6 Comments

  1. Great post Leah! I’m particularly interested in the way princesses have come to define certain aspects of femininity, how women are meant to relate to those type of characters because surely that’s the pinnacle of all our dreams. I find most of the recent ‘Princess’ films too saccharine, the characters too one-dimensional. It’s incredible that considering ‘how far’ women’s rights have come, it’s often (of course not always!) the older films that have the more interesting characters and seem to have something more to say about women’s roles.
    That’s a very long winded way of saying I adore Roman Holiday and I despise The Prince and Me… 🙂

    • It is frightening that so many recent films do backtrack in so many ways. And shows too. (I liked the humor of Girls but was so horrified at the women’s lack of ambition that I had to stop watching.) I will say–in The Prince and Me’s defense–that she doesn’t give up her medical school dreams for him, or her spunk. That said, most similar films do horrify me, especially when they put on feminist airs but then their actions prove they’d ditch everything for some pretty heels and a tiara. Sigh. At least we can always comfort ourselves with some pre-Code gems and Roman Holiday:) Leah

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