Fairytales are a bit crap. A princess will find herself in a dire predicament with no escape besides the heroics of a handsome and ever-so-charming prince. I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, but I hate it when girls are crafted in stories as foolish and unintelligent and dependent. The whole princess fandom, especially of the Disney variety, makes me cringe. It’s all dresses and song and hopelessly in love. Little girls base their lives on this, their only role models animated and gutless princesses. There seems to be no concept of hard work and that just because you have found your Prince Charming, your life will be happy forever.
When I was little, I too apparently loved fairytales, even if I didn’t completely get them. I can remember reading the Princess and the Pea and wondering why on earth anyone would put a pea under ten million mattresses. To me that didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t. But lately, my usually negative opinion towards fairytales has changed. Every year, my church runs an event called the Enchanted Evening, for little girls to come and be spoilt and treated like a princess. They all dress up and walk down the catwalk and have their hair and make-up and nails done and are told they are beautiful. For some of them, that night is a fairytale come true.
Princesses don’t come around very often. The recent wedding of Kate Middleton to Prince William was accompanied by a thunderous media storm with every single detail about Kate and her wedding being expressed to the world. It all annoyed me at first. I don’t care about the royals – despite living in Commonwealth countries for all of my life. I was all like, “Who cares? It’s just a wedding!” But when April 29th rolled round I, like the rest of the world, read the newspaper articles and watched parts of the broadcast. I realised that I did care. Because any girl, wether five years old or 50, cannot help but appreciate a fairytale.
I still think that fairytales are over the top. After all, it is defined as implausible fantasy. And I still don’t really like them. But I think there is such thing as our own fairytale. I believe all girls are princesses. Every girl deserves to be told she’s beautiful. Every girl has value. There is the possibility of a handsome prince for everyone. A fairytale is just what we dream for. And if we really want it, there is no doubt that it can happen.
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