Pondering the princess.

My favorite fictional queen is Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore.

...though that entire series is full of strong female characters: Honor Harrington (Duchess, Admiral, Steadholder), Eloise Pritchard (President of Haven), Michelle Henke (Honor's best friend, cousin to the queen, Countess, and Rear Admiral), and many, many minor characters, such as Honor's mother Allison, anti-slavery activist Catherine Montaigne, etc. Even the female villains are strong women, not mere femme fatales.

I rather like Queen Berry of Torch from the same series, too.

Yes, this, all of this. I enjoy the series very much and Honor and all her fellow citizens are fantiastic. One of the things I enjoy most about those characters is that they are not merely guys in chick disguises or strong female characters that suddenly remember they are female and abdicate all power and decision-making to the men in the tale.

But mostly I just wanted to fangirlsquee OMG!SOMEONE ELSE LIKES HONOR, you know what I mean.

Yet another quotation from one of my favorite books that speaks directly to this. (Tragically, missing from the film.)

"And I," Buttercup said. "I", she repeated, standing up in the saddle, a creature of infinite beauty and eyes that were starting to grow frightening, "I", she said, for the third and last time, "am the queeeeeeeeeeeen."

There was no doubting her sincerity. Or power. Or capacity for vengeance.

The last confrontation in the book, and entirely Buttercup's victory. I cheered, and still do, every time.

The easy and/or cynical answer is that the patriarchy has realized that in order to train a new generation of children into traditional roles it must force-feed the idea of the helpless and useless female characterization into the mainstream in this way, taking away strong female role models and replacing them with ineffective and weak ideals to emulate.

Only I don't actually believe that.

(I realize that in text you cannot see my expression or hear my tone of voice, so let me make it clear that this is tongue firmly in cheek, yes?)

In other musings, I would love to read what you have to say on the musical Into the Woods.

(seriously, I would read that and probably bookmark it as well)

Oops, edited for a post script, sorry! Anyone read the Hawk and Fisher series by Simon Green? Talk about a princess who can kick it and take names, yes indeedy.

There is indeed an over-prevalence of princesses. But there are still queens. The Looking Glass Wars series, for one: "The Looking Glass Wars," "Seeing Redd," and "ArchEnemy" by Frank Beddor. Alyss, a princess in the first book, becomes Queen and is Queen in the second two books.

Sadly, I can't think of any more offhand.

I may have mentioned this before, but I can't recall: http://www.amazon.com/MachoPoni-Prance-Death-Lotus-Rose/dp/1933929790

I love how empowered your essay is and so I am ashamed to admit that I think the princess/bride obsession boils down to prettiness, sparkly gowns, and sweetness. Ashamed partly because I admit I want those things for myself, big time. The prettiness and the sweetness get people saying nice things about you and wanting to be around you, plus it gives you your pick of the other pretty people for a mate. And sparkly gowns satisfy a personal want.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090311

I'm sorry, the sparkly gown thing just kind of reminded me... >_>

I suspect this may be similar to the process by which denim canvas dungarees, worn by college students to show “solidarity with the workers” (whom they looked down upon as rednecks, blue-collar grunges or, y' know, ethnic) transformed by the next decade into, first, works of art (0:45 - 1:10) then into expensively marketed 'designer jeans' that no sharecropper would ever own. “Power to the people,” you bet.

Just so, “power perceived is power achieved,” and today's young girls not only do not have to work at taking command, they're handed the fruits of entitlement and prestige from Day One. Naturally the result is corruption and sloth, over-sexualized twelve-year olds who can barely spell their own weirdly-misspelled names. In this they truly are princesses, as such often were: Unschooled, overprivileged, their horizons narrowing with every passing year. They are not fit to be Queens. The best they can hope for is to be - again - trophy wives to today's merchant princes… but few will reach that pinnacle; most will simply deteriorate. So it goes.

p.s. How do you do! Pardon my dropping in…

The thing is... to become Queen, your mother has to die. Or your husband's mom. Little girls can aspire to princessdom because it implies only good things for the rest of their families... and plus, the experience of being not-in-charge-but-cherished is probably close enough to what most families aspire to for their kids, if not what they actually achieve, that it's not a major worldview shift.

But to become Queen is not just to grow up, it's to grow past up to that point where you're the uppest there is left. That didn't happen to my own mother until she was 46, and her college roommate is retired and still has a mom around. She is about the last person you'd think of as a "princess", but still.

In the days when 50 was old and lots of people didn't make it to that, maybe it wasn't such a reach, but with today's lifespans, imagining themselves to be the oldest generation is something most girls, or even most young women, or even youngish women who used to be called middle aged like me, aren't likely to encompass.

What's missing, I think, is the middle stage. Princess Errant. Why should princes be the only ones to go on quests and have adventures besides falling in love?

As to the original question, I'm reminded of the old Heinlein comment that if the question is "Why?", the answer is "Money", or words to roughly that effect. Disney has been so successful marketing the concept of Disney Princesses that everyone else is latching on to the word. It's easy to imagine someone in Marketing (please, Vel, I'm making a point here) saying, "Princesses are hot now. Change the Queen into a Princess, and it'll help sales."

While I don't mean to be an apologist, and yes, being a Queen is way cooler, I feel slightly obliged to note that, at least on the Disney side, princesses have evolved somewhat. I would point to Belle and Tiana in particular as strong women who aren't wholly defined by their relationships. Is there really any doubt at all as to who's in charge at Tiana's Place?

When I was a little girl, I didn't want to be a princess, or a bride, or even a ballerina - I wanted to be a scientist! But this was the mid-1950s, and I was told, gently but firmly, that girls could be secretaries, or schoolteachers, or beauticians, or nurses, or stewardesses, but never scientists.

Then I discovered that what I really wanted to be was a Heinlein Woman, with flaming red hair and an IQ of about 220 - able to out-shoot the bad guys, solve differential equations in her head, pilot a spaceship, speak 37 languages, figure-skate, manage finances, repair any machine with a hairpin, colonize a hostile planet, and rescue kittens, all while pregnant - and impress men so much that they'd do the cooking and child-care while she was busy putting the Universe to rights.

In the end, of course, I achieved neither. (Well, except for the "fixing machines" part.)

Now that you point it out I totally see what you mean. Though the other interesting thing that I just now occurred to me is that, in the Disney movies at least, most of the Queens are in one way or another evil (Enchanted, Snow White, etc., though Tangled is an exception). That combined with the way characters are relegated to Princess status makes it seem like oooooh, chicks with power will totally abuse it, better keep them as harmless princesses. Blech.

There may be a different way to see that: As a corollary to D Adam's famous assertion that those who seek power are the very ones who should not be allowed to have it. The sheer aggression, bloodthirst and naked, gotta-stay-hungry ambition that makes a queen - or a female CEO, or a female President, as the case may be - causes that person to be, well, not very nice. Not a healthy role model for someone who has to function in workaday society.

As stakebait said, being a Princess is fun, and you can be beloved and gracious and generally do well. Being Queen - staying Queen - turns you into L Carroll's Red Queen (“Off with his head!”)

While I was never the Disney Princess type - Tink, Stitch & Mickey as the Sorcerer's Apprentice are my Disney favorites (hmmm, I note a tendency to get in a bit of trouble, but having a good heart) - there are some points to be made for the princesses reflecting the era in which the movies were made. The modern princesses - Ariel less so than the others - are much more capable, intelligent & strong young women. The early movies reflect the get married and raise babies mores of the time.

The whole evil stepmother thing has a root. Many of the early fairy tales had evil parents, but in a desire to sell stories to the German middle class, the brothers Grimm altered the story. Ones biological parents are loving & kind, but one never knows what one will get from a step parent. Cherish and obey your parents, as they would never send a hunter to kill you and cut out your heart.

Personally, being a red-head who grew up on Heinlein heroines, I always liked the notion of Empress of the Universe. I don't actually believe one has to become unreasonably ruthless to keep a position of power. Yes, sometimes you're going to have to do something that's not very nice. Someone has to make those decisions. I'd rather have it be someone who hates doing it every time.

That is great and a magnificent question to think about.

we need WAY more Xenas, Buffys, Commander Susan Ivannovas, KICK ASS Heroines who are NOT damsels in distress, needing rescuing!

We need more kick ass women!

then again, I'm guessing that guys DO appear to be that emasculated and threatened by strong women characters.
*rolls eyes*

This is an aside to your essay. Disney will no longer be making princess movies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-et-1121-tangled-20101121,0,6692508.story

It seems that young girls are now identifying with female rock stars. I did try researching Dafna Lemish's statement about young girls, but came up with no reference other than the citing of it in the article.

As for queens, what about Susan and Lucy from Narnia? They went straight to queenship.
I admit I have several princess characters. But I have queens as well, and none of them are evil.

And now we have QUEEN Elsa of Arendelle.

Awesome.