some HOT disney princess takes that you'll hate or love but i fully stand by regardless. lets discuss~
singing/having a powerful voice is aurora's thing, not ariel's! ariel misses her concert in the beginning of the film, struggles with using her auditory voice to effectively communicate, and even gives it up to turn human. it means little/nothing to her and i think people just attribute singing to her, the same way sebastian and her father do, because it's a plot point in her movie meanwhile if ariel knew you all irl she would not be doing sing alongs like that. on the contrary, aurora is literally blessed with the SUPERNATURAL gift of song from birth by a magical fairy, uses it to express herself, and famously sings more than she speaks. so much of aurora's identity is tied into her song and i really think, if there was a singer or someone who owns the "voice" among the princesses, it should be aurora- besides, have you literally ever heard of a more divinely ethereal but also epic and powerful voice than mary costa's??? like don't get me wrong, jodi benson ATE but also after jodi, all the princesses more or less have a similar broadway sound but like no one else can do what aurora did
snow white should be the leader of the princesses. i love cinderella, i do, but snow white was literally the first and imo is the most groundbreaking female character, animated or not, of ALL TIME and she deserves her flowers. also, i think people are FINALLY coming around to see cinderella's value after years of "cinderella ate my daughter" weird misogyny masquerading around as feminism criticisms and i think a lot of that is centered around cinderella being an abuse victim and that's what's warming a lot of people to her...which i love, really i do. but snow white was also abused and, in her film, makes it a point to end the cycle of abuse. she was even the victim of a murder attempt, after which she continues to pick herself up and find shelter and work for her keep, and that gets lost so much and i think, whereas cinderella's dreams center around happiness, snow white singing of the fact that she's dreaming of the nice things someone would say to her and the way she needs grumpy to like her makes so much sense given her background and i literally never EVER see anyone discussing abuse when it comes to snow white. i think if people started talking her character more seriously and analyzing and appreciating it the way y'all do elsa, we would be saved from the heinously bad takes that get attributed to her (see: rachel zegler. that girl has not said ONE valid thing about snow white and her views are so embarrassingly stamped by pseudo online activism from the early 2000s by users that, not only don't realize how dumb they are but also think they're smarter than everyone else because they dabble in armchair psychology, and it's enough)
ariel collecting isn't leaned into as much as it should be tbh (and i'm talking as a serious pastime, not a parody of her never understanding human things that's contingent on her being a mermaid or being totally ignorant to humans)!!! like we get it, belle reads, but i think ariel collecting as a hobby is so much more interesting and well-rounded and nuanced. like, first of all, ariel collecting doesn't eliminate other hobbies, but actually promotes them! like she has books in her grotto, and we see her reading in poyw, but that's not the ONLY thing to her! she probably picks up on so many tiny details about like historical time periods or climates or dress patterns in a way that heightens life and reality and bridges people together because of all the studying she does and it's just soooo interesting to me, as we see things like the historical community evolve on tiktok and people who are fascinated with studying other cultures and the evolution of fandom in general, etc. also, i get this might be super super hot of a take but i think jodi performs certain songs better than she does part of your world...like i do love the song and i think it's more than worthy of being ariel's character's theme song but there's definitely some other bops in there that are just as good, if not better
belle should have a sequel where she gets to be unlikable for a change! even when she is unlikable in the film, it's never perceived as a character fault and linda woolverton's writing/the other characters in the film just blind hero worship and idolize belle and it's creepy tbh and i think it robs her of being a fully realized person that's treated like other people and can build human connections! like, everyone thinks she's stunning and wants a piece of her and never really takes her to task about her character flaws or even mentally challenges her and i think that's why she's so depressed? people only view her as being ultra desirable, whether it's the castle objects seeing her as a beautiful girl that can fall in love with the beast to the point where they ignore the really shady stuff she does, or gaston thinking she's the most beautiful girl in town and wanting to marry her, or even her fans thinking she's the smartest female character who ever breathed and is incapable of flaws. i think if we treated belle more as a person, maybe she could also have an arc in her movie and it wouldn't just be about the beast! also i think it'd be refreshing and we'd allow women to be people, too, and not this "smartest girl in town, but modest about it, prettiest girl in town, but unaware of it, loyal to her father but still stands up for herself, etc etc etc" unrealistic model. belle deserves EQUALS not just admirers who will never measure up to this pedestal they put her on
cinderella 1950 and cinderella 2015 are not interchangeable as characters or films!!! kenneth and lily did a HORRIBLE job at interpreting ilene woods's cinderella and the changes they made are shameful and the original character had so much more strength and realism to her, but in her own feminine way, and lily's character was a giant step back and is the epitome of making loud changes that result to NOTHING. the way the entire 2015 cast badmouthed cinderella 1950 on their press tour has always sat uncomfortably with me and so many people prefer it over the original one i just. also, cinderella looks best in pink! i LOVE aurora in pink, and we're omitting silver because that IS cinderella's color and nothing compares, but i just think she's so vibrant and cute in her pink dress and i love her with her hair down and it's just so much more fun and human and it doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should
they desperately need to age the content/demographics of the franchise up, like ngl them turning these women (and yes, i think they're women not little girls and the point of their movies is them BECOMING women) into like little nursery crib characters for babies and infantilizing them is creepy. also a HUGE segment of the fanbase is an adult one, like fans of the disney renaissance ladies are typically in the 20s-40s, not four year old's, and i just think disney is doing themselves a disservice by largely ignoring all the adult fans who collect these characters and make artwork for them and keep the princesses in vogue by writing about them and making social media content about them. like the avengers can really tap into their fanbase like that, meanwhile the best us princess fans have are like 8 dollar playline dolls?!?! where is our movie!!! where is our CONTENT. the 2003 princess party dvds will no longer suffice!
