I always considered her a princess since she was the Chief's daughter, but people bitch about her being in the Disney Princess Line because she's not a Princess...so is she or isn't she?
shareShe's in the line so she's a princess.
In reality she was not a princess as we understand it in European terms, but being the chief's daughter puts her at a higher rank than others.
It's like the equivalent.
Well, she is the daughter of a Chief after all. Although she doesn't fit in to the definition of what Europeans call a Princess, she does have some semi-royal blood, considering that she's a daughter of a semi-royal. So she's a Princess, but vaguely so.
shareI've always considered her a princess since she's the daughter of a chief and it's always bugged me that she isn't as popular as the others, mostly just cause she's my favorite princess.
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it's always bugged me that she isn't as popular as the others, mostly just cause she's my favorite princess.
Me too! But I get it: Her movie wasn't as "fun" as the other princess movies, and she as a character, isn't either. Oh well.
She is.
In her "kingdom" or her "tribe" she is the equivalent of a Princess
Your parents need a kingdom for you to be a princess.
A tribe is far too small to be considered a kingdom. That's more like being a mayor.
That's why i said "equivalent" she's not technically a princess but for her tribe she is seen as the Princess of it because she is the daughter of it's leader
shareI hate that Disney threw so many of its best female characters under the bus in order to promote the creepily oligarchical "Princess" franchise. Why do they have to be royal to be admired?
shareSomeone, probably here in IMDB, once suggested the idea of a Disney Heroines line for female characters who weren't princesses. I really like that idea and Pocahontas would fit right into it.
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What I find odd about the princess franchise (other than what you said) is that they include Mulan even though she is definitely not a princess, in any way. At least there could be arguments made for why Pocahontas should be that make sense but Mulan? Her father is not a king/emperor/prince/ruler-of-some-kind nor did she marry someone who was. Shang is great and all, but he's still not a ruler. At least Pocahontas's dad had a kingdom, so to speak, where he was the equivalent of a king, to his people at least.
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That's so true! I don't see her stuff very often, but you're right, there definitely is Mulan "Disney Princess" merchandise. So basically it just comes down to which movies are the most popular, I guess? Still, seems they might as well have just called it "Disney heroines" to begin with. I guess they want to pander to the little-girl princess obsession and figure no one will care/notice that some of the "princesses" really aren't.
The thing about little girls and princesses, though, is that I think many of them are only so enamored with the idea of being a princess because of Disney's marketing of the princess line. Personally, as a kid I admired Pocahontas, Meg and Esmeralda more than Belle, Ariel and Cinderella (though I did like Aurora and Jasmine, for whatever reason, so I wasn't totally against the princesses). So with me, at least, it was just about having a female character you looked up to for some reason, not her being royal.
I so agree that it makes no sense that Mulan is an official Disney princess, not as neither Megara and Kida aren't in the line-up.
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According to what I've been told, royalty has never existed in Native American culture. So, no, to answer your question, Pocahontas is not a "princess." She is just a chieftain's daughter.
shareShe doesn't have a twirly dress so no.
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Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.
Well in reality, Pocahontas was actually presented as a princess to the English. Not understanding Native American chieftain systems, they just said she was a princess. John Rolfe's parents were actually worried about this at first, that their son had married so far above his station.
The reason Pocahontas and Mulan get included in the line is probably to make it look less white. That's probably why Jasmine is in there too, since she's the only official Disney Princess not to be the main character in her film. A lot of it is about marketing to demographics, which is likely why Tiana was officially inducted into the line. If you don't have Pocahontas and Mulan, then Jasmine is the only ethnic princess in there. So that's three ethnic girls and five white ones (now four ethnic to seven whites with Rapunzel and Merida getting in too). They originally had Esmerelda in there too but dropped her for some reason.
It annoys me so much how they removed Esmeralda (and did they ever even include Meg?), I guess just because her movie wasn't as popular. She's a great character, brings more diversity to the franchise and isn't any less of a princess than Mulan (they both marry military men, not princes).
I've heard some people speculate that it's because she was a more risque character, since she did a "pole dance." But Jasmine tried to seduce a guy decades older than her wearing a bikini top -- that's pretty risque, too.
If it's just about popularity, can't they just make less Esmeralda merchandise without cutting her from the franchise altogether? For example, there are some DP toys I see that don't have Pocahontas or Mulan (the other less popular princesses), but other lines do have them. Or, they're just very hard to find, aka, they don't make many of them; similarly, almost all of the merchandise with a smattering of princesses has at least Belle, Ariel or Cinderella (arguably the three most popular), but not necessarily Jasmine, Aurora, etc.
No,since the Kingdom Hearts games are canon Pocahontas don't appear as a princess
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Perhaps it's because Esmerelda doesn't have a defined ethnicity and her movie wasn't as iconic as some of the others. It's a cult hit, but she's not as recognisable a character as Aurora, Belle, Ariel etc. She appears to be Romani but that's not a demographic one can market to. She also doesn't have that much finery, which is why Pocahontas often finds herself left out of the marketing.