Lately, I’ve noticed this trend of people writing half-hearted listicles on things dealing with Disney princesses possessing the traits of “real women.” They get into Pulitzer Prize-worthy reporting on big questions like, “What would Disney princesses look like without makeup?” or “What would Disney princesses look like with no faces?”
And I ask myself, “Do these people need counseling?”
To which I reply, “Yes. These people need help.”
Artists and journalists are actually spending their precious time on Earth photoshopping the hell out of cartoon characters. And what, dare I ask, would compel you to do so? Many claim it’s for the sake of female empowerment, but let me ask you something. How is Ariel with leg hair supposed to empower me? Why should we care what Snow White would look like without eyebrows?
Why should we care what Elsa would look like with bags under her eyes?
And you know what the answer to that is?
It’s because you, dear Buzzfeeder, feel ugly. And Disney princesses, who are totally made up cartoon characters, make you feel ugly. And you want us to love you for who you are. And the ugliness in you is so overwhelming, the only way you can cope with it is to scream out into the cold, dark void that is the Internet for hugs in the form of likes and website traffic.
I’m sorry you feel this way, dear Buzzfeeder. I really do. But how does one feel so poorly to the point of spending hours (or maybe 30 minutes, I don’t know) giving Elsa a poochie-pudge for a belly?
It seems as if y’all think Disney princesses are, quote-unquote, perfect women, and that they set up impossible beauty standards. Of course, you would have to be blessed by God or by Kylie Jenner’s doctor to have such naturally cinched waists and big doe-like eyes and little button noses and eyebrows that never lose their fleekness.
But Disney princesses aren’t real women. They’re cartoon characters. They’re fake. They’re faker than Regina George’s friendship with Cady Heron. They’re faker than these Converse knock-offs I got from Wal-Mart for $10. They’re faker than that girl with the Hawaiian Silky weave’s Hispanic heritage from the “Good Hair” interlude on Outkast’s ‘Stankonia.’
Let me say that any functioning human being can tell the difference between fiction and reality. If they couldn’t, then we would probably be extinct by now because no living woman out there that I know of looks and walks and talks and doesn’t hemorrhage from her vagina like Jasmine.
Cinderella shouldn’t have to validate your existence, so stop this nonsense. It’s sad, and most of all, it’s not cute.
Hannah Gammill is a sophomore English major from New Orleans.
