Fallen Princesses

Rapunzel II by Dina Goldstein

Every story can have a happy ending; it’s all a matter of when you stop writing*.

Dina Goldstein has created a photo project which envisions alternate and continuing stories for some of our favorite princesses. She writes:

I explored the original brothers Grimm’s stories and found that they have very dark and sometimes gruesome aspects, many of which were changed by Disney. I began to imagine Disney’s perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

The full essay and photos (so far) can be found at JPG Magazine. Hat tips to Mr. Broke Hoedown for sending me the link, and to The Disney Blog (who rightly praised the Rapunzel above).

* I wish I could remember who I’m paraphrasing here. Google isn’t my friend. If anybody knows the author, could you drop me a note?

NPR: Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees

Good lord, I love that headline so much I just had to repeat it. And now you simply must read the article! Here’s a snippet to entice you:

I have nothing against princesses. I have nothing against movies with princesses. But don’t the Disney princesses pretty much have us covered? If we had to wait for your thirteenth movie for you to make one with a girl at the center, couldn’t you have chosen something — something — for her to be that could compete with plucky robots and adventurous space toys?

Or more to the point, why couldn’t your first female central character be as specifically drawn as the women and girls (and girl robots, etc.) you’re already writing as secondary characters? Ratatouille has a chef! WALL-E has Eve! The Incredibles has superheroes!

And Up…oh, Up has Ellie, who I could have watched forever. Seen only in flashbacks to the main story, Ellie is warm and hilarious, ambitious and fearless, and then gone for most of the movie. She provides the engine for the story, in many ways, but it’s an old man and a little boy who actually get to hit the gas.

Hat tip: Feministing.

(And yes, I loved Up too.)