In the original, medieval Romeo and Juliet, I believe that the characters were in their 40s or something. Old Bill Shakespeare made them younger for dramatic effect when he rewrote the old Italian story in English.

Re: Chip – I could buy him being ten, and thus born RIGHT before the castle was cursed. Although then you’ve got to wonder, how did he grow up? Did he start life as a baby teacup for dolls? An even better question: who’s the dad?

Apart from that understandable confusion, I found the post highly amusing. And as an added piece of evidence her really looks more Norwegian than he does French with his very broad bone structure as I recall and flowing blond locks. Can you just see him with a viking hat on? I can.

As a response to Caroline, I too think a more Rochester like look would be very attractive, and probably inspired a lot of his character, come to think of it. But apparently Disney has an age cap for all of their princesses/princes. I can’t remember what it is. But it’s right around 21-ish. It might even be younger for the princesses. So, I’m afraid you’ll never get your grizzled prince for a love interest from Disney. Maybe a villain though. Oh and I am grateful for the princesses. I might actually buy into Disney princesses when I have children, but no child of mine will ever, EVER get a brat.

A position he lost as soon as the spell was broken.

Thus Belle cannot be a princess.

Esspecially not Princess of the furries. D8

Now, to clarify. I think Tiana being in front kind of irked me personally because 1) the movie hasn’t come out yet, and 2) when you click on her, her page is under construction (as of yesterday, at least) (http://disney.go.com/princess/#/tiana/). So I should have specified: it’s a no-win situation with whoever has already been harassing them about the movie. Some of the “controversy” already surrounding the movie seemed very contrived to me, so I got the cynical feeling that *somebody* would get upset at least a little, for the reasons I already said (and maybe over her page being unfinished, too). I guess I should have said, “I’m not sure how that will fly because someone will say…,” or thereabouts. I’m personally okay with her being on the site, I’d just, you know, like her page to be working and fully-functional first. And I have been annoyed with how Disney pushes merch. for movies that aren’t even out yet for ages. So I would have been just as annoyed if it were an unfinished page for something/someone else.

Second-class princesses? Well, to be really ass-hole-ee, no, because they aren’t even princesses, technically- they should feel honored that they’re “part of the club” in the first place. As far as Disney is concerned, it’s forced inclusion. It’s the Affirmative Action of marketing. So they get tossed to the side. “You’re here now, are you happy?! Shut up and pose when we tell you to!” They got in, that’s all that was required. They want *rights*, too? Pish-posh.

My personal opinion about the “inclusion” thing comes from having a Native American ancestry, so I don’t know if it should be applied to every other ethnicity- and it actually does sort of sound like ^that^, but the reasons behind it are very, very different. I guess since Disney is going for the Western concept of “princess,” no, Pocahontas shouldn’t be included, and the idea that she “counts” is kind of insulting. There were and are not Native American “princesses.” It’s nice that they tried to put her in there and all, but forcing her into the group as a “princess” overlooks the cultural differences. I think this has to do with why she shows up much less frequently than the more (Western) traditional princesses, too- she’s harder to fit into the formula because, well, she’s part of a different equation. Mulan isn’t a princess either, so same thing for why she’s excluded a lot. Although again, I’m not sure if keeping her out would be a good idea or not- although, I suppose if they want an ethnically Asian princess, they should just write a movie about one. But along those lines, and my solution: if they want to make an ad campaign that incorporates ALL of their female characters equally, they need to think of an overlapping theme to link them all together. So maybe I’m part of that hyper-sensitive, hyper-liberalized part of society that gets worked up over “nothing” all the time. But I just don’t see how successful pushing molds that don’t fit down can be when the goal is equality. It makes the ones that don’t fit stand out more, either by how out-of-sync with the model they are, or by their blaring absence once they were given the ticket in. I do think it’s possible for Disney to have a feminist thing going, but it needs a model all of the characters can fit.

And before I get accused of hating Disney with my heart and soul, I don’t. Quite the opposite.

Oh yeah, Re: Age: Ariel has a VERY clear line, “I’m sixteen years old, I’m not a child any-” and then Triton cuts her off with (I think) “DON’T take that tone of voice with me!” (Can you tell I watch these movies a lot?) And the line in _R&J_ you’re looking for is from Act II.ii, line 9, spoken by Daddy Capulet: “She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;”

The suspension of time thing was what I used to think when I was little, but now I’m not so sure. See, if the prince was stuck at ANY age, why would the rose “bloom until his twenty-first year”? The wording implies his aging as an important piece of the spell’s conditions. BUT, if HE wasn’t suspended, it still leaves the enigma of Chip: either Mrs. Potts has some explaining to do on behalf of teapots everywhere, or he was born before the spell was cast.

Still, out of all the elements of the Disney stories that mesh oddly with modern sensibilities, the age-of-marriage thing is one of the weirdest.

Re: Beauty and the Beast, I haven’t seen that movie in hella long time, but isn’t it possible that the Beast and his servants are all frozen in time at the point in which they’re transformed, so that the Prince was 21 in the prologue and is still 21 when he gets turned back at the end?

Apropos of Beauty and the Beast, this is awesomesauce.

Completely unrelated: how old do we think Ariel is? She’s the youngest of SEVEN daughters, all of whom seem fairly young and probably unmarried – they all lounge around the castle together. Plus, Ariel hangs out with Flounder, who’s CLEARLY a child. Based on that, she could be 14 or 15. HOWEVER, when King Triton learns she’s in love, he’s not freaked out at all (this is before he learns she’s in love with a human). He sits there giggling, “Who can the lucky merman be?” as if he can’t wait to marry her off. So I don’t know.

Disney clearly doesn’t want you thinking about that. In Aladdin, a major plot point is that Jasmine must be married by her “next” birthday. They carefully don’t say what birthday that is (16?).

Of course, it’s a fine old tradition to tell romantic stories about young women just entering into adulthood. At the beginning of Gone With the Wind, Scarlett is 16. At the beginning of Pamela (1740), she’s 15. And of course, there’s Twilight (she’s 17, so an old woman by Disney standards). So I guess there’s nothing necessarily wrong with stories about teenagers in love. It’s just a little weird to see stories about people getting MARRIED at 16, which definitely is no longer cool. But I guess it would be difficult to end The Little Mermaid by having Triton say, “Okay, you and the prince can go to Applebee’s together. But home by nine.”