Whimsy Wednesday :: Disney princess merchandising for big girls

Remember how I was talking about gendered Disneyland?  Well, the absolute lack of satisfying princess merchandise that I could buy got me curious.  What Disney merchandise exists for grown-up girls?  By merchandise, I mean I’m undertaking to Google Shopping search for each of the princesses plus the words Disney, t-shirt, and women, then looking over the first page in curiosity.

Snow White: exactly eight of the shirts on the front page actually starred and/or featured Snow White herself, in animation; four starred and/or featured a dwarf, and two had the evil queen.  (Does Snow White’s queen have a name?  I just looked, and it said she was called Grimhilde in “some of the media,” but.)  One featured the phrase “Looking For Mr. Right” and nothing else but floral decoration.
Cinderella: exactly seven of the shirts on the front page actually starred and/or featured Cinderella herself, in animation.  Three had a carriage, three had shoes (one of which included the inscription “Princesses Must Have Shoes”).
Aurora: all of the Aurora t-shirts actually featured princesses (some of them were the wrong princess, but hey).  I particularly enjoyed this one, which made her look like Rainbow Brite:

Ariel: they all seemed to have Ariel on them, which is probably because Ariel’s name is not also the title of her canon.  They had a couple of tank tops with seashells over the boobs, which was… sort of odd, but okay.
Belle: twelve of the shirts on the front page actually featured Belle; multiple of them were not featuring cartoons at all, which was odd, because those hadn’t shown up on any of the other princesses.  I also note that there is ridiculous merchandise on Etsy like this:

Jasmine: all of these seemed to have princesses on them, though only six (more with duplicate listings) were of Jasmine by herself and not in a group.
Pocahontas: exactly one of these had Pocahontas on it.  And it was a shirt of her and Jasmine smoking a hookah.
Mulan: twelve of these had Mulan herself on them, so why weren’t any of them at Disneyland?
Tiana: five of these (more with duplicate listings, of which there were many) had Tiana herself, one of them had Tiana by herself and not in a group.  And most of them were for little girls, not adults.
Rapunzel: eight of these had Rapunzel herself.

And for my own purposes, I’m looking to see about

Sally: there are plenty of Sally t-shirts!  There’s the “true love” one that bothered me, and a “together forever” one too (which is silly; I mean, they didn’t even maybe get together until the end of the movie) but there are plenty of others, so why weren’t any of them at Disneyland?
Merida: there are exactly two t-shirts listed over and over.  And both are for girls, not women.

–your fangirl heroine.

 

Fictional Friday :: 6 more real life faces for more Disney princesses

The term “princess” being used loosely, and to define basically any Disney heroine.  (Anyway, the ones that aren’t properly royalty are often the most badass.  Mulan.  What.)

6. Alison Brie (Snow White, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)

Much like how I imagine Reese Witherspoon can speak to mice, I imagine Alison Brie can in fact understand birdsong and whatnot.  She’s just the cutest ever.

5. Elle Fanning (Alice, Alice in Wonderland)

We wanted an Alice who was actually close to Alice-age.  Because Mia Wasikowska was a rad grown-up Alice, but Alice isn’t grown up in the cartoon.  (Not that most of our other casting choices aren’t grown up, but Alice is younger than the others, so it works.  Okay?  Also, Elle would just be a fantastic Alice.)

4. Jennifer Hudson (Tiana, The Princess and the Frog)

She’s a good fit.  She’s triumphed over professional adversities and stuff, like Tiana.  She didn’t win American Idol, but she kept at it, and then she won an Oscar.  So.

3. Liza Lapira (Mulan, Mulan)

So technically, she’s part-Chinse, part-Filipino, part-Spanish, but I think she’s adorable, and I love her, and I think she could be a super badass.

2. Moon Bloodgood (Pocahontas, Pocahontas)

A lot of Hollywood actresses have some Native American heritage.  But a lot of the are the ones who look like Cameron Diaz, who have some, but it doesn’t count for much.  I’ve only seen Moon Bloodgood in the most recent Terminator, really, but she does have the most awesome name of all time, so that counts for something.

1. Lara Pulver (Meg, Hercules)

Meg is my favorite.  Meg is my girl.  We’d originally discussed Maggie Siff as Meg, which I thought would have been equally brilliant, but my friend said “OH!  What about the girl who’s Irene on Sherlock?”  I hadn’t yet watched this season (and I’ve only watched the first episode, so don’t spoil me, I don’t have a good excuse, but I haven’t got around to the other two yet, I’m a busy girl) so I made a mental note.  Then I watched it.  And I went holy hot damn.  Irene is also my girl.  It makes perfect sense.  (And I didn’t realize until right now that Lara Pulver also played Sookie’s fairy godmother on True Blood, so that’s irrelevant, but my mind is still a little blown.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Sarcastic Saturday :: the ever-popular analysis of (largely nonexistent) Disney parents

Disney parents have this wacky habit of not being present in the stories: sometimes they’re dead, sometimes they’re just not there and we can assume they’re dead.  I’m sure I’m not the first to make this list, but hey.  This can mean various things for the story, but it’s a crutch I find strange.  A lot of the fables rely on it, and it’s not bad or good, just odd.  I’m also only going to discuss the humanoid characters, because if I got into all the animals with dead parents, I’d be going on all night.

Snow White: her father’s dead, and she’s got a wicked stepmother.
Pinocchio: he’s a puppet, and therefore has no biological parents, but his “father” Geppetto doesn’t have a female counterpart.
Cinderella: her mother’s dead, her father marries an aristocrat lady to give her female influence, then her father dies and said lady turns out to be evil.  (Really, she and Snow White are exactly the same.)
Alice in Wonderland: well, Alice’s parents are never present in the film, but her big sister is.  Presumably the parents are alive, but they’re irrelevant.
Peter Pan: the Darlings are existent.  But the kids run away from them, so there’s that.  Also, Wendy has to play mommy.
Sleeping Beauty: her parents are present, but she’s comatose the entire time, so they’re not that relevant.  And in a way, the coma is almost their fault, since they didn’t invite Maleficent to the party and prompted the coma curse.
The Jungle Book: Mowgli is an orphan and is raised by jungle critters.
everything in the Winnie the Pooh franchise: where are Christopher Robin’s parents?
The Little Mermaid: where is Ariel’s mother?  Is that why King Triton is such a bitch?
Beauty and the Beast: where is Belle’s mother?  Is that why Maurice is such a scatterbrain?  And where are the Beast’s parents at all?
Aladdin: where is Jasmine’s mother?  Is that why the Sultan is such a weirdo?  And Aladdin’s an orphan.
Pocahontas: where is Pocahontas’ mother?  Is that why Chief Powhatan is such a bitch?
The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Quasimodo’s mommy was killed at the beginning and his adoptive dad is a bitch.
Hercules: he’s got birth parents and adoptive parents both.  So, good for him.
Mulan: she’s got parents and a grandmother too!  Even though she runs away from them.  But she does that to save China, so it’s okay.
Tarzan: his parents are killed by jungle critters.
The Emperor’s New Groove: he has no parents, period.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire: (I don’t even remember having seen this, but hey.  Wikipedia.)  The girl hasn’t got a father at all, and her mother dies.
Lilo and Stitch: Lilo and Nani have dead parents, and Nani is being the motherly big sister.  Basically like Buffy to Dawn, but way less cool.
Meet the Robinsons: Louis is at an orphanage, but he’s adopted at the end.
The Princess and the Frog: Tiana’s father is dead; Lottie’s mother is nonexistent.
Tangled: despite her birth parents both being alive, Rapunzel’s got a wicked stepmother.  So she’s got too many parents.

The grand tally: 4 evil stepparents, 10 dead parental pairs, 5 dead/nonexistent parents and single remaining parents, 2 nonexistent parental pairs, 5 present parental pairs.  That brings the total of at least partially nonexistent Disney animated human parents to 80%.

A lot of these films are based on pre-existing stories, so that really begs a deeper question.  What is it about dead or nonexistent parents that just screams children’s story?  Sometimes the girls without one or both parents need saving by an outside man figure, sometimes they can take care of themselves and just happen to fall in love in the mix.  The boys without parents all end up in love, too.  I guess everybody just needs someone?  Is that the message?

Are they just making their own families?  ‘Cause of course once they fall in love, they get married.  An interesting notion.

–your fangirl heroine.

Theatre Thursday :: that cast of Company that was filmed recently was pretty rad.

You know the one.  Or maybe you don’t, because you’re very likely not as nutty as me, but it was the one with Neil Patrick Harris as Bobby and Christina Hendricks as April and Patti LuPone as Joanne and Stephen Colbert as Harry and Martha Plimpton as Sarah and Anika Noni Rose as Marta and Jon Cryer as David and Aaron Lazar as Paul and Jill Paice as Susan and Jennifer Laura Thompson as Jenny and Katie Finneran as Amy and Chryssie Whitehead as Kathy and Jim Walton as Larry?

Okay.  I fully admit to hearing Neil Patrick Harris and Christina Hendricks and vowing to do whatever I had to to see the broadcast performance in theaters during its brief run last weekend, because his facial expressions make life and she is my favorite human being on the planet.  Then during the Tonys, there was that preview number, and I said “oh hey!  All sorts of other epic people!”  I especially geeked for Aaron Lazar, once of The Light in the Piazza, because I adore his heavenly voice to pieces.

Company isn’t my favorite musical, necessarily.  It’s very of its time, and that’s… not always a good thing.  It can also get a teensy bit heavy-handed in the wrong hands, a bit too angst-ridden and frustrating.  (Not that the angst isn’t great.  Raul Esparza’s should-have-been-Tony-winning Bobby in the 2007 revival was glorious.)  And I definitely have to be in a certain headspace for Sondheim.

But I was very not disappointed.  Neil Patrick Harris’ Bobby was less >:O and more :3 and that was refreshing.  Not better or worse, just different.  Chryssie Whitehead can dance, damn girl.  I mean, this is not surprising, as she is late of A Chorus Line (we missed her just barely when we saw the revival) but it was still well-highlighted.  Considering she was the girlfriend that got the Dance Break!  Anika Noni Rose, of Dreamgirls and The Princess and the Frog and other legit-er things, was good.  I didn’t get much a sense of character out of her (she was the ~wacky~ one?) but she belted well.

Of the married women, my favorite was Katie Finneran’s Amy.  She’s a two time Tony winner (for Noises Off and last year’s Promises Promises revival) but my favorite role of hers is as Nanny Maureen in You’ve Got Mail, just one of the reasons that I’m pretty sure after 2000 there were no lovable romantic comedies made.  “Getting Married Today” is probably one of the hardest theatre songs to really sing, and she did it really, really well.  (Counterpointed by Aaron Lazar’s glorious “todaaaay is for AAAAAAAAAMYYYYYYY”-ing.)

Patti LuPone was amusing.  I sort of loathe the character of Joanne, and as always spent the entirety of “The Ladies Who Lunch” alternately remembering back in that not-that-great movie Camp when a young Anna Kendrick sang that song and wondering how in the hell Bobby and Joanne became close friends.  But Patti did a good job.  (Though we were in a movie theater, some people still felt compelled to applaud for La LuPone, which was funny.)

Stephen Colbert can actually sort of pull it off.  Despite having a vaguely google-eyed look on his face the entire time.

But most importantly, my girl Christina.  Well, babygirl isn’t necessarily the strongest singer, though she was cute and clearly doing a “voice” (a cutesy voice really) and could hold her own, but she was dancing sharp and being adorable.  April is probably my favorite character of the women anyway, just because she has a lot of funny moments.  I love my girl Christina playing ditzy, I love her playing sexy, I love her playing serious-ish, I just love her.  And was gratified by having yet one more reason to love her added to my list.  (I’d been hoping this staging would be the one a la 2007 where the actors played instruments, if just because I love her accordion skills.  Even if accordions are the most useless instrument ever, outside of European House Hunters.)

In short: I’m satisfied.  It wasn’t the Best Ever, but it was very good.

–your fangirl heroine.