What is keeping Ariel upright?

Unless you have hung out with a little girl during the past ten years, you may not be aware of the Disney Princess phenomenon. Sure, Disney’s had princesses for years, and generations of girls have wanted to be them. But it wasn’t until 2001 that the company got around to creating an official Disney Princess brand, selling apparel, toys, videos and pretty much everything else that they could slap a picture of a princess onto. The New York Times reported that there are 25,000 products in all, and the franchise grosses over $3 billion a year. And that article is three years old.

There’s a lot of be disturbed about here. Some of the older Disney films are pretty retrograde to begin with—Sleeping Beauty meets the prince on her 16th birthday, and marries him pretty much the next day. The newer heroines are better role models, but in the context of the Disney Princess brand, they’re presented as pretty little flowers, not women of action.  And I don’t need to point out that all of them make Nicole Richie look fat.

But I’m not going to discuss the feminist implications of this marketing juggernaut. (If that’s what you want, the Times article above does a good job.) Instead, look at this photo of the Princess lineup. Four of the girls are princesses by birth (Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Snow White, and Ariel). One of them marries a prince to become a princess (Cinderella).

That leaves Belle, who I’m not sure really qualifies.