TurtleHead

Why don’t any of the Disney Princesses have a mother?

Belle from Beauty And The Beast lives with her father. Mother’s whereabouts: unknown.

Ariel from The Little Mermaid lives with her sisters and her father. Mother’s whereabouts: unknown.

Jasmine from Aladdin lives with her father. Mother’s whereabouts: unknown.

Snow White lives with her father and evil stepmother. Mother’s whereabouts: dead.

Cinderella lives with her evil stepmother. Mother’s whereabouts: dead, and the dad is too.

Aurora from Sleeping Beauty has a mother and a father, but her mother is hardly in the movie at all. Her father makes all the early decisions about spinning wheel burning, and then she goes off to be raised by fairies in the forest.

I’ve never seen Mulan, but wiki says that she does have a mother and a father, although it is her need to protect and honour her father that drives her to run off and join the army.

Gal Smiley has no interest in Disney Princess stuff, but most of her friends do. Until now I’ve kind of been encouraging her to notice the princess stuff, just so she can know what is going on when she visits a friend. Now I’m thinking, hey, wait a minute…how about some positive mother-daughter relationships for a change, Disney? Is it too much to ask for a nice, kind Mommy every now and again?

Perhaps Disney feels that a strong, positive maternal role model would mean that the Princesses in question would have no need to be strong and fight for themselves? That’s lame, Disney, lame.

I’ll have to give this one some thought.

And while I’m thinking about it, what kids’ movies have you seen that do have a positive mother figure?