Is Prince Charming so Charming?

Angela Crocker debates how the movie industry manipulates young girls and affects how they see themselves in society.

In the movie industry there has always been this idea of the so called ‘Prince Charming’. It’s like this matter of life and death situation in which every woman NEEDS a knight in shining armour to gallop in and save the day! However, I can argue, in many ways, why women can rescue themselves. Although, the idea of having a handsome chap on your arm does sound quite appealing; this is the 21st century for Christ’s sake! Women are more than capable of being independent and do NOT need a man to protect them from a stereotypical villain.

Disney, a company that is globally known, influences billions of innocent minds, trapping them in this traditional, patriarchal ideology that takes feminism back a hundred years. Disney is very well-known for their idealistic films where each story HAS a prince who saves the damsel-in-distress every single time. This is very repetitive. The princess has some kind of danger lurking in her midst. Basically, she’s facing imminent doom. There’s pretty much nothing the princess can do but wait for true love’s first kiss. It’s the same theme throughout all Disney plotlines. Like, how relevant can a kiss be to save the princess after she was poisoned by an apple? Well done on that one Disney.

It would be hypocritical of me not to mention some of the newer more modern Disney movies which are a lot different to their older films. ‘Maleficent’, which is one of the most recent by Disney in the princess franchise, tells the story of ‘Maleficent’, a fairy who turned evil. Not to give any spoilers away on Princess Aurora’s outcome but, there was little to no Prince Charming action and I kind of loved it. However, the moment that idiot of a Prince came onto my screen, I lost all respect for Aurora’s character. She turned into a love-struck teen who swooned at the knees from one glimpse of muscles and long hair. I almost gagged. Disney however did save itself with the film’s ending because it avoided the whole ‘love-centric’ stereotypical storyline aspect of a fairy tale ending where you see the Prince and Princess get married and live happily ever after. Instead of a clichéd ending, we got a magnificent finish without disappointment.

Disney finally did the unthinkable when in ‘Frozen’, one of their biggest animations, Elsa, the queen, said, “You can’t marry someone you’ve just met”. This denies the notion of love-at –first-sight which is a first for Disney. I high-fived my screen and jumped for joy. I can’t believe Disney said this! There’s so much respect for her character finally saying what we, as the audience, have been thinking our whole Disney viewing lives. I guess it has to take some common sense from a queen to change the mind-set of a princess and thereby influence young girls.

I’m a personal believer in equality, yet movies today don’t portray equality in the way you would expect. For example when little girls watch a Disney film and say ‘Oh I want to be just like Princess Belle’; that’s not good! Little girls need to find their own identity and I don’t think the underlying concept of a matriarchal relationship is a positive desire for a young girl to want and hope for. Women today lack self-respect and maybe Disney is a partly to blame for that because up until now with some of the recent Disney Films (EG: ‘Frozen’, ‘Maleficent’ and ‘Brave’), Disney has reinforced patriarchal stereotypes and finally it seems like Disney are turning away from its patriarchal ideology.

But Prince Charming can be found lurking in other places. There are many ways he is shown. He’s often referred to as the guy of the girl’s dreams. In other movies, there’s always a heroic male lead character rescuing his love interest: a girl who has been kidnapped by his nemesis, usually a theme in most ‘James Bond’ movies. This is a plotline we’ve seen many times before. Well done, Hollywood: yet again, another original script. Conveniently, the woman is not able to rescue herself when she’s usually left alone for most of the time in a room with perfectly good tools to help her escape. She decides to go through the days of torture, waiting for her Prince Charming to be a hero and save her from the terrible danger that she is clearly in. The relationship would probably end in disaster.

Have I mentioned that Prince Charming is kind of what the American’s would call a ‘jerk’? No, honestly, all Prince Charming’s usually reject the older lady and would rather go for someone stick-thin. It’s a shame that some ‘Prince Charmings’ don’t go for an average looking woman, an older woman or perhaps a slightly more average-sized woman. Wouldn’t a child have more confidence in themselves if they had  more  realistic role models to idolise? But, no, they create characters that are paper-thin with long beautiful hair and a cute charming voice: just enough to lower a young girl’s confidence.

Over the years, the movie industry has changed; views have shifted and people have become more modernistic. Traditional views of patriarchal relationships have started to vanish. The industry has moved with the times.

However, there are still some patriarchal ideas seeping through the screen. The impact is still there and is especially evident to children, who are easily malleable and not able to see what the movie’s subtext really is.

Disney however is finally getting it right. It used to for a long time manipulate young girls, making them want to be just like the princess you see in fairy tales but society has changed. Women don’t need men anymore. Men aren’t always like what you see on the screen such as Hans of ‘Frozen’. We thought he was somebody who finished Anna’s sandwiches but he was actually a monster. This turns out to be a big reveal and maybe shows that all princes’ true intentions aren’t as charming as we are taught to believe.