As a little girl, like thousands of others, and girls still today, I was a huge Walt-Disney fanatic. I owned all of the VHS tapes and I watched every single one of them about 50 million times. Back then, the princesses who won over my awe and favoritism had been Snow White and the Little Mermaid. Sure, all of the other princesses were just as pretty, and you can count on every Disney movie to come with a handful of catchy songs, but I idolized those two above all else. Why? Who can really say? What wasn’t to love though? Snow White could talk to animals and was extraordinarily kind, and Ariel was a mermaid and like myself, redheaded.
Now, I can’t say much has changed over the years. Despite my age, I still find myself occasionally suggesting a Disney movie on rainy days, and I would be lying if I said I don’t still harbor love for both Snow White and Ariel…but not like I once did. In fact, watching Disney movies now at my current age, I have come to find that my princess preferences might have been hugely misdirected.
My favorite Disney princess now isn’t even a member of the Disney monarchy. While watching the movie Hercules with my boyfriend, I quickly found myself growing fond of the hero’s love interest, Meg. Not only did she come packing with a more womanly shape, but she also parades an incredibly sassy boldness that none of the prior Disney women seem to use. As the story progresses, we learn that Meg also has come across something none of the other innocent Disney beauties have, a heart break. Unlike Cinderella who happened to meet Prince Charming in one night, Meg sold her soul for the wrong guy. It cripples her perspective on true love in such a way that she associates herself with characters such as Hades and his minions because in spite of her poised charms, she deems herself as a broken, unscrupulous person, unworthy of anybody’s love.
We often find Meg doing the god of the dead’s bidding, alone, without any furry sidekicks or the aid of a fairy godmother too. She herself mentions it’s better to be alone, nobody can hurt you that way, again striking correspondence to how some girls in real life cope with pain and heartache.
After coming to realize that Hercules is a good man, and that not all men are the same, she quickly finds her voice and stands up to Hades. Her relationship with Hercules isn’t all flirtatious cute pickup lines and romantic gestures either, demonstrating realistically that true love will encounter hard times but nothing it can’t handle if the love is sturdy. To wrap this babble up, and get you on to reading bigger and better articles I will close this editorial demonstrating Meg’s unrecognized feminism and humanly strength. She gives her life to save Hercules, something most of the time you find the prince doing in Disney films, and at the end of the movie she has rediscovered her ability to trust, love and be happy. Yes, both Snow White and Ariel are beautiful, spunky and inquiring in their own awesome ways, but as a role model for young girls and young women alike to look up to, my pick is not Elsa or Sleeping Beauty, but Megara.
