Sunlight-Colored Roses

I’m thinking about what the concept of “princess” means. The word “princess” can take a negative connotation, referring to a person who may be childish or materialistic. An adult woman who wear a tiara or desires fine jewelry could be called a princess. There are also “princess” parties for little girls: pink tea cakes, feather boas and plastic crowns.

When I was in college, I realized that fairy tales can be profound, powerful and representative of real life experiences. My creative writing professor recommended that I read Angela Carter’s renditions of classic fairy tales, and I took in Carter’s short story collection The Bloody Chamber. This exposure to a different face of fairy tales opened me up to a new way to think and write about my life experiences.

I also found sites online about fairy tale heroines, such as Kay Vandergrift’s Snow White and SurLaLune Fairy Tales, which deepened my understanding of their roles and what they expressed about a woman’s journey. My inspiration heightened when I realized how compatible these more traditional versions of fairy tales were with the gothic in literature, which was a great interest of mine at the time.

Later, also through the Internet, I discovered Japanese alternative fashions, which had developed from the fashion district around Harajuku Station. Fashions like gothic lolita or dolly kei revealed yet another kind of princess image. Young women dressed in confection-like dresses, often in pastel colors, and with a Rococo or Victorian influence. The lolita fad seemed like another creative way for me to explore the idea of the princess persona.

There are similarities among most “classic” princesses, which are emphasized in Disney fairy tale movies. The princesses wear plain clothing and work like servants, subjugated by other women who are vain and proud. The princesses connect to animals, the natural world, books, and believe in their dreams. When I was a child, I loved and repeatedly sang the song “In My Own Little Corner” performed by Lesley Ann Warren in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s (1965) “Cinderella.”

I was thinking about these “classic” princesses more recently, because princesses, if they are portrayed in a contemporary context, now wear armor and fight in battles. To be honest, it is hard for me to relate to that kind of heroine. I find femininity legitimate and powerful in its own right, and sensitivity to be a great gift to share with others. I have felt inspired and validated in my opinions by many thought-provoking posts by saferincages about Snow White and Star Wars heroine Padme Amidala.

One reservation I have about more recent re-hashes of old fairy tale heroines is that the stories essentially reflected the challenges of girls’ sexual development into women. Just because the movies are re-written to reflect more “positive” role models who present “girl power” doesn’t mean that the older stories served no purpose; they actually represented how women struggled to orient themselves in a patriarchal world. Many of those older stories seem politically incorrect, or even graphic and inappropriate, because they come from subconscious conceptions and desires which have not been sanitized by our conscious minds. Stories that are invented consciously are a very different kind of stories, in my opinion.

Links

Kay Vandergrift’s Snow White: archived copy of Kay Vandergrift’s collection of Snow White stories and criticism

SurLaLune Fairy Tales: versions and criticism of many fairy tales from around the world