http://nwitimes.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/article_f0610d59-60c5-5611-99dc-1119fc709ba5.html
We have been talking a lot about the conceptions of beauty as it pertains to this notion of the comprehensive identity of a woman. Marcia Lieberman in her lovely dissertation on feminism is quick to point this out noting, "beautiful girls are never ignored." Wow, this is so contrary to fact, you know, say in real life. Oh wait, it's not. In fact, there is a documented psychological bias known as the Halo Effect that describes this very phenomenon. Even more interesting is the fact that this is applicable to both MEN and WOMEN. "An alternative explanation for attractive people achieving more in life is that we automatically categorize others before having an opportunity to evaluate their personalities, based on cultural stereotypes which say attractive people must be intrinsically good, and ugly people must be inherently bad." However, I digress. I bring all of this up because a ballet in Chicago is currently challenging some of the traditional roles as they are played in fairy tales.
What is unique about this version of the classic Cinderella? Per the story, the ugly stepsisters are extremely ugly; however, this is taken to an extreme with men in drag portraying the classic roles. Thus, Cinderella is easily the choice sister emblematic of female virtue as the only female of the prospective prince's interests. My point in all of this is merely to comment that beauty as a virtue is not limited to either sex. We are quick to point out how all of the princesses are beautiful and that is their defining attribute. How are the men from fairy tales typically any different? Even those that start out ugly traditionally end up beautiful. Disney who is lambasted for his passive, merely beautiful princes does not fully develop his male characters to any great extent. They are similarly pretty faces in a crowd. In fact, in examining both traditional fairy tales and Disney fairy tales, one commonality emerges, a lack of character development. If we should indict the fairy tale creators or Disney for anything, it is for the generally flat seemingly stock characters that have no discernible personality. Fairy tale men are not interesting and neither are fairy tale women. They are both merely pretty pieces of decoration.
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I would like to start by agreeing with John that fairy tales lack character development and generally feature extremely flat, stock characters that show little change. He’s right in that, for the most part, the princes in fairy-tales are just as bland as the princesses. However, I would argue that Disney, at least the company if not the actual man, has at least put an effort into making its characters more dynamic. For instance, it is hard to argue that Aladdin, based on a tale from the “One Thousand and One Nights,” is your average bland prince. Travelling with his monkey Abu, a Genie, and a magic carpet, this ‘prince’ is different from many of the princes we have seen in the older fairy tales, and indeed in many of the older Disney films. He is not the Prince in shining armor that appears to save Snow White. He also undergoes changes throughout the tale, beginning as nothing more than a common thief, and although part of his success emanates from his luck in gaining control of the Genie, it is also his wit and cunning that allow him to win the love of his Princess. Jasmine herself can also be seen as an innovation in the princess tradition. Unlike the conventional, submissive female that Marcia Lieberman rails against, Jasmine demonstrates an independence that deviates from the tradition. She refuses not only princely suitors, but also the marriage to Jafar into which she is forced. Also unlike the princesses that Lieberman discusses, she is not seen as a bad character nor is she truly chastised, and in the end she is able to escape from the marriage to Jafar and is able to make her own choice. And after all, is that the point of today’s feminism, to attain a woman’s right to make her own choice?
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