Variations on Fairy Tale Princess Characters Post-1950

In this version of Cinderella, Ella is kind and sweet but, sadly has a rough life. After her dad dies, she’s stuck living with her stepmom and two evil stepsisters, who treat her like a servant. They call her “Cinderella” because she’s always covered in cinders. She is friend to all the animals (except the cat Lucifer who is loyal to the stepmother) and Ella stays very positive and upbeat and about her terrible situation. One day, the king announces a royal ball, and Ella wants to go, and initially her stepmother says she can if she finds something to wear, and does all her chores (which they proceed to pile on). On the day of the ball, her stepfamily destroys her dress and they leave her behind. Her Fairy Godmother shows up, waves her wand, and Ella is magically transformed… with a beautiful dress, glass slippers, and a pumpkin-turned-carriage, she goes to the ball, dances with the Prince, and they hit it off. At midnight, the magic wears off, and she has to run home, leaving one glass slipper behind. The Prince is determined to find her, so he goes around the kingdom making every girl try on the slipper. When he gets to Ella’s house, her stepfamily tries to stop her by locking her away (because they know), but she manages to get free and the slipper fits, The Prince realizes she’s the one, they get married, and theoretically live happily ever after.

The Disney version of Sleeping Beauty depicts a princess blessed with virtues as a baby, but also cursed by a witch to prick her finger on a needle and die (amended by one of her fairy godmother to be a deep sleep until she’s awakened by true love’s kiss). The day she is about to overcome this curse, she meets a prince in the woods, they fall in love and then she discovers that she isn’t actually a peasant girl in the woods with her three non-magical parental figures, she’s a princess and living with her fairy godmothers. Upon returning to her kingdom she is lured to a spinning wheel and her curse comes true. While Beauty sleeps, to spare the kingdom from pain, her godmothers put the whole kingdom to sleep except for the prince who is out for the day. The witch who put the finger pricking curse off Sleeping Beauty captures him to keep him from awakening Beauty with a kiss. The godmothers help him get away, they kill the witch in dragon form, and he kisses Beauty awake and they all probably live happily ever after.

In this film, The little mermaid lives in the ocean but for some reason yearns to be hiuman. SHe falls in love with a prince and sells her voice to a witch for the chance to have legs and make the prince fall in love with her in return. If she fails to do so in a short period of time, she becomes a seaslug and prisoner of the queen. As far as an example of a leading female character, this is a wild version of a fairytale for kids to grow up with, and is pretty in line with the negative feminist climate of popular culture late 1980s. The princess/mermaid Ariel exhibits many of the qualities we come to expect from princesses in modern fairytales - kindness, beauty, love of animals. SHe is also, in line with the times, an example of an absolutely insane body type akin to barbie- curvy with a waist so small there can’t possibly be adequate organs in there (maybe they’re stored in her fish tail, but when she becomes human its still incredibly tiny). She sacrifices parts of herself to be with a man, including her literal voice, which doesn’t seem necessary for a man to fall in love with her (showing female children that their opinions maybe aren’t that important and that men love a silent woman?). She gets her voice back eventually, but gives up the ability to live with her family, rejecting her entire species to be with the man she saw one time when he fell off a boat. In the end, though she seems to love her dad and sisters, she values marriage to this man far more than access to her family, friends, and swimming around with a fish tail, which is obviously very fun for her… but apparently that’s not important enough if the man isn’t there.

In this version of Snow White, a princess is forced to flee into the forest after her evil stepmother, the Queen, becomes jealous of her beauty and orders her death. Snow White stumbles upon a cottage belonging to seven dwarfs, who take her in and let her stay in exchange for housekeeping services. Meanwhile, the Queen, obsessed with being the “fairest of them all,” disguises herself as an old hag and tricks Snow White into eating a poisoned apple, putting her into a deathlike sleep. The dwarves chase the Queen, who meets a dramatic end, but Snow White can only be awakened by “true love’s kiss” from a prince she met briefly (earlier in the story). As far as a leading female character goes, Snow White is kind, gentle, and loves animals, but she’s also incredibly naive and spends most of the film cleaning and cooking for the dwarfs. Her defining trait seems to be her beauty, which is literally the reason for the entire plot. The prince, who barely knows her, saves the day with a kiss, and Snow White rides off with him to live happily ever after, leaving her dwarf friends behind. It’s a classic fairy tale, but it definitely reflects the outdated ideals of its time, where a woman’s worth is tied to her looks and her ultimate goal is to be rescued by a man.

In this version of the Frog Prince, the Princess has a curse on her, placed by her “aunt”, which keeps her from speaking clearly, but it’s in a pig latin way that lets the viewer interpret most of her sentences, with one riddle of slightly more complexity that is revealed in the end. Unfortunately, the riddle revealed in the end is that the spell can be broken by breaking a piece of glass on the veil witches (aunt’s) cane, easily done by small frogs, but somehow physically not accomplishable by this slight blonde woman (even though she is smart enough to know who cursed her, and how, and is motivated enough to constantly be trying to reveal the truth to others. In this way, the Princess, like many of the era, has positive qualities like moderate intelligence and kindness. She befriends the frog prince and they sing songs together, but not much else is mentioned about her policies that make her a good candidate to be queen, though it is implied we should root for her. Unfortunately, somehow she is so physically weak of body or spirit she can’t knock the can away from a disabled old witch. Frogs have to do it.

The Princess in this tale is not the usual passive female character common with early fairytale princesses. She is brave and strong, fighting evil goblins with the help of her friend Curdy. Though she has a male companion, they are equals, and assist each other without the trope of budding romance (while the original tale hints at romance, it is not a focal point of the tory and leaves room for a mutually respectful partnership between Irene and Curdy). Princess Irene has agency and doesn’t wait around for others to conduct the action, she takes initiative and often leads.

From a feminist perspective, this film passes the Baechtel test, portraying a strong intergenerational relationship between Irene and her great grandmother who gives her magical tools, perhaps a metaphor for passing down generational wisdom and skill.

This variation of Sleeping Beauty begins with a witch who is compelled to de-beautify every beautiful thing - bunnies to bats, flowers to weeds, etc. She encounters Beauty singing in the woods and turns her into a horse ( a very beautiful animal), and the spell can only be broken by the kiss of a prince. Two men encounter her, one of whom, luckily, is a prince. Admiring the horse’s beauty and speed, they decide to capture her and enter her into a race. The fastest horse by far, she leads every race, but always stops just shy of the finish line and falls asleep. The prince takes her to see Merlin, a wizard/horse whisperer who diagnoses her with a Kiss Complex. He instructs the prince the give her a smooch if she goes to sleep during the race again. He does and she turns back into a beautiful princess. He falls in love and… they live unhappily ever after… the closing scene is the prince staring wistfully off into the distance and Beauty is rapidly berating him from the window. A good lesson for the viewer, get to know someone before you marry them.

In this tale, We follow a prince, the son of Snow White (a possibly inattentive mother, who never consoles her child at night) The prince is instead carried by his father up and down the halls of the castle while he cries, every night for 21 years. After so many years, the King sends him off to become a real man and find a wife. He travels throughout the kingdom with no luck until he comes upon Rapunzel, and falls in love at first sight. He sees the witch who captured her climbing Rapunzel’s hair to enter her tower. He calls up to Rapunzel, so that he may do the same. The witch catches them, throws him out the window and cuts off all of Rapunzel’s hair. The prince tries to get back into the tower by many failed methods, and eventually spends 6 months living with birds and learning to fly. He does learn, but when he finally reaches the tower once again, he finds it empty, and outside of it is a ladder. There is a “Dear John” letter left by Rapunzel, saying that she has gone off with a prince named Charming. The son of Snow White cries and cries and can evermore be seen flying around the tower sobbing. Rapunzel and Snow White do not actually meet… but, their stories do.

In this version of Sleeping Beauty, just as the Prince has used his trusty lawnmower to get past the thicket of brambles meant to keep anyone from reaching her, and is about to kiss Beauty and wake her up, he realizes that he has a lucrative business opportunity at his fingertips… Instead of waking her up, he successfully exploits her coma and the castle she lies in to make millions. The evil fairy who put her to sleep finds out about this profitable venture, and wants half the money. He pretends to go along, but schemes repeatedly to get rid of her, unsuccessfully. In the time following his final attempt to be free of her (shooting her into space on a rocket), business dwindles and he stops making money (and possibly loses the millions he has saved? It’s unclear). He seems to be giving in to the evil fairy’s desire to be part of his scheme. She proposes that waking Beauty up would be a boost to ticket sales, and goes to reverse the spell. At that moment Beauty wakes up on her own. Apparently the was faking the whole thing, and just wanted to see if she could make it in show business.

In this variation of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty is instead Leaping Beauty, the only exception in a village of extremely dull people. She is their only source of joy and non-dullness, but it is enough to keep everyone happy and prevent them from succumbing to their own unexceptional-ness. Unfortunately, she one day leaps onto a witches toe, and though the penalty for that would normally be putting her to sleep, the with curses her to put others to sleep, thus inventing “boredom”, which apparently did not exist prior to this interaction. Beauty is heretofore unable to stop taking about how pretty she is, and her incessant self involved chatter puts the ordinary people of the town into a deep sleep. The king, who is not ordinary and manages to stay wake, banishes her (a Bore) to the woods (with the Boars).

A prince comes upon here and is interested, until she started taking and he falls asleep standing up. She is quite upset to lose her chance at breaking the spell (a prince’s kiss would do it), but she decides to at least help him lie down and sleep more comfortable, by pushing him over… a boar is beind him and somehow this bounces him back toward her and his lips land on hers and the spell is broken. They go leaping back to the town together, the ordinary people awaken, and Leaping Beauty an the prince live happily ever after.

The tale begins with the queen and her mirror (who also provides weather and stock reports, in addition to advice). She asks the mirror, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” and when it says Snow White, she goes to the poison goods store and buys some apples to bring to Snow White in the hopes Snow’s death will make her the new fairest. We find Snow White in her office, running Dwarves Consolidated, which appears to be a highly profitable business. The witch gains her trust by appearing interested in doing business, and Snow White takes the apple. One bite puts her into a deep sleep. When the queen consults with her mirror, hoping to now be the fairest, she hears that Snow White still is the fairest… and Dwarves Consolidated stock has plummeted.

Turns out, the queen is an investor in the company and is horrified by her financial mistake. She looks at the yellow pages to find a prince for hire, pays him a hefty sum and he arrives on the scene to kiss Snow White. Here we discover in a brief moment that she has actually been awake the whole time, it’s a grift to get the queens money, and seems to have been orchestrated by Snow White. The queen does not notice this. The prince kisses her, she “wakes up”, the queen goes home and lives more happily than before, having seen the error of her ways. Snow White and the Price seem set to live happily/richly ever after, until we discover that he actually invested all their money in the poison goods business (the Snow White may have started a shell company to execute her get rich quick scheme. Overall, this Snow White has more shrewdness and agency than her classic predecessors.

In this version of Snow White, there are two main characters: Slow White (who is… slow) and Nose Red (who has a red nose from eating too many apples). They are sisters who live with their father and essentially run a soup kitchen from their house, feeding all the animals from the forest as well as the “eleven western states.” After three years, they go broke from this endeavor and run out of food for the animals. Their father tells them that if they get married and send him money, he promises to keep feeding all the animals.

After a year and a half’s journey (Slow White is slow, and Nose Red climbs every apple tree along the way), they arrive in the nearest village on the night of a bachelors’ ball but fail to find husbands. The next day, they prepare to attend a bachelors’ picnic. However, while preparing the food, Slow White is too slow to light a match after turning on the gas stove, causing a massive explosion. Desperate, they seek a marriage counselor, who arranges them with their perfect counterparts—a slow man and a green-nosed man—and we can imagine that they live happily ever after.

The twelve dancing princesses has been reprinted for decades and seems ahead of its time as far as its feminist themes and the princesses self sufficience. I can only imagine that growing up with that many sisters would make you feel pretty invincible as a group. The princesses are described as beautiful and are indeed pursued by many princes as well as men of the general population. Their secret is that they love to dance, to the extent that each night they all destroy the soles of their shoes, top the chagrin of the king. However, the readers learn that they love their night of dancing so much that serve a potion the men who pursue them, and it erases their minds leaving them only with the desire to dance with/serve the girls (apparently in a nonsexual safe way that must have been largely unavailable to women at the time this tale was originally written, as well as today). Every night they dance with their automatons, until a common man is truly devoted and respectful enough that he proves his adoration to the youngest princess and they let him keep his brain in the end.

In this version of The Little Mermaid, the mermaid princess encounters the possibility of being with a selfish arrogant prince and rejects him, choosing for herself an autonomous life in the sea from whence she came. In the original tale, the mermaid sacrifices bits of herself to please the prince (as many women do for men in different ways), and in the end there is nothing left (or at least, she becomes foam, possibly equivalent to death). In this version, she not only rejects a fate of submission but is openly critical of the prince and the patriarchy. This is in line with the feminist takes of other tales in this collection by Bernheimer.

The paper bag princess features a twist that is novel for a children’s fairy tale at the time. Instead of being saved by the prince, the princess saves him from a dragon. In the story, she is initially enamored with the prince, but after he is kidnapped by a dragon (and she is gets a bit scorched and has to resort to a paper bag for her ensemble) the shallow prince is not grateful for her efforts to rescue him, instead expressing disdain for her appearance. By his actions, she realizes that he is a shallow loser and rejects him, showing her overall self sufficiency and independence, and we can imagine she goes off to live a much better life than if she had stayed and married him.