Why I’m Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel is a Feminist

Originally posted on The Progressive Heroine.

It’s a snowy afternoon. I am sick and napping when I feel something wet on my cheek. I open my eyes to see my 2-year-old daughter hovering over me, ready to come in for the kill. As she’s about to plant another kiss on the lens of my saliva-smeared glasses, she realizes that I am awake. She stops mid-pucker and shouts, “Tick! Tick!” (“Tick” is Prince Phillip from Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.)

Oh dear God. She thinks I’m Princess Aurora and, of course, that I must be roused from my poisoned slumber. I close my eyes again, to see what she will do. I cross my hands over my chest and try to look serene. Sure enough, she kisses me again. I feign sleep. Kiss, kiss. I am kind of enjoying this. She never kisses me. I consider myself lucky if I get a strangle-hold hug every few days or so.

I open my eyes. “Tick!” She jumps on my stomach in her triumph. “Tick! Tick!”

“Why! It’s my dream prince!”

And so the Princess is awakened from her fateful coma and the kingdom rejoices, HURRAH!

I ask myself what this bit of playacting means. If it means anything. There are a few possibilities:

1. I am truly the Princess Aurora and have just awakened to realize that I have been living in a dream for the past 33 years. In this dream, I am a woman who grows up in Connecticut, goes to school for a while, teaches some piano lessons, gets married, has a kid and moves to Hawaii so her husband can join the Army………Okay! On to the next item.

2. My daughter is really a prince who wears a feathered fedora, has a buttery tenor voice and can kick some serious evil sorceress/rabid dragon ass. Hey, I kinda like this one.

3. (This is where it starts to get all psychoanalytical-ish.) My daughter has been watching to much TV. GASP! I am a terrible parent. I should run and hide before Child Protective Services comes to claim my firstborn.

I am partly kidding.

Seriously, maybe my daughter has been watching too much TV. Maybe she’s finally blurred the line between real life and the cartoon realm. Next she’ll be summoning fairy magic to sew a 60s-style dress that can’t decide what color it is. But hey, that’s okay, Disney will ultimately rule that it’s pink (big surprise there!) and render it in vinyl and polyester and lead-based paint for the next 50 years.

Or…

4. My daughter is an anti-feminist! I have exposed her to the evil Disney empire and she will never recover from it!

Oh please, she’s only two. I have plenty of time to mold her into the Simone de Beauvoir of the next generation.

And while we’re on the subject of the evil Disney Empire, I’d like to say a few things about their newest “Princess” endeavor, Tangled.

For one, Rapunzel is a FEMINIST.

For real. I’m not kidding.

Okay, you want to know why. Why is Rapunzel any less repressed a Disney heroine than Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel and company? What attributes does she have or actions does she take that make her an admirable role model for our daughters? I’ll tell you:

SPOILER ALERT! (If you care.)

1. She’s a Renaissance woman. We are not talking about Disney’s usual animal helper-inspired housekeeping and/or frolicking here. Rapunzel’s a painter, a baker, a potter, a musician, a seamstress, an astronomer, a book lover, and an acrobat/gymnast as exhibited by the way she uses her hair. She doesn’t let the length of her hair hinder her. Actually, the opposite. She uses it to jump, vault, swing, and tie up strange men that break into her tower. It even has magical healing properties.

2. Rapunzel defends herself…with a frying pan. The frying pan becomes a recurring prop throughout the movie. And it’s never used for cooking. Anyone get the symbolism here? The girl is fearless, she takes risks. She takes her life into her own hands, flees the tower, makes new friends, and stands up to Mother Gothel, the woman who kidnapped and imprisoned her. (There is also some verbal and psychological abuse going on here that Rapunzel withstands and overcomes, but that’s an analysis for another day.) In the end, I don’t think Rapunzel really needs a frying pan to symbolize her liberation, but it’s a nice reference.

3. She makes choices based on her personal growth, not on her desire for a man. Her relationship with Flynn is a byproduct of the main plot, not the sole reason for her existence. Rapunzel breaking out of the tower, discovering the world that has been hidden from her for 18 years, and finally realizing her true identity, that is the real story.

4. Rapunzel and Flynn don’t get married right away. YES!! It’s hinted that they do eventually, but the movie doesn’t close with a sweeping ballroom scene or a royal wedding. She dips him for a kiss, short and sweet.

Before we move on, I need to say a couple of things about Rapunzel’s physical appearance. It’s a recurring criticism of the Disney Princesses and needs to be addressed. Yes, Rapunzel is beautiful, but the multiple dimensions of her character make her seem less like a glorified Barbie doll and more like a real person. I will say that she has a child-like aura about her, but this is appropriate for an 18-year-old. She looks her age. Unlike some of the other Princesses. Take Princess Aurora, as an example. She’s supposed to be 16, but looks more like a 35-year-old Stepford wife. Who would you rather have your daughter modeling herself after?

Another aspect I love about Rapunzel’s appearance? The short choppy hairdo she ends up with! This might be an even greater symbol of her liberation than the frying pan. The shearing of her hair destroys Mother Gothel and allows Rapunzel to escape.

I know Tangled is just one instance. There will be many more films, books and other media to consider over my daughter’s childhood. Sometimes I will have control over what she’s exposed to. Sometimes I will not. But I refuse to dumb things down for her. With guidance, she should be able to interpret anything that’s thrown at her, be it Disney Princess movies, Beethoven’s String Quartets or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (the original version, of course). What kind of example are we setting if we do not encourage the acceptance and exploration of all media? We can decide when and how our kids learn about it, but we cannot ultimately censor it. Our children deserve to experience the full truth and expanse of the world. And they deserve the opportunity to absorb it into the context of their lives in a humanistic way.

So whether my daughter wants to playact the more feminist attributes of Rapunzel or assume the part of the prince (with me in the role of Sleeping Beauty), well, either is fine with me.

As long as she’s the one doing the kick-ass princess-saving.