Analysis Of The Prince Is The Only Possibility: Subtextual Princess

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Prince is the Only Possibility: Subtextual Princess Representations
Most women in their childhood had probably dreamt of being a princess and meeting their charming prince. As Walt Disney’s figures have been influential in this sense, the ideal portrayal of princesses still attracts young girls who imitate them, their lifestyle and their physical appearance. In Sleeping Beauty (1959) and in The Little Mermaid (1989) the narration is focused on the search for true love, personified by a prince, for self-accomplishment. It is crucial to differentiate the representation of femininity of the two protagonists in the two movies to better understand if the role of Princesses has changed over those last thirty years. The main figures in both movies …show more content…

Disney empowers both male leads, in Sleeping Beauty Prince Philip is already in Aurora’s dreams so the narration is telling us that Aurora is also giving much importance to him. This empowerment of the male is reinforced in The Little Mermaid where the prince is “waiting” for Ariel to adapt to the human life. Because Ariel is in love with Eric, she wants and admires him so much that the prince becomes almost the primary subject of the film and the main goal and final object. In the movies, the songs are really different: Disney chose an old song for Sleeping Beauty from the musician Tchaikovsky of the 19th century which conveys a classical representation of love where the soundtrack establishes a formal separation between the prince and the princess. However, the songs in The Little Mermaid are created just for the movie, they are lively sounds and easy and funny lyrics that children may memorize very quickly, and this is what makes The Little Mermaid to be a current feature film still in 2015 while the song of Sleeping Beauty remains just an old melody that needs to be recreated if we want to keep the myth

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