for weapons a la Rapunzel to make up for that.

I get what you're saying, though, and it's a shame that people tend to think that things must always be a certain way, thereby missing the point of any other way. People have always been narrow-minded like this, including back when the older Disney princess animated features were made, but nowadays people have something to look back on and unfairly denounce.

I wouldn't go very far in criticizing what WDAS is doing with their princesses today, however. Perhaps some aspects of it are wrongheaded, but nevertheless they are giving us a wider spectrum of traits and behaviors--there may be nothing wrong with the old way, and we wish that more people would realize this, but there is room for the new way, too, and all the better for it overall. They're still cute and sweet girls, at least--that much hasn't changed (and the newer princesses actually get some heat for this--there is just no pleasing everybody).

The Classics are very strong women and deserve love as much as anyone.

Yes they are, even if many people can't or won't see how and why.

People who hate them have probably just been taught to hate any woman who doesn't measure up to their impossible ideals of perfection as women should.

They're not thinking for themselves hard enough, one way or another.

[–] rbrtck 10 years ago

...about true love?

Just to be clear, you seem to mean specifically the romantic type, as "love" has many forms. Outside of any specific context, true love--or rather the true meaning of love--is, like Olaf from Frozen said, "putting someone else's needs before yours." That's exactly right--it means selflessly caring about the well-being of another, and implies sacrifice. Love is not a feeling, even though sometimes you can viscerally feel it. And it is not romance, although it can be and ideally is part of a romantic relationship. Unfortunately many romantic relationships in movies as well as in real life are not about true love but self-gratification.

This is just something I have to get off my chest, so sorry if it feels like a rant but I see this same criticism directed at the older Disney Princesses all the time these days (Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, and Ariel etc) and that is that they are bad examples for young girls because they spend all their time dreaming about finding true love instead of going out and kicking butt etc.

Those people are just being ridiculous. Not every story has to give this specific class of character circumstances under which they can be exactly the same role model in every single way listed on some imaginary checklist.  In addition, those people miss the good qualities that are actually there--ones that would have been overshadowed by the other qualities they're predisposed (or programmed) to expect.

For example, Snow White has marketable skills and essentially convinces the Dwarfs to give her a job so that she can earn her keep. Isn't that a good quality, even for the modern world? So is her industriousness, her positive attitude toward hard work, and her reasonable insistence on personal hygiene. Snow White also shows effective leadership skills. How could any of these skills and traits be considered outdated or undesirable?

It's an argument that seems to have made it's way to the Studio as well because Disney these days is moving away from the romance to the comedy, and any love depicted in the latest films are the kind between a mother and daughter or between sisters.

Over their history and in their movie catalog, both fairy tales and romance (as a focus) are actually in the minority, so really nothing has changed. They just like to do different things for a while, but they'll come back to it eventually in some form. While WDAS (Walt Disney Animation Studios) are influenced by what the audience wants and expects in various eras, they are also influenced a great deal by the older classics created by their own studio, so it's not as though they are going to forget.

As for love in the modern Disney era, with Frozen WDAS (Chris Buck specifically) decided at long last that they would make the true meaning of love clear--that it's not about romance specifically, contrary to what people think they had previously implied (not true, but it's what people tend to believe anyway). This was something different to try, and different (change) is interesting. Among fairy tales/mythology true love was directly portrayed in Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, and Tangled, but they were still entangled, if you will , with romance. True love (not entangled with romance) can be found in some of their other movies, as well, but they didn't really make a strong point about the meaning of love, so that was what Frozen was conceived to do, and it did so, splendidly, without killing off romance, as Kristoff was still heroic, and he and Anna got together at the end with a kiss--a budding romance based on true love instead of "puppy love." Some choose to interpret this as "invalidating" the older fairy tale princess movies, but that's silly--those simply have more implied true love relationships, and there is more than one way to tell a story.

As for Maleficent, that might be a coincidence, but I look at that movie as being from a different studio anyway (same corporation, but not the same studio). I just tend to ignore it, although unfortunately the public did not.