The age of insufferable Disney princesses...

I need to know when this is going to stop hey welcome back to hell and as per usual before we launch in today's video is sponsored by cultivate now we are very obviously living through the time of endless remakes and with that in mind I am sure that most of you if not all of you have come into contact at this point with something relating to the new snow white film that is dropping in 2024 whether it's the bizarre images of these Seven Dwarves hairy scary and SSRI dependency actually apparently these guys are known in the film as not dwarves but magical creatures because uh Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage who was literally selected for his role because of his stature through a fit about dwarves being in caves or something no no that is uh that's not a joke I'm still making that what the are you doing man you know have I have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox the Snow White dwarves don't even live in a cave work in a cave assuming at this point the majority of you have probably come into contact with the now viral clips of The Snow White remakes Leading Lady Rachel Ziegler making not wonderful comments about the original film I mean you know the original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so um there is a big focus on her love story um with a guy who literally stalks her weird weird so we didn't do that this time no so no Prince or a different kind of Prince we have a different approach to what I'm sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because like we cast a guy in the movie Andrew burn up great dude um it's uh it's one of those things that I think everyone's gonna have their assumptions about what it's actually going to be but uh it's really not about the love story at all which is really really wonderful and whether or not she finds love along the way is anybody's guess until 2024 um all of Andrew scenes could get cut who knows it's Hollywood baby no really I hate it here sometimes I can't tell if I've actually just transformed into a grandpa with a walking stick getting mad at these children for saying stupid things on my lawn or if these people are actually deranged it's hard to tell did you hear me I said get off my lawn all of this of course has culminated in people feeling very upset over Ziegler's comments and her General attitude to the point where even gen Z is taking to social media to Mock and make fun of her I literally hate the movie I think it's absolutely garbage are you talking about something else no I'm talking about Snow White the funny thing is I only watched like two minutes of the cartoon 20 years ago and I ended up taking a hammer and breaking my TV because I thought it was so awful so does she have a love interest in this movie oh no this is in 1937 and we're not in a Taylor Swift Love Song there is no love story she's an independent female lead she ends up joining a pyramid scheme and she becomes the world's biggest girl boss you know every time I feel like I just want to discriminate against gen Z some of them do things that make me think maybe there's hope the Fallout from Ziegler's behavior and comments has been so bad that the Daily Mail even ran an article saying that the backlash could ruin the 2024 Snow White remake honestly Disney doesn't really need backlash Sharon in one of its films it's doing that pretty successfully on its own anyway seeing all of the feedback and commentary particularly online in relation to the Snow White remake as well as basically every other remake that's been churned out by Disney at this point it got me thinking about the way that actresses approach the portrayal of Disney Princesses and the way that writers and directors and Studios today and even the actresses themselves seem to completely misunderstand these characters I mean on one hand you have actresses like Ziegler who seem to genuinely dislike the princess they are playing and on the other hand you have Studios attempting to modernize the messaging and turn these princesses into feminist girl bosses who will save themselves but ironically even though these feminist retellings and remakes are designed to be empowering for women and girls they ultimately end up denying a female character range depth and personality by swapping out one limiting Trope they don't like for another limiting Trope that they do to be clear all these remakes are doing is replacing a perceived Damsel in Distress Trope with an equally as limiting and one-dimensional girl boss Trope so that's what we're going to talk about today the girl bossification of Disney Princesses the overall misunderstanding of the original story lines and characters and once again the failure of feminist Hollywood when it comes to contemporary remakes and of course yes let me add all of my normal disclaimers this is by no means an exhaustive video there's obviously a lot to this topic and I definitely won't get to all of it so if you feel like parts of this are not as well fleshed out as they might normally be just note that it's because um this video is already going to be really long and and I just you know we have things to do but before you once again board my hell Gondola and together we wish that things worked the way that they are let's hear from today's sponsor cultivate I see you're doing another Amazon shop I just want to buy a face roller for my my puffiness I see you also have a drink bottle in your cart yeah that's for working out I uh I do that now Sydney what if I told you that more than 50 percent of U.S Amazon sellers are based in China which is fine if you live in China but not so fine if you're overpaying for cheap items so Sydney you can take the blue pill and go about your normal shopping experience never knowing what you're missing or you can take the red pill and download cultivate and do shopping properly cultivate is a completely free browser extension that shows you where a seller is from and the origin of their product it also shows you cheaper prices on the same or similar items for example for my puffiness I've been looking at this here ice roller but I can see that it is made in China cultivate not only gives me cheaper alternatives but if I wanted to pick up a roller today it gives me local options too you bear in mind too that's cultivate alternatives are on average 30 percent less expensive than Amazon products which means that I can be both hydrated and not puffy and save myself dull hairs so if you two want to take the cultivate pill then click the link in the description or head over to wecultivate.us Sydney Watson or scan the QR code on screen to download cultivate for free today in late 2018 actress Keira Knightley appeared on the television show Ellen during her interview she expressed that her three-year-old daughter was banned from seeing particular Disney films when asked what those films are nightly listed them off as Cinderella and the Little Mermaid for a lot of people particularly those of us who grew up watching these movies it is somewhat unclear what is so egregious about them that a mother would outright ban them in her household but for nightly it appears their messaging is the issue she explained that Cinderella waits around for a rich man to save her when she should have saved herself and the Little Mermaid Ariel gives up her voice for a man which again she shouldn't have done you know yes I think I'm very aware of what I'm marinating my child in so there's a couple of like stories just seem wise that I'm not I'm not cool with it's like no it's not cool to like wait for a rich guy to save you like save yourself but no it is never cool for any man that you don't know to kiss you in your sleep without consent not okay no never give your voice up for a man absolutely not not okay believe it or not this is actually a sentiment that has been long expressed even being echoed in recent years by other actresses Idina Menzel from Disney's live action film Enchanted and singer Demi Lovato both made similar comments about The Little Mermaid the women expressed to stay in for Ariel giving up her voice for Prince Eric she wasn't some little hoe mermaid that married a guy when she was 16 that she never had a conversation with even Meryl Streep during her speech at the national board of review Gala in 2014 went as far as to attack quote Disney directly calling him a gender bigot for both his treatment and portrayal of women she specifically pointed to a letter sent to a young female applicant in 1938 that said women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing cartoons for the screen as that task is performed entirely by young men for this reason girls are not considered for the training school from top to bottom today's celebrities and actresses seem to have all sorts of opinions about Disney's portrayal of princesses women and even the behavior of early animation houses and while some of this criticism is fair and accurate the majority of it is extremely negative with the most common gripe being that early Disney princesses are empty vessels void of Personality who are entirely motivated by their romantic interests because it's just so horrible to be motivated by love because it's not like people have been doing that for all of recorded human history in recent years people have continued to criticize early Disney films for their overall messaging the lack of agency given to female characters and a host of other critiques for Ariel the attitude is that she gave her voice up for a man for Sleeping Beauty she is asleep the whole time and is kissed without her consent and for Snow White she also got kissed without her consent I don't know so with all of these negative Perceptions in mind it's understandable why today's young actresses seem too low that the characters they're set to play and are thrilled to change up the themes that they absolutely can't stand you said you were bringing a Modern Edge to it on stage what do you mean by that I just mean that it's no longer 1937 and we absolutely wrote a snow white that is not going to be saved by the prince he's not gonna be saved for The Prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true love she's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was Fearless Fair Brave and true and so it's just a really incredible story for I think young people everywhere to see themselves in Snow White is running for president I'm launching my campaign I was scared of the original cartoon I think I watched it once and then I never picked it up again like I'm being so serious I watched it once and then I went on the ride in Disney World which was called Snow White scary adventures doesn't sound like something a little kid would like was terrified of it never Revisited Snow White again so I watched it for the first time in probably 16 17 years when I was doing this film now of course and as expected I have a few problems with all of this first and foremost I have to mention that most modern critiques of Disney's earliest Princess films ignore the nuances of the time periods in which these films were first released Snow White first premiered in 1937. towards the end of the Great Depression the Great Depression which started in 1929 is widely considered one of the harshest periods of time since World War One people around the world were experiencing terrible economic hardship and poverty and 1930s women in greater and greater numbers entered the workforce taking up jobs in Industries less impacted by the stock market and performing in roles largely considered women's work like typing and whatnot and canning I feel like someone was doing canning it was against this backdrop that Studios began creating stories that explored characters beating the odds and overcoming adversity main characters triumphed and audiences loved it in reality it afforded them a level of escapism from the gloominess of their everyday lives so for Snow White some have argued that her story was not an attempt to tell women that their place was in the home but rather she served as a reminder of a simpler less painful time art historian Carmenita Higginbotham which is just a great name even argued that Snow White exemplified the quintessential 1930s woman in both her look and behavior she said that Snow White isn't a revolutionary character but she is Spirited using her skills and traits to the best of her abilities and frankly this is an assessment that I overall agree with if you consider this film in the context of the Great Depression it even makes sense why a young woman working hard every day would dream of a man whisking her away a to a happier place where she doesn't have to do any more can it would you please stop with that but regardless of individual interpretation it's pretty clear that Snow White's story fit with the time period and made sense to viewers this also applies to other widely criticized princesses such as Cinderella Cinderella was released in 1950 after the second world war and while her story wasn't so much one of escapism like Snow White it debuted after yet another turbulent period of time where many men had returned from war broken and people were trying to find a way to rebuild Cinderella was a tale of overcoming the odds and succeeding after being downtrodden by Wicked people around her while audiences watching Snow White wanted to reminisce on better times those watching Cinderella had also overcome hardship and just like the film's leading lady were determined to take control of their lives heal and move forward towards better things I think there is also a degree of opulence in Cinderella that's most likely spoke to the spending power of young adults at the time post-world War II kicked off America's golden age of consumerism and what better way to speak to that than a beautiful princess in a beautiful gown not to mention Cinderella's dress was even based on contemporary fashion at the time and one has to assume that inspired future women to emulate her appearance and dress now in my research I did notice that people were pretty hard on the 1959 Sleeping Beauty film that bombed with audiences because apparently it didn't fit with the time period and listen maybe that is true but in my opinion I think the film gets such a bad rap because everyone views it as a princess film when I'm not so sure that's actually what it is Aurora doesn't get much screen time and the film instead is pushed forward by Prince Philip the three fairies and Maleficent actually you could even argue that Sleeping Beauty is about the three good fairies given that they try to prevent Aurora's curse Rey her help The Prince and play a role in defeating Maleficent I don't really think that's what 1959 Disney was going for but that's what they achieved and honestly I think that's pretty cool a story that basically highlights three older female characters who end up playing an integral role in Saving everyone good stuff now with all of that in mind it is worth remembering that Disney itself has tried to advance its Princess films to keep with changing attitudes and times and in doing so gave us the Little Mermaid Beauty and the Beast Mulan and so on audiences and their attitudes were changing and Disney tried to keep up with that but the key difference between Disney then and Disney now is that although it was making changes to its storytelling formula in order to meet the expectations of contemporary audiences it wasn't advertising these changes and they certainly weren't so heavy-handed that they distracted from good storytelling they subverted all of us and I liked it funnily enough Disney's ability to adapt is what has given us some of the most memorable and beloved films to date Linda Wolverton the writer of the 1991 Beauty and the Beast said in an interview that she knew she had to do something different with Belle's story women of the 90s had different values to women in the 30s and those changes needed to be represented so when they brought me in to write beauty I thought oh now here's my opportunity to change the perception of the Disney victim heroine which had always bugged me um because I you know not there's anything wrong with all the Disney heroines that came before princesses because they were they were products of their time but times had changed and I really didn't think that that women and girls were gonna buy it that she was going to be a victim like the like the fairy tale you know has it so um I was subversive I didn't tell them my agenda I have never told them my agenda and I always had the agenda so with with Belle you know she had to be an intellectual she had to not be about her beauty you know she had to be the the proactive one who went out to she exchanged herself or her Father which is upside down and backwards because he's the old person she's a young person but she was going to save his life she could see past uh services to what what lies within she could see that he was something more than what he appeared to be she could see Gaston was something more than what he appeared to be while Wolverton obviously has a lot of strong emotions towards her experiences working at Disney and writing many films for the company she did insert her agenda into Beauty and the Beast and the film was a hit the difference is there was subtlety in that agenda and great storytelling that has continued to impress audiences and as far as I'm concerned Belle's character is a great one but somewhere along the road something changed Disney continued to expand its storytelling but quiet meaningful changes made by someone like Wolverton evolved into bombarding audiences with loud social messaging rather than fostering appreciation for Disney's beloved characters they're great stories and personalities and subsequently honoring these aspects through remakes with thoughtful tweaks for contemporary audiences the prevailing Trend often involves a reoccurring emphasis on their transform nation into girl bosses and this brings me to my second point about the girl bossification and there are a few things here at play for starters at this point it's pretty clear that directors and writers and even the actresses themselves don't understand or appreciate the characters they're trying to represent and really how could they when they seem to exclusively view these characters through the lens of a victim who acquiesces to a man because there's only one thing worse than men oh yeah what's that equanessing to one in the case of Snow White and once again returning to Ziegler's comments the fact that she devalues the importance of Snow's love interest goes to show how little understanding she has for this film and the people who it was for so with this in mind some Modern remakes attempt to save these female characters from this victimy fate and instead shove them into the girl boss box girl boss box girl boss box hmm here the emphasis is placed on the princess being able to save herself and achieve her goals without the assistance of anyone and importantly the prince is sidelined or he becomes the Damsel in Distress in some way requiring the help of his leading lady or they do like Mulan and remove him completely you guys know how I feel about the loss of Shang I have explained this I will defeat the Huns with you this is actually something that we see a lot of in film and television today and it's something I covered in great detail in my feminist Hollywood Video in an effort to shake off the perceived messaging of classic Disney Princess films were taken from one extreme to the other either these women are viewed as victims or their girl bosses with nothing in between and as per usual this doesn't leave a lot of room for Meaningful storytelling or the creation of a deep relatable character and what's just genuinely hilarious to me about all of this is that these modern retellings still manage to oversimplify the multi-faceted personnel abilities of these characters and their story lines what's sad is that by comparison many of Disney's original voice actresses and writers have a completely different view of things to this day they speak about these princesses with respect and understanding Eileen Woods the voice of 1950s Cinderella said that someone once remarked to her that Cinderella was not a character a women's Liberation would like because she really needed a man in her life would strongly disagreed saying that Cinderella wasn't concerned with the prince she wanted to go to the Bowl someone said to me once uh I don't know Cinderella women's lib they wouldn't really like Cinderella I mean she really needed a man in her life to get along and I said you're wrong she wanted to go to the ball she didn't really the prince had seen her but she had not seen the prince she didn't wasn't going to marry the prince she wanted really mostly to go to the ball and have a good time she even left at midnight and left the prince so I said I don't think she was really the main aim in her going to the ball was to get the prince I think it was to have a wonderful time and and it was like a dream come true for her the way she lived women like Keira Knightley reduced this character down to an opportunistic creature who wants the prince to save her but watching this film over she's so grateful to her fairy godmother to even be allowed out at all and when she enters the ballroom she doesn't even notice the prince she's so taken with the beauty of everything around her she's just happy to finally be more than a girl in rags and that really translates when you watch this as an adult and somehow this message gets lost because she isn't the perfect representation of a badass girl boss just a minute you must understand my dear on the stroke of 12 the spell will be broken and everything will be as in was before oh I understand but it's more than I ever hoped for the little mermaid's voice actress Jody Benson expressed similar Sentiments of admiration for Ariel in an interview she said that the character wasn't motivated by Prince Eric she wanted to be human and experience the world first and happened to fall in love along the way you've never seen anything so wonderful in your entire life it's uh not often that we have such a lovely contrast this with the actresses in modern remakes like Emma Watson in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast and Halle Bailey I can't say that Hallie Bailey in the 2023 Little Mermaid who both insists that they added greater feminism to their respective princesses bayley said in an interview we've definitely changed that perspective of her just wanting to leave the ocean for a boy it's way bigger than that she's about herself her purpose her Freedom her life and what she wants when we saw it when we were younger she gave up everything for the guy but I don't think that reflects modern women today so now it's more about Ariel finding freedom for herself because of this world that she she's obsessed with Prince Eric is a cherry on top but it's not all about him the thing is it was never all about him we even knew this when we watched this movie as children no joke I dead set watched all of the original films and their remakes so I could properly make this video and the one thing that stood out to me is I was just like I'm not I'm not seeing what the actresses are seeing but I am seeing daddy Triton and adult Sydney is appreciating what child Sydney could not but seriously it's ironic to me that some of these modern remakes like Mulan and Beauty and the Beast and the Little Mermaid are trying to sell a story of female empowerment with a Disney princess who more or less already did that in their original movie to illustrate this once again in an interview about the 2017 Beauty and the Beast film Emma Watson made comments about how Belle's character has more of a feminist Edge which is hilarious when you consider that Linda Wolverton who wrote the original Beauty and the Beast film already did this deliberately she admitted to it feminist Belle um could you tell us a bit about how her character's been developed it was just kind of like filling in a bit of her backstory and and seeing if I'm having a few more moments where she interacts with the town where she lives before she goes to the classes me Beast and we have a couple of scenes where she's trying to teach a girl in the village how to read and it's sort of really looked down upon there's a really kind of like anti-intellectual um feeling within the village that reading isn't for girls and shouldn't be allowed for girls and going to school shouldn't be allowed for girls which which we still see the world over there's this very Progressive defiant Bell that clearly wants to empower herself and to empower other girls that she sees living where she lives and she wants more for them than just to marry the Village Guest on in another interview Watson said that the townsfolk in Belle's Village View her intelligence as a threat Bell herself is an inventor in the 2017 retelling and creates a washing machine that will free little girls from their chores and allow them to go to school the towns people smash up her invention Watson said breaking the washing machine is symbolic of not just them breaking something she spent hours working on but them really just trying to break her spirit and trying to push her and mold her into a more acceptable version of herself while I will say that all of this was pretty unnecessary and overall a little bit annoying the 2017 Beauty and the Beast film was not as egregious as some of the other remakes to which we've been exposed and I do have to make note of the fact that it didn't bash the Beast bash the Beast it didn't attack and denigrate the male love interest like so many remakes tend to do and that is something that I am definitely grateful for and something that made it more watchable than some of these other remakes and this brings me to my third point or maybe my additional point to the last point I don't I don't really know anymore the princes and their value or lack thereof in the world of girl bossification girl boss remakes fundamentally misunderstand the meaning fullness of romance and other relationships between characters in modern films where things are a girl bossified none of the characters play to each other's strengths which means that there's basically no need for the three good fairies or the Fairy Godmother or Prince Eric or Prince Philip or literally any other male in these films because the girl boss princess can do it all in the original films sure there might have been a taboo Trope here and there but ultimately the characters demonstrated a perfect Form and Function this is something that actresses like Ziegler don't seem to understand when they portray their princesses as shallow damsels in distress waiting around to be saved in reality Snow White was an empathetic hard-working and enduring young woman who escaped being murdered and found a family where she least expected it yes she sings about finding true love and is ultimately saved by the prince but in a way it is his character that is almost one-dimensional and shallow because that is literally all he is there for to love her and to save her she on the other hand and is there to do so much more but both of these characters work in Harmony and complement each other just like the dwarves complemented each other and Snow White each character lacks something while there is another there to bounce that out and fill that void that is almost the enduring charm of a classic tale everything fits together like a puzzle when you take that away and you turn Snow White into this all-in-one girl boss who can save herself and fix everything all at the same time what are we even watching anymore what is the point of this movie it almost feels like any adversarial condition she might encounter are just a way to shoehorn in all the cool stuff she can do and play pretend that there is actually a plot line here at all even many action movies where you can fully expect to see some actual badassery feature a protagonist having to be saved either from themselves or from something else something to give them Dimension and show that they actually have flaws that they must overcome but this isn't an action movie it's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves not John Wick and the Seven Dwarves and if we are having to look at a classic fairy tale through the lens of an action film to try and make it make sense because writers are so intent on the main character being a girl boss badass something is already wrong I honestly think this is part of why so many people are turning on these movies when you go and see a Disney film you expect and want to see something that is beautiful and romantic and thrilling and endearing if we wanted to see a Superhero Movie we would go and see a superhero movie but the fact that we have bought a ticket to or even downloaded a Disney fairy tale film that already means something in our heads it's like being gaslit for two hours after you paid 50 for popcorn but even in saying all of that whatever valid criticisms may have existed about romance in Disney's earlier films Disney actually listened and took that on board which is why these films have continued to evolve they've gotten longer the relationships between the male and female characters have been better explored and they've become a lot deeper over the years Ariel's relationship with Eric isn't a one and done like so many people seem to think lots of the film shows them getting to know one another and he's almost used as a vessel to introduce Ariel to the human world that thrilled her so much to begin with even the parts where Ursula explains that Ariel must make Eric fall in love with her she seems more excited about the prospect of having legs and being a human than getting the man reducing all of this down to a girl giving up her voice for a man is such a fundamental problem with the way many people today view relationships and the way those relationships are explored on screen and honestly falling in love or having meaningful romantic relationships is probably something that most people want to do and when a woman is sitting down to watch a Disney film a Disney remake she's probably not wanting to watch The Little Wolf of Wall Street modern women still want to be swept off their feet I don't think that has changed in 100 years so finally in summary I have always said that there will always be room for Meaningful changes and interpretation when it comes to retellings and remakes and Disney over the years has demonstrated its ability to grow and change with the times however what it's doing right now feels like an enormous step backwards in an effort to be socially Progressive Disney is adding an additional feminist element to characters who were never damsels in distress to begin with and the funny thing is the girl bossification of these characters removes their agency and personality more than any Damsel in Distress Trope ever could not to mention it minimizes the importance of relationships and the Timeless human desire for connection companionship and love at this point it's pretty clear that Disney will prioritize its profits over actually creating meaningful films which is why to date the majority of its princess remakes are half-baked attempts at 4 sing shallow performative girl boss feminism down everyone's throats in the end the more we are smacked over the head with girl boss messaging the less relatable these characters become and sadly the further away they get from what made their story so meaningful and memorable in the first place now on that note and before I open the floor to all of you this is just a reminder to check out cultivate using the link in the description or you can scan the QR code on screen and download cultivate for free today now open the floor to all of you what you all think will you go and see the new Snow White remake have you kind of gotten turned off on these Disney remakes because of their messaging do you think that the 2024 Snow White is going to bomb because they're trying to force this girl boss thing onto everybody what you make of the girl boss messaging do you think it's necessary do you think it's unnecessary do you think that it's just growing and changing with the time as Disney has done for years and years and years what do you make of the historical element to the films of early Disney creations and animations do you think it's relevant do you think it's not relevant and what do you generally make of this issue overall as always if you have made it this far in the video congratulations this was a long one if you are not subscribed already and you want to be hit the button if you want to leave me a thumbs up also hit that button and leave me a comment because I do love reading them I read the majority of them and I really appreciate hearing your feedback and on that front guys I will see you in the next video stay safe and well

Channel: Sydney Watson

Views: 1,124,177

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Id: OW5uSVyc6Qc

Length: 32min 33sec (1953 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2023