I can’t say I’m a huge Disney fan. I have a few favorites, but generally, I prefer anime to Disney and Cinderella hasn’t been on my must see list. However, having kids changes things and especially for my young daughters in Japan, I wanted them to really like English and Disney is a good hook for that. I thought if they like the Disney princesses, they’ll want to sing and learn more English. I thought it would be good for them to see the classic Princesses, Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty and I myself hadn’t seen them all the way through. I didn’t plan to watch them, but I found myself sitting down in front of the T.V. with my family and to my surprise, I was intrigued. The stories were really good and I was impressed by the striking differences between the princesses’ personalities. I humbly offer my observations for you here.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:(1937) The one that started it all. The world’s first animated feature film. It surely was a milestone in many ways. Snow White is just a young girl. She has a cheerful disposition and kind nature, however, she is very naïve and doesn’t seem very bright. I think of all the princesses she has the most difficulty translating to modern audiences. She really comes from a different era and is a little to melodramatic in her gestures. But I do like the story, the songs are good and the dwarfs are funny and memorable. Prince Charming serves his purpose. He makes her fall in love with him and then right on cue, wakes her up with a kiss. His part was kept small because of the difficulty in animating a male figure, so we are told in the DVD documentary. It seems to me a female would be more difficult, but okay, whatever.

I also hadn’t realized how truly sadistic the evil queen was. “Bring back her heart in this.” , she says to the huntsman. Yikes! Of course he can’t do it and replaces it with a pig’s heart. We never hear what happened to the huntsman. I guess he high-tailed it out of town. After transforming into the old hag and making the poison apple, she is thinking of Snow Whites fate and keeps laughing and chanting the phrase, “Buried Alive!” I was immediately reminded of the scene in Batman(1989) after Jack Nicolson’s Joker electrocutes a mobster with the hand buzzer and then walks away laughing “I’m glad he’s dead!” Then she walks down the stone stairs to the dungeon and sees a skeleton. “Here, have a drink.”, she says as she kicks an empty dish at its head. Talk about overkill.

Cinderella(1950) Probably the most famous Disney movie of all time. Here we have an almost perfect story. I hadn’t appreciated how good it really was. Cinderella is a woman who has suffered great hardships and repression, but has become stronger and has never lost sight of her dreams. Because of this, she seems the oldest and most mature princess. She’s intelligent and brave and has a strong sense of herself. She stands up to her evil stepmother when hearing of the royal ball. “Well, why can’t I go? It says every eligible maiden.” She never completely loses her faith even when things look their darkest. Even for 1950, she is a very modern woman, yet has a genuine romantic quality. She’s also different from other Disney heroines in that she wasn’t born a princess, which makes her all the more easy to relate to and I like her the best. Again, the prince we rarely see. He does even less than Prince Charming. He just dances with her and then marries her at the end. And as my wife so subtly pointed out, he doesn’t even look for Cinderella himself, just sends the Grand Duke to find her. And the evil stepmother is probably the best villain of any Disney movie. Made more so by the fact that she’s the most real. She’s not a queen and has no magical powers. She’s just an evil old woman which makes her more terrifying. In this day and age, we’re pretty safe from the evil queens, but evil stepmothers? They can be anywhere. By the way, I saw the “sequel”, Cinderella 2 which wasn’t a movie, but three short stories. It was pretty bad and added nothing to the legacy. There was yet another movie Cinderella: A twist through Time. I didn’t bother.

Sleeping Beauty(1959) The last of the three classic movies. Another milestone, so we are told that once again saved the studio. Briar-Rose a.k.a. Princess Aurora is gorgeous with her long flowing blond hair and operatic voice. She again is different from the other princesses. She is beautiful and she knows it. She plays coy and hard to get with Prince Phillip. Not as proactive as Cinderella, she seems passive, caught in her fate with things happening to her. It’s a good entertaining film, And yet, the story doesn’t seem all that original. It contains elements that we’ve seen before.; sleeping princesses, evil queens, fairy guardians, and a magical kiss. But it is by far the most visually stunning of the three with it’s rich colors, widescreen format, and stylized illustrations. It’s also unique in that it’s the first time we see a strong prince character. He actually does something. He rides to the rescue and saves her. How refreshing! Maleficent, the evil fairy queen is dark and scary, but doesn’t leave a lasting impression except when she transforms into the dragon. Cool stuff!

Well, I think you know what my favorite is, but there all great classics worth revisiting again and again.