"Strong" Princesses?

I was never allowed to watch Disney Princess movies growing up. Not because my parents were worried about bad female role models, but because they couldn't see blowing a whole $1.50 per person to watch a cartoon (this was the 70's.)

So the first Disney Princess movie I saw was "The Little Mermaid" at the age of 18.

I was horrified.

Don't get me wrong - I was half horrified because I loved it - but it bears little resemblance to the original Hans Christian Anderson version. The whole point of the original story is that the Little Mermaid wanted to marry a human so she would get a soul and go to heaven when she died. Ariel wanted to give up her whole way of life at the age of 16 because this human prince was sooooooooooo cute.

In the original - the little mermaid's grandmother tells her that, while mermaids live for 1000 years, when they die they are dead forever. Humans have pathetic little life spans, but when they die they go to heaven because they have souls. If a mermaid marries a human man, she gets half his soul. So the Little Mermaid trades her voice to the sea witch (who is not evil, by the way) for legs and is told that if the prince marries someone else, she will turn into sea foam. Lo and behold, the prince chooses to marry someone who can talk.

The mermaid's sisters trade their hair to the sea witch for a dagger. The little mermaid is supposed to kill the prince and his new bride so she can turn back into a mermaid (Well, okay, when the blood splashes on her legs they will grow back together into a tail - just to be nice and gory)

The little mermaid can't bring herself to do it. At dawn she believes she will become sea foam - dead forever. Instead, as she flings herself into the sea, the little mermaid floats up to the sky and becomes a sky spirit.

As a sky spirit, she flits around doing good deeds for 1000 years and then gets to go to heaven. When she floats into a room and sees a bad child, she can't help but cry and for every tear she sheds an extra day is added to her time on earth. If she sees a good child, she smiles and for every smile a year is taken away from her time on earth.

So you'd better be good so the little mermaid can go to heaven........

I know, kind of depressing (Classic Hans Christian Anderson), but ever so much more "feminist" than the new one. No, really, think about it. A mermaid (girl) is told she will only be worth something if she marries a man. He turns her down and she thinks her life is over - but it's not. She proves herself worthy of a soul on her own.

In the new version of the Little Mermaid, the sea witch tells Ariel that she has got to get the prince to fall in love with her - "that is, he has to kiss you." She clarifies it by saying it has to be a special kiss - but come on... kiss (or more) = true love????

When the prince decides to marry someone else, Ariel just gives up. Until the seagull (male) finds out the prince is under a spell (well, it obviously has to be the other woman's fault, not the man's), then the crab (male), the fish (male) and the seagull get her out to the ship to stop the wedding. The sun goes down before they can kiss and the sea witch grabs Ariel, who then has to be saved by Prince Eric.

Very romantic, but bleaaaaaaaaaagh......