Did anyone else grow up watching Disney only to become an adult that didn’t understand the standards of love put forward in those movies?
Finally someone put those thoughts, questions, and understandable confusion into YouTube form — with a really catchy song to go with it.
The brothers of AVByte – yes, those same two responsible for last year’s Disney Princess Hipster video – played off of Frozen’s popularity and finally posed the questions to the princesses that we’ve all be begging someone to ask: Do you see what you gave up for your man?
“I’m who I am. I don’t need a man,” Elsa proclaims. It stands to note that her character in Frozen ends the movie without (gasp!) a love interest or potential suitor. In fact, we’re left to believe that she rules the kingdom on her own – and she’s OK with that!
“You got slipped a roofie,” she tells Snow White. Jasmine? “You fell for a cheat.” Cinderella “got really lucky that you’ve got tiny feet.”
“You’ve got Stockholm Syndrome, you’re a spoiled brat,” Elsa says as she skewers Belle and Aurora, respectively. And then Ariel. Oh, Ariel. “You had special talents but gave them up like that.”
The princesses immediately revert back to the excuse that Elsa doesn’t understand – she has yet to find her true love! But then…what about all of those dreams that they gave up? Belle remembers her dreams for daring quests, Ariel recalls her want to see the world. Instead, they stay stuck in this “princess stereotype.”
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The AVByte music video is not the first video we’ve seen recently that tells girls to push back on the girly, princess-y stereotypes applied to them. Small toy company GoldieBlox released several music videos telling girls that they are more than just the “pink aisle” and that they can engineer, invent, and create just as boys do.
Bravo, AVByte. I knew there was a reason I hadn’t given up on the Disney Princesses yet.
Ali Vitali is MS NOW's senior congressional correspondent and the host of "Way Too Early." She is the author of "Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet."