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Disney Presents: The Princess and The Bum
60 Plays4 years ago
We discuss the Disney-fication of classic fairytale and which female character is the fairest pickmeisha of all.
Cinderella scam extras: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50839479
The Contenders:
00:52 - Ariel from The Little Mermaid
06:49 - Disney-fication
09:27 - Sailors are the original Furries. Greek Mythology.
12:37 - Snow White - Mommy McCleanMaid?
14:20 - Prince Projection.
15:24 - Reaux learns the story of Bluebeard
16:45 - Hunchback of Notre Dame
17:13 - Beauty & The Beast. Belle be reading. Gaston is kinda fine.
24:39 - Tiana from The Princess and the Frog
26:12 - Tiana, Pocahontas and the complications of whitewashing racism in Children's movies
29:25 - I ain't saying Naveen's a gold digger but....
34:25 - The Pick Me competition is stiff but one eeked out a win
35:55 - Jasmine from Aladdin
39:41 - Anna from Frozen. Kristoff is a smelly furry.
42:44 - Pocahontas fell in love a guy who wanted to shoot her in the face.
46:58 - Is Meg from Hercules the only FDS Queen?
51:20 - 2D vs 3D princesses
53:34 - Cinderella
55:50 - Merida from Brave
56:16 - Mulan
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Transcript
Introduction to Disney Princesses Debate
00:00:05
Speaker
What's up, queens?
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Female Dating Strategy Podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
I'm your host, Ro.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Savannah.
00:00:12
Speaker
And this is Lilith.
00:00:13
Speaker
And today we're going to have a Smackdown fight about which Disney princess is the biggest Pikmesha.
00:00:20
Speaker
Who's the fairest Pikmesha of all?
00:00:23
Speaker
The fairest Pikmesha in the land.
00:00:25
Speaker
We should whip out the British accents again.
00:00:27
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:00:28
Speaker
The fairest Pikmesha in all the land.
00:00:32
Speaker
Like two people told me I had a good British accent and I was like, I don't believe you.
00:00:36
Speaker
No, that was intentional.
00:00:38
Speaker
I wanted it to be bad on purpose.
00:00:40
Speaker
So I'm offended that you liked it.
00:00:42
Speaker
That was my best effort.
00:00:43
Speaker
So y'all can drag that, but that's going to hurt my feelings because that was the best I could do.
00:00:47
Speaker
Sorry.
00:00:50
Speaker
All
Is Ariel the Biggest Pikmesha?
00:00:51
Speaker
right.
00:00:51
Speaker
So I'm going to make the case.
00:00:54
Speaker
I'm going to make the case that Ariel is the biggest pig Misha of all.
00:00:59
Speaker
I disagree.
00:01:00
Speaker
She disagrees.
00:01:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:01:02
Speaker
So tell us, right?
00:01:04
Speaker
Why?
00:01:05
Speaker
Why?
00:01:05
Speaker
Pray tell.
00:01:06
Speaker
Savannah already revealed to us she has not seen this movie.
00:01:09
Speaker
So you're lucky you made it out of your childhood and this wasn't a ubiquitous part of everything because I remember Mermaid Everything.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:20
Speaker
what do they call it?
00:01:21
Speaker
The Disney princess world, the princess world with all the different princesses.
00:01:26
Speaker
But Ariel was one of the first characters of the Disney renaissance when they started making these animated film, animated films directed towards girls.
00:01:36
Speaker
So Ariel was a 16 year old girl who lives under the sea and she has this natural curiosity about life.
00:01:45
Speaker
And she occasionally goes up to the surface and,
00:01:48
Speaker
She's a mermaid, obviously, occasionally goes up to the surface and collects things that humans have.
00:01:54
Speaker
And one day she's floating up to the surface and she sees this guy, Eric, on a boat and the boat capsizes and then Eric almost drowns and she saves him and puts him on the beach.
00:02:08
Speaker
She becomes obsessed with this dude.
00:02:11
Speaker
Absolutely obsessed.
00:02:12
Speaker
And then goes to a witch doctor named Ursula to help her get back to the surface.
00:02:20
Speaker
So basically what Ursula is going to do is give her a potion and
00:02:25
Speaker
To transform her from a mermaid to a human.
00:02:29
Speaker
But the catch is she has to get Prince Eric to kiss her within three days.
00:02:35
Speaker
Otherwise, she turns back into a mermaid.
00:02:38
Speaker
And also she loses her voice.
00:02:40
Speaker
She has to give Ursula her voice in exchange for...
00:02:45
Speaker
her new legs her her shot her chance for her shot to get this guy so off rip y'all the entire premise of the story is one big pick me clusterfuck right she she doesn't know this guy she sees him once on a ship she decides they're in love and she's willing to give up her voice and
00:03:09
Speaker
Everything that anybody needs to communicate in order to have a shot with this guy.
00:03:16
Speaker
And what's hilarious about it is Ursula does this whole song about how the guys on land don't like to hear women anyways.
00:03:25
Speaker
So you're actually doing a good thing by exchanging your voice for some legs.
Defending Ariel: A Sympathetic View
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:30
Speaker
I mean, it's literally like a three, four minute song about this.
00:03:33
Speaker
Like, girl, you don't need your voice.
00:03:35
Speaker
Just take this person.
00:03:40
Speaker
Ursula knew what's up.
00:03:41
Speaker
She knew what was up.
00:03:45
Speaker
My position is not that Ariel is not a pick me, because she definitely is.
00:03:50
Speaker
It's just that she's maybe more of like a sympathetic pick me.
00:03:53
Speaker
Her relationship with her father, first of all, she's grown up in this world where she doesn't, she feels like a bit of a misfit.
00:04:00
Speaker
She doesn't really fit in.
00:04:03
Speaker
And she has interests that are sort of like non-conforming.
00:04:06
Speaker
She wants to live in a whole new world.
00:04:09
Speaker
And her father finds her collection of all of her stuff that she loves and trashes it, which is like, that is like a beat.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, he was really trash for that.
00:04:19
Speaker
You know, my understanding is that she wasn't conforming to their sort of society's expectations of what she's expected to do as royalty.
00:04:29
Speaker
You know, there's that whole musical number at the beginning where it just looks exhausting.
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
She has a father who is very controlling and abusive and doesn't understand her.
00:04:39
Speaker
And she is like a misfit.
00:04:41
Speaker
That being said, I can see how this narrative of like, oh, if your dad's not being supportive of you, if your dad's abusive or whatever, just throw yourself into the arms of another man.
00:04:52
Speaker
Throw yourself at literally the first man you've ever seen.
00:04:56
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:56
Speaker
And so I can see why that message would be toxic to girls who maybe grew up in a household, you know, where they felt like they were being very stifled or very controlled or, you know, their parents maybe weren't, you know, accepting things that they were interested in or even, like, destroyed.
00:05:11
Speaker
Like, I've heard of, like, cases where families...
00:05:14
Speaker
literally, like, will destroy the property of their child because they see their child as property and therefore their child's property is their property and therefore, like, you're not a separate person, I can, like, do whatever I want to you kind of thing.
00:05:25
Speaker
And a lot of, you know, it really fucks up with kids' minds, right?
00:05:28
Speaker
And so a lot of kids who grew up in abusive situations like that, especially women, literally do, like, throw themselves into the arms of the first man who shows them the slightest bit of attention.
00:05:39
Speaker
So that's why, like, I'm not...
00:05:42
Speaker
You know, all the stuff that you mentioned, Ro, at the beginning of, like, yeah, like, she sees the first guy and, like, she falls in love with him.
00:05:48
Speaker
And then Ursula is like, well, men don't want to hear what you have to say anyway, so, like, who cares?
00:05:54
Speaker
Kind of thing.
00:05:54
Speaker
Like, all that matters is your looks, and so you can make him fall in love with you just based on your looks alone.
00:05:59
Speaker
Like, you'll be fine, kind of thing.
00:06:01
Speaker
So that's problematic.
00:06:02
Speaker
At the same time, it does mirror what does actually happen in real life to women.
00:06:06
Speaker
Right.
00:06:07
Speaker
like all of the time.
Disney's Sanitization of Folktales
00:06:08
Speaker
That's very, very common plot line, sadly.
00:06:10
Speaker
That's true.
00:06:10
Speaker
And I think the problem with the Disney-fied version of The Little Mermaid is that they completely took the lesson out of the story.
00:06:17
Speaker
So in the original Little Mermaid story, she sacrifices all these things to get close to this guy, and then he marries another woman anyway.
00:06:25
Speaker
And then she throws herself off a cliff and into the water and I think dies and becomes a spirit.
00:06:33
Speaker
But like, without that...
00:06:35
Speaker
message or lesson it just seems like ursula's kind of right right because he does fall in love with her based on her pretty face and none of her personality like it doesn't really show my problem with the disney story is the whole happy ending thing um the whole concept i know this may sound very cynical but i think that we should stop teaching kids that everything has a happy ending um and
00:07:00
Speaker
What you're talking about with the original story versus the new one is the, I don't know if you've heard the concept of like Disneyfication, which is like a sort of like sociological term to refer to the theme that Disney does where they take a story such as a folktale and,
00:07:17
Speaker
uh you know often the folktales have like horrifying themes you look at like old school folk tales of like like original red riding hood for example like people get eaten and like die they were gruesome and more realistic yeah you know you listen the stories that they told kids back in the old days were all about like make sure to eat all your food off your plate or else a monster will come a monster will come and destroy you in the middle of the night if you don't obey your parents kind of thing right like
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, like Brothers Grimm were, they really lived up to their name because some of their stories were grim.
00:07:50
Speaker
And Disney took a lot of their stories.
00:07:52
Speaker
So Snow White, I think, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, all those and just, yeah, Disney-fied them into something completely different.
00:08:00
Speaker
And so the process of Disneyfication is you take something, you remove all the negative elements, you make it seem like, you know, safe and like sanitized and cutesy and wholesome and family friendly, and then it has a happy ending.
00:08:14
Speaker
And I feel like kids listening to
00:08:15
Speaker
those kinds of stories grow up with completely unrealistic expectations.
00:08:20
Speaker
It's not preparing kids for the real world.
00:08:22
Speaker
And it's almost traumatic when you grow up with that kind of mentality and then you're faced with the real world and it doesn't match up with your expectations.
00:08:29
Speaker
Like the old timey folktales that were really dark and gruesome can be pretty traumatizing as a kid to hear these kinds of stories.
00:08:37
Speaker
You know, if you keep sucking your thumbs, then someone will cut off your thumb.
00:08:41
Speaker
I still can't get over Hansel and Gretel.
00:08:43
Speaker
Like, who came up with a story where they go into the woods and they see this old woman and then she eats children?
00:08:48
Speaker
I'm like, did this happen?
00:08:49
Speaker
Did this happen?
00:08:52
Speaker
I demand to know the origin of the story.
00:08:55
Speaker
Like, what is the point of Hansel and Gretel?
00:08:56
Speaker
Is it like, don't eat too much candy?
00:08:58
Speaker
Don't believe in strangers who are giving you candy because they're just going to, like, kidnap... I see it as an anti-pedophile story.
00:09:04
Speaker
It's like, kids, like, don't trust strangers with candy, okay?
00:09:07
Speaker
They will steal and eat you, okay?
00:09:09
Speaker
But why do they make her a woman, though?
00:09:11
Speaker
Like, that's the thing.
00:09:12
Speaker
I'm like, hmm.
00:09:13
Speaker
I think children do learn from these kinds of stories, and that the reason why these folktales exist is has some kind of educational element to it.
00:09:21
Speaker
Whether that educational element is like, listen to your parents, or like, don't talk to strangers, or do this or that, or...
00:09:27
Speaker
I read a theory about a lot of these, this is going to be kind of gross.
00:09:31
Speaker
A lot of these sea animal hybrids like selkies and mermaids were really just sailors who wanted to have sex with animals.
00:09:39
Speaker
The idea being they're out at sea for months and months and months and they're like, that seal's looking kind of good.
00:09:45
Speaker
That trout fish is looking kind of good.
00:09:47
Speaker
So they were like the early day furries, but just with mermaids.
00:09:51
Speaker
Looks like a lady.
00:09:53
Speaker
You think it looks like a lady?
00:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, it totally looks like a lady.
00:09:55
Speaker
You could just see men like rationalizing it as to themselves.
00:09:58
Speaker
They're like, that fish I had sex with was actually a part lady.
00:10:05
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
00:10:07
Speaker
Because why are they always female too, right?
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
00:10:13
Speaker
Sorry.
00:10:15
Speaker
The sirens of Greek mythology were birds, not fish.
00:10:19
Speaker
I don't know.
00:10:19
Speaker
I see the siren story as just an example of men like just admitting that they have extremely poor impulse control and judgment.
00:10:28
Speaker
Like, you know, Odysseus going by the sirens being like, tie me up, boys, put wax in yours.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's always some woman that takes them off their noble and righteous path, right?
00:10:38
Speaker
In all of these stories.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
Also, the fact that Odysseus just was like shacking up with Cersei, like he was gone for 20 years, okay?
00:10:46
Speaker
But he was with Cersei, I think, for like seven years, the witch.
00:10:50
Speaker
And like, everyone's like, oh, but he was bewitched or whatever.
00:10:52
Speaker
No, no, he wasn't.
00:10:54
Speaker
Like, he was just cheating on his wife.
00:10:56
Speaker
He wanted to be there.
00:10:57
Speaker
He knew where he wanted to be.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah, he was just cheating on his wife.
00:11:00
Speaker
And then, I can't remember the name of his wife, but, you know, she's portrayed as like, oh my gosh, she's such a wholesome good woman because during those 20 years, she never remarried.
00:11:08
Speaker
And, you know, she has all these suitors who want her.
00:11:12
Speaker
And then, you know, she doesn't sleep with any of them.
00:11:16
Speaker
And then Odysseus comes back and finally kills all of her suitors, which is like... We should do a show on Greek mythology, I think.
00:11:23
Speaker
I love Greek mythology.
00:11:24
Speaker
I've, like, been obsessed with it all my life.
00:11:26
Speaker
So, yeah, I'd be down to do that.
00:11:29
Speaker
But anyways, back to Disney, because we kind of got off topic.
00:11:32
Speaker
But back, just to wrap up the concept of Disneyfication, which is, like, the idea of taking something that maybe had negative elements, sanitizing it, repackaging it.
00:11:42
Speaker
We could have a whole debate about that.
Critiquing Ariel's Story: Impact on Young Girls
00:11:44
Speaker
But back to the Pikmisha thing.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, so that's my case for Ariel being the biggest pygmy, because I think I have a strong case built here.
00:11:50
Speaker
But although I think coloring her reactions in the context of her dad makes a lot of sense.
00:11:57
Speaker
My only problem with that story is, like you said, it has the happy ending where, you know, she throws herself into the arms of some man.
00:12:03
Speaker
And I don't like the idea of a lot of girls watching this and thinking that that's a good strategy.
00:12:08
Speaker
Right.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:09
Speaker
Terrible strategy.
00:12:10
Speaker
That if you're growing up an abusive home.
00:12:12
Speaker
Don't give up all your worldly possessions, your bodily autonomy, your physical ability for a man.
00:12:21
Speaker
Terrible, terrible messaging.
00:12:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:23
Speaker
Like the promise that shacking up with some guy, especially the first guy you've met and you haven't even vetted him, that will turn out badly for you nine times out of ten.
00:12:34
Speaker
And I think women and girls need to have realistic expectations about that.
00:12:37
Speaker
But anyways, I want to talk about Snow White, because I think Snow White is a bit of a pick-me.
Snow White's Domestic Role and Naivete
00:12:42
Speaker
But much like Ariel, she also had a sort of difficult background, because her, you know, her mother died, her father remarried, stepmother, I guess, was jealous and wanted her to go die.
00:12:54
Speaker
So Snow White, you know, gets taken out back, taken out back behind the shed to be put down like old Yeller, like...
00:13:03
Speaker
Her stepmom was jealous.
00:13:05
Speaker
There's always an element of jealousy when it comes to the step parent.
00:13:08
Speaker
If the mom's alive, she's horribly jealous of the daughter, right?
00:13:13
Speaker
That's another thing to watch with these stories because the stepmother is mad because she wants to be the fairest of them all, right?
00:13:19
Speaker
And so I see this as a dynamic between two Pikmi- Stepmom versus Snow White.
00:13:23
Speaker
This is a smackdown between two Pikmi-shes.
00:13:26
Speaker
Because what Snow White does is she goes and finds this house full of like seven dwarves and then just starts cooking and cleaning for them.
00:13:33
Speaker
That is fucking bullshit, okay?
00:13:35
Speaker
Right.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, she becomes basically like their, well, I wouldn't say Mommy McBang made because it's not clear if she actually shagged any of them.
00:13:44
Speaker
But yeah, the concept remains.
00:13:46
Speaker
Exactly.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's Disney.
00:13:47
Speaker
So, you know, she's not going to sleep with all of them because it's Disney.
00:13:49
Speaker
But still, like the implication of her finding a house with seven dudes and then just like doing a bunch of cooking and cleaning for them.
00:13:56
Speaker
True.
00:13:57
Speaker
True.
00:13:57
Speaker
And then also the fact that the stepmom disguises herself as a witch and then gives her an apple.
00:14:02
Speaker
Like, who just takes food from strangers like that?
00:14:05
Speaker
Okay, that's a great way to get roofied.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, true.
00:14:08
Speaker
That's sort of in the moral of that story.
00:14:09
Speaker
It's like, stop accepting food from strangers.
00:14:14
Speaker
And then she spends the rest of the movie unconscious, right?
00:14:16
Speaker
And then it's just the prince trying to find her.
00:14:20
Speaker
But we don't know anything about this prince.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I feel Disney and just general literature geared towards women does a lot, but Disney does it too.
00:14:29
Speaker
The only thing we know about the love interest is that he's a prince.
00:14:34
Speaker
There's no... We don't know anything about his character, if he is even...
00:14:39
Speaker
a nice person and I feel like women in real life they then substitute your average low-value man as a prince because he wasn't as shitty as the previous guy.
00:14:49
Speaker
He just has to have like the handsome look right he doesn't even they don't have anything about his character.
00:14:54
Speaker
Just a handsome look.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:56
Speaker
And it's, you know, I've seen, you know, some of my friends have said, you know, he was better than my ex when their ex was literally a minus five on the low value male scale.
00:15:06
Speaker
So it's like, is that really better though?
00:15:09
Speaker
I guess by keeping him blank, it allows women to project whatever their fantasy is on him, right?
00:15:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:16
Speaker
And that's the con, essentially.
00:15:17
Speaker
That is the complete con.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, because that's the thing.
00:15:20
Speaker
If you marry a random strange aristocrat, you know, you never know if you're going to get blue bearded, okay?
00:15:25
Speaker
Right?
00:15:26
Speaker
Do you know the blue beard story?
00:15:29
Speaker
I don't, but... Okay, let me tell you the story.
00:15:32
Speaker
This is hands down my favorite realistic folktale, okay?
00:15:36
Speaker
Basically, it's a French folktale where...
00:15:39
Speaker
This woman marries this aristocrat and he's like, babe, all of the rooms in this castle are for you, except for this one room.
00:15:47
Speaker
You can never go into this one room.
00:15:49
Speaker
And if you go into this room,
00:15:51
Speaker
I'm not going to tell you what will happen, but just don't go into this room.
00:15:54
Speaker
And basically, I mean, each version of the story over time is different, and that's why it's actually interesting to see, to read these stories, and how they're reinvented each time, and how the moral is slightly different each time.
00:16:07
Speaker
But basically, she goes into the room and realizes that he's like a serial killer, and every woman he's ever married...
00:16:14
Speaker
you know, he murdered her.
00:16:16
Speaker
And so all the bodies of all of his ex-wives or past wives are in that room.
00:16:21
Speaker
And so he's like, well, you know, you, uh, you went into this room, therefore you deserve to die.
00:16:26
Speaker
And so if you hadn't gone into this room, I wouldn't have murdered you.
00:16:29
Speaker
And so I really fucking hate the lesson, which is, you know, as a woman, you should obey your husband and not be curious.
00:16:36
Speaker
But yeah, this is why you don't marry random aristocrats.
00:16:39
Speaker
You never know if you're going to get blue bearded.
00:16:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:40
Speaker
That's why vetting is important.
00:16:42
Speaker
I don't even know how they would Disney-fy that.
00:16:44
Speaker
That's pretty dark.
00:16:45
Speaker
Although, although they did try with Hunchback of Notre Dame to really sanitize that story for a happy Disney ending.
00:16:52
Speaker
And it was still disturbing for a children's cartoon.
00:16:55
Speaker
That was still dark, dark.
00:16:57
Speaker
Like, the fryer was some fucked up dude.
00:17:01
Speaker
I weirdly loved that movie when I was a kid.
00:17:03
Speaker
It was traumatizing, but you know one of those movies that's traumatizing in a good way?
00:17:07
Speaker
There's also lots of references to Cassie Modo on the subreddit as well, which just makes me literally...
00:17:13
Speaker
So I think Snow White, even though she also has an abusive background with Ariel, I think Snow White is slightly more of a pick me.
00:17:21
Speaker
What about you, Savannah?
00:17:22
Speaker
Who do you think is the biggest pick
Is Belle a Pick-me in 'Beauty and the Beast'?
00:17:23
Speaker
me?
00:17:23
Speaker
I'm going to throw my hat in the ring and say Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
00:17:28
Speaker
Ooh, that's a good one.
00:17:30
Speaker
For those who haven't seen it, basically the story is about Belle, who is a young, intelligent, pretty, attractive woman who basically has the world of her oyster.
00:17:42
Speaker
She's the only woman in her village who can read.
00:17:47
Speaker
So she's constantly getting cast into it.
00:17:50
Speaker
So she's a witch, basically.
00:17:52
Speaker
And they drag her for it.
00:17:54
Speaker
And the whole village drags her for it.
00:17:57
Speaker
They spend the entire opening number dragging this woman for reading.
00:18:02
Speaker
They're like, what's wrong with this bitch?
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, so she's the only one you can read and she lives with her dad.
00:18:09
Speaker
So basically she gets dragged to hell and back for actually using her brain, which she manages to do anyway, which is good.
00:18:16
Speaker
And so she lives with her dad.
00:18:17
Speaker
Her mum passed away.
00:18:19
Speaker
And there is a...
00:18:23
Speaker
There's a low value man who is pursuing her called Prince Gaston throughout the story, but she rejects him.
00:18:28
Speaker
Is he a prince or is he just a regular rich guy?
00:18:30
Speaker
Actually, much of a regular rich guy, run of the mill, you know, rich, like negative value man who thinks he should have a woman just because he wants her, not because he actually values her.
00:18:41
Speaker
And, you know, fair play to her.
00:18:42
Speaker
I'll give a pick me credit when it's due.
00:18:44
Speaker
She rebuffs him.
00:18:45
Speaker
But her father comes across...
00:18:50
Speaker
the cast of the beast who essentially takes him prisoner.
00:18:53
Speaker
The beast was a prince who was cursed because he basically treated an old lady like shit.
00:19:00
Speaker
And she transformed into a witch who cursed him.
00:19:04
Speaker
And basically, if he doesn't find true love by the time...
00:19:08
Speaker
like the petals on the rose all die, he will remain a beast forever.
00:19:12
Speaker
So he essentially, and the witch also turns all his servants, his entire household into inanimate objects like teacups and shit.
00:19:21
Speaker
So it's quite a bad start for him, but he also brought it upon himself because he was an absolute dick to this woman.
00:19:28
Speaker
So anyway, her dad rides into the beast.
00:19:32
Speaker
He keeps him captive.
00:19:34
Speaker
Like Belle rides across to save her dad.
00:19:37
Speaker
And the Beast says, OK, fine, I'll release your dad, but you have to take his place.
00:19:42
Speaker
And Belle's dad was like, no, no, no, you have your life ahead of you.
00:19:45
Speaker
You go out and live your life.
00:19:46
Speaker
And then Belle, in the live action, she basically tricks her dad into her going into prison.
00:19:54
Speaker
This is where the pick me-ism comes out.
00:19:57
Speaker
Bell is clearly the only woman he's set his eyes on in probably years, right?
00:20:01
Speaker
So he's decided she's going to be mine, again, without really knowing what she wants to do or if she even likes him back, which she doesn't.
00:20:08
Speaker
I mean, why would you love somebody who's imprisoned your father and is now imprisoned you?
00:20:13
Speaker
So he does things like, I mean, first he keeps her locked up against her will, which is domestic violence.
00:20:20
Speaker
It doesn't have to be physical before it's domestic violence.
00:20:24
Speaker
And he'll do things like he'll force her to have dinner with him.
00:20:30
Speaker
And if she doesn't want to eat with him, he'll basically starve her to death.
00:20:34
Speaker
And then he doesn't go on a whole temper tantrum and throw a bunch of plates.
00:20:38
Speaker
That is abusive.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
And even his inanimate objects were like, how can you get her to... This is the only ounce of sense in that film.
00:20:46
Speaker
How can you get her to love you if you're treating her like shit?
00:20:48
Speaker
Damn.
00:20:51
Speaker
Yeah, good point.
00:20:53
Speaker
Took a candlestick to clue him in on reality.
00:20:57
Speaker
He basically brought her along into this elaborate program, essentially, to use her because he knows he's running out of time because the rose petals are dying.
00:21:08
Speaker
So at some point in the story, he basically lets her go, but she gets attacked in the forest by a bunch of wolves and the beast comes to save her and gets basically beaten the shell of.
00:21:19
Speaker
Again, I have no tears.
00:21:21
Speaker
That's where she messes up, right?
00:21:23
Speaker
And then she's like, oh, he's just this wounded bird.
00:21:25
Speaker
I have to take care of him.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, this is where the pygmyism comes out.
00:21:30
Speaker
So, and I just think this whole time she's dancing in the hall, he gives her like a whole library.
00:21:36
Speaker
I'm just thinking this guy is a literal beast.
00:21:40
Speaker
Like all joking aside, like if I'm just, I'm just taking the story literally, like how in the world are you meant to find as a woman, a beast attractive, like physically or whatever?
00:21:53
Speaker
I just, I don't think there was ever a point where the beast showed any real redemption for being a pompous asshole at the beginning.
00:22:01
Speaker
It was more just Belle just decided to see the good in him.
00:22:06
Speaker
And again, there's no, I mean, she literally met him as a beast.
00:22:09
Speaker
She didn't.
00:22:10
Speaker
don't think she really knew him as a prince and even if she did he was clearly a piece of shit because he angered a woman enough to get a massive curse placed on him so it's like why and also why is a woman and again this this reflects reality doesn't it why is a woman hitching her wagon to a man who was cursed
00:22:29
Speaker
and has bad luck following him because of his own actions.
00:22:32
Speaker
And women do this all the time.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, if I was Belle, how I would have played that is I would have, like, went back to Gaston and been like, yeah, let's kill this beast.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:42
Speaker
It's like, you should have just taken the entire last act and put that basically in the second act, right?
00:22:48
Speaker
And then...
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, it would have been over, right?
00:22:51
Speaker
He probably would have acted like you owed him something, but it had your dad back.
00:22:55
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:56
Speaker
I mean, and I've watched the live-action version, so it might have, and the cartoon version, but in both, I just think that the prince, or the beast slash prince and Gaston aren't that different.
00:23:09
Speaker
Exactly.
00:23:10
Speaker
That's so true.
00:23:12
Speaker
If anything, the beast is worse because he's ugly, okay?
00:23:15
Speaker
That's right.
00:23:17
Speaker
True.
00:23:18
Speaker
But personality-wise, they're the same.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, Gaston was kind of fine.
00:23:23
Speaker
They did, like, a bunch of songs talking about how fine he was.
00:23:26
Speaker
His whole chest is covered in hair.
00:23:29
Speaker
Like, if you have to choose between two guys who have the same personality and one of them's hot and one of them's ugly, go with the hot one.
00:23:36
Speaker
Duh.
00:23:37
Speaker
Right, true.
00:23:39
Speaker
Makes no sense, does it?
00:23:40
Speaker
It doesn't make sense.
00:23:41
Speaker
And it's like, a lot of men have the mentality of the beast as well.
00:23:45
Speaker
Like, they will literally...
00:23:46
Speaker
walk around, look like a literal beast who hasn't washed, and expect a beautiful, accomplished woman like Belle to just accept them as they are.
00:23:56
Speaker
And we literally see this replicated in real life, but obviously the beasts in real life don't have a palace and they're not going to become a prince.
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, what if Gaston had kidnapped Belle under the same premise and the story would have just played out the same way?
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:14
Speaker
I just don't see any difference between the Beast and Gaston in terms of personality.
00:24:18
Speaker
They're both pieces of shit.
00:24:21
Speaker
So can I also be cheeky and sneaking a wildcard candidate into this pick-me, into the Disney pick-me race?
00:24:30
Speaker
I think we should let the viewers vote.
00:24:32
Speaker
So maybe...
00:24:34
Speaker
We'll have a poll after we post the podcast.
00:24:37
Speaker
Who wins this debate?
Tiana's Choices and Sacrifices
00:24:39
Speaker
The final candidate, I would say, is Tiana from Princess and the Frog.
00:24:46
Speaker
The Princess and the Frog is essentially about a young Black woman, Tiana, who is saving for a restaurant business.
00:24:56
Speaker
that to honor her late father, which is all well and good.
00:24:59
Speaker
She's hustling.
00:25:00
Speaker
She's grinding.
00:25:01
Speaker
She's working so, so hard.
00:25:02
Speaker
Respect that hustle.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:04
Speaker
I respect her hustle.
00:25:06
Speaker
But then she has a weird relationship dynamic with her rich friend.
00:25:09
Speaker
And it's almost like she looks down on her rich friend as being stupid.
00:25:14
Speaker
But her rich friend is actually quite nice to her.
00:25:17
Speaker
Well, it's like there's like a Disneyfication there of racism.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
So some of the subtext Disney was trying to navigate, but like put very subtly in the background, but not put it in your face was that this is like post antebellum South and it's segregated to the actual reality of being a black person in the South.
00:25:38
Speaker
I'm sure was not like what it was portrayed in the Disney movie.
00:25:42
Speaker
Right.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
It's actually, um, yeah,
00:25:46
Speaker
It's segregated at parts because there's parts in the movie where you see like you see Tiana and she's on public transportation and she's in the back.
00:25:53
Speaker
They don't beat it over your head, but it's very, very subtle.
00:25:56
Speaker
So people understand that this is a segregated time.
00:26:00
Speaker
It was a very imperfect way to handle that subject.
00:26:03
Speaker
I don't I don't like the historical revisionism, basically.
00:26:06
Speaker
It's just, I see it just as more propaganda.
00:26:08
Speaker
I'll talk about Pocahontas similarly, where they take... We can't leave this without wrapping up with Pocahontas, because she... I want to talk about Pocahontas too, because this is another case where you have a very dark, very horrifying history, right?
00:26:22
Speaker
And then to have these media narratives about, like...
00:26:25
Speaker
La la la la la.
00:26:28
Speaker
Like it wasn't as bad as it actually was kind of thing.
00:26:31
Speaker
I'm struggling to find my words here, but I don't think it does a society any good to forget about the horrible things that happened in the past and to sort of reframe it as like the oppressed group was happy with their station in life or something like that, you know?
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough because it's like, how do you talk about those types of subjects with children, right?
00:26:51
Speaker
In a realistic but not horrifying way.
00:26:54
Speaker
Because like the entire, to bring it back to Tiana, the entire premise of the movie was her trying to get money, enough money so that she could open this restaurant in honor of her father.
00:27:06
Speaker
I believe she was really close to closing the restaurant and then someone else outbid her.
00:27:11
Speaker
The bankers make this snide remark like, oh, it was an ambitious goal for someone of your station.
00:27:17
Speaker
It's clearly supposed to be a reference to her being black and poor, but it doesn't really...
00:27:23
Speaker
you know, they don't, they don't hit the kids over the head with it.
00:27:25
Speaker
And so it's like, do you, is that better?
00:27:27
Speaker
Is that worse?
00:27:29
Speaker
Or them being like, they had just flat out said, it's not, it's because you're black sis, you know?
00:27:34
Speaker
Because the kids don't know the history behind it, right?
00:27:36
Speaker
Like they're, that's what I mean.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's like the first, the child's first impression of that history, not knowing the historical context, if the, you know, a child's brain is empty, right?
00:27:46
Speaker
The first thing you say to a child is like, is the
00:27:48
Speaker
The thing that's going to... I mean, I don't know for sure, but my understanding is, like, the first thing that enters a child's brain is what's going to stick, right?
00:27:55
Speaker
And so, if their first introduction to these stories, say Pocahontas, say this case of Tiana, and then you just end up with people who grow up thinking that, like, you know, the story of Thanksgiving, right?
00:28:06
Speaker
Like, oh, the white people, you know, came and, like, you know, the natives taught them how to...
00:28:11
Speaker
And like they all had a nice dinner together.
00:28:14
Speaker
It was all happy, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:28:15
Speaker
And you grow up with people who have no idea of like the real history behind it.
00:28:19
Speaker
And it makes them uncomfortable to learn the real history of it because it doesn't match what they grew up with.
00:28:25
Speaker
I see what you're saying.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
When they Disneyfy the history.
00:28:30
Speaker
They lose a big part of the lesson and they present a rosy picture of a time that was actually very painful for people.
00:28:37
Speaker
And then it allows people to float in their ignorance about the time and then have these feel-good stories so that they can whitewash the reality, right?
00:28:45
Speaker
Because then it's not going to feel like such a feel-good story when you think about the fact that, well, the only reason Tiana's poor is because her father died in a war and probably couldn't get any of the benefits that a white soldier would have gotten from
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:58
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:58
Speaker
I mean, that's a that's a complicated question.
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:01
Speaker
Like, how do you teach children about systemic racism or systemic oppression?
00:29:04
Speaker
Because I've also seen the other the other argument is like, how much do you want to traumatize black children with the truth to write if they're watching that, too?
00:29:12
Speaker
True.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:12
Speaker
So it's a balance, I think.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah.
Addressing Racism in Tiana's Story
00:29:15
Speaker
Do we want to, what makes Tiana a pick-me?
00:29:18
Speaker
Because my understanding is like, you know, she's very hardworking and being hardworking is a good trait.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, so basically Prince Naveen is now a broke prince because his parents cut him off for basically being...
00:29:31
Speaker
a piece of shit a fuck boy from top to bottom yeah so he rides into tiana's town planning to basically um get into a sham marriage with her best friend charlotte who's the rich kid and basically just like use her fortune basically because he has none of his own so he's a gold digger
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, he's a gold digger and just a general womaniser as well.
00:29:54
Speaker
Tiana doesn't know this.
00:29:56
Speaker
So, and again, Naveen gets a curse placed on him.
00:30:01
Speaker
This time, unlike the Beast, though, like also Dr. Facilier, he's a witch doctor.
00:30:07
Speaker
He's an even bigger piece of shit.
00:30:09
Speaker
So I have a shred of sympathy for Naveen because he's a really, really nasty character, Dr. Facilier.
00:30:16
Speaker
He's like...
00:30:17
Speaker
He puts cuss on people.
00:30:19
Speaker
He's involved in the voodoo underworld and is just basically the devil.
00:30:22
Speaker
Voodoo, though, this is a side note, but voodoo, though, is a is a often misunderstood demonized religion.
00:30:30
Speaker
But that's a whole other discussion.
00:30:32
Speaker
I think voodoo is actually dope.
00:30:34
Speaker
Love voodoo.
00:30:36
Speaker
I mean, in the story that he's portrayed as the devil, he's the story's villain.
00:30:44
Speaker
So he places a curse on Prince Naveen and basically turns him into a frog.
00:30:51
Speaker
And he will stay a frog unless he gets a kiss from a real princess.
00:30:54
Speaker
Now, Tiana is dressed up for this ball that I think her friend is throwing.
00:31:01
Speaker
So Naveen assumes that she's a princess.
00:31:05
Speaker
And he essentially cons her into kissing him.
00:31:09
Speaker
not knowing that she isn't an actual princess.
00:31:11
Speaker
So again, he wanted to use her again.
00:31:15
Speaker
So she then turns into a frog.
00:31:17
Speaker
And basically, they go off on this adventure.
00:31:20
Speaker
They go through many trials and tribulations, as they often do.
00:31:23
Speaker
And she ends up falling in love with him, despite him being... I mean, first of all, he lied about who he was.
00:31:30
Speaker
I mean, when they were both frogs, he triumphantly says, I am completely broke and is proud of it.
00:31:36
Speaker
Like, just...
00:31:38
Speaker
general piece of shit and um i think the i think the tipping point for me was when um like dr facilier i mean it's a bit dodgy but he basically offers tiana everything that she wants so she wants a restaurant she'll have it she'll be successful and she basically turns it down because she wants to be with naveen who um
00:32:02
Speaker
hasn't really... I mean, Dr. Facilier, he's not... I mean, in the story, he's the villain.
00:32:07
Speaker
But again, I think it relates... It translates, you know, quite nicely to real life because, again, how many women have given up their dreams to be wherever they want to be just to be with a man?
00:32:19
Speaker
And unlike in The Princess and the Frog... In fact, I think this guy is still broke at the end of it as well.
00:32:25
Speaker
So it's not even like... And they all lived happily ever after.
00:32:28
Speaker
So he's basically like the equivalent of like that guy that's like unemployed and is a loser.
00:32:34
Speaker
Then marries like a really, really hardworking, strong black woman and then just mooches off of her.
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:32:39
Speaker
He's a freeloader.
00:32:40
Speaker
I mean, that would literally be if the princess and if Disney were being honest, that would be the princess and the bum would be part two.
00:32:47
Speaker
Because that is exactly what would happen.
00:32:50
Speaker
The princess and the bum.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:52
Speaker
Wait, wasn't the ending, like, so how does he get out of it?
00:32:55
Speaker
Don't they, like, get married and, like, oh, now you're a princess and now we kiss and now I'm not a... Yeah, it's just, I think Princess and the Frog is, yeah, it's quite relatable.
00:33:06
Speaker
I mean, you have the woman who's hustling, working her ass off, and her life gets...
00:33:12
Speaker
dramatically interrupted by a low value man a negative value man he's like a negative three on the scale a lazy womanizing fuck boy yeah
00:33:24
Speaker
Who, exactly.
00:33:26
Speaker
Who essentially, he massively disrupts her life by getting her turned into a frog.
00:33:34
Speaker
And for some reason, somehow, she finds redeeming features again in this guy who ruined her life.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's not even really clear how she falls in love with him.
00:33:43
Speaker
No, it's not.
00:33:43
Speaker
She falls in love with him because he learns how to cut mushrooms on his own, right?
00:33:47
Speaker
Because she was teaching him like basic life skills the entire movie.
00:33:50
Speaker
The entire movie, she's teaching him basic life skills because he has zero because he's never had to do anything, right?
00:33:56
Speaker
Because he's been treated like a prince his whole life.
00:33:58
Speaker
So she's teaching him basic life skills.
00:34:00
Speaker
And then one day he decides he's in love with her and wants to marry her.
00:34:04
Speaker
And so he learns how to mince mushrooms on his own to help her with her potential restaurant she was trying to open.
00:34:11
Speaker
So he learns the barest of minimums of basic self-maintenance skills, and that now qualifies him as worthy of love.
00:34:20
Speaker
Okay, fuck that.
00:34:23
Speaker
So, I mean, in a way, this episode has really shone a light on Disney because the competition is stiff as to who is the biggest pick, me.
00:34:31
Speaker
It was.
00:34:32
Speaker
I thought Ariel was going to blow them out of the water, but the way you guys have broken this down, I'm like, yeah, damn, they really all...
00:34:39
Speaker
They really all are.
00:34:40
Speaker
Actually, I think I've... I now think... I agree with Savannah, actually.
00:34:43
Speaker
I think Belle is probably... It's still Belle.
00:34:45
Speaker
The bigger pick-me, yeah.
00:34:47
Speaker
I think Belle... That's the worst dynamic, yeah.
00:34:49
Speaker
It's because the thing... And the thing is with Belle.
00:34:52
Speaker
And the thing is with Belle, though, the thing... Because I think you said earlier, Lilith, that there are some pick-mees that just don't know any better, right?
00:34:58
Speaker
She's rejected someone like Gaston, so she knows that there are low-value men, right?
00:35:03
Speaker
But then she goes and falls in love with a guy who's the same...
00:35:07
Speaker
In fact, he's, I mean, Gaston, if you had the chance, would have kidnapped her.
00:35:11
Speaker
But this guy was literally going to lock you up in his tower.
00:35:14
Speaker
It's just, the beast is so problematic.
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:18
Speaker
I mean, some people make the argument of like, oh, you know, a Stockholm Syndrome.
00:35:22
Speaker
She was doing what she needed to do to survive.
00:35:24
Speaker
And, you know, I kind of get that.
00:35:27
Speaker
But he let her leave and she went back.
00:35:29
Speaker
My problem is with these stories where you have a really strong, really smart woman like Belle or like Tiana, and then they, despite them being smart and hardworking and amazing, they still settle for a shitty man.
00:35:40
Speaker
What kind of example is that setting for girls?
00:35:43
Speaker
They're all Pikmes.
00:35:45
Speaker
I'm like, I can't think of one that's not a Pikmi now.
00:35:48
Speaker
Elsa from Frozen is the only one I can think of that's not a Pikmi, and maybe Mulan.
00:35:52
Speaker
But I want to talk about Mulan in a sec, because she's my favorite.
00:35:55
Speaker
Okay, another Pikmi I want to talk about is Jasmine.
00:35:58
Speaker
Jasmine!
00:36:00
Speaker
Because that's another story that makes me so mad.
00:36:04
Speaker
I forgot about Jasmine!
00:36:06
Speaker
We need to talk about Jasmine now.
00:36:08
Speaker
I completely forgot about Jasmine.
00:36:09
Speaker
Gosh, yeah.
Jasmine's Choice of Aladdin
00:36:10
Speaker
First of all, I guess she was lied to at first because he, you know, gets the whole wish and he's dressed up like a fancy prince and all that stuff.
00:36:17
Speaker
But isn't she, like, not attracted to him at first?
00:36:20
Speaker
Like, she doesn't like him because he's...
00:36:22
Speaker
She is, but so she pretends to be, she runs away from the castle because she's tired of being a princess.
00:36:26
Speaker
So she pretends to be a commoner.
00:36:28
Speaker
And then while she's pretending to be a commoner, she almost, she steals something on accident and then Aladdin saves her.
00:36:37
Speaker
And then they get to know each other.
00:36:39
Speaker
And she falls in love with him as a street rat.
00:36:42
Speaker
And then he finds out she's a princess.
00:36:46
Speaker
And then he realizes, oh, I'll never be able to have her unless I'm a prince.
00:36:49
Speaker
Because the law at the time was that she had to marry a prince.
00:36:51
Speaker
So then a series of adventures happened.
00:36:54
Speaker
And then he gets the lamp from the Cave of Wonders and then wishes to be a prince so that he can bag Jasmine.
00:37:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:03
Speaker
But isn't she not attracted to him in Prince form?
00:37:06
Speaker
Like, at first?
00:37:07
Speaker
I think she thinks he's pompous at first, but only when she realizes that he was actually a street rat all along, and that's when she, like, falls for him or whatever.
00:37:15
Speaker
I hate that story so much.
00:37:18
Speaker
You've got a literal queen being like, oh, yes, the street rat.
00:37:21
Speaker
Like, no, I hate that.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, it was like they had all these princes coming to see her and she was just tired of their pompous ass hattery.
00:37:30
Speaker
And so by the time Prince Ali comes to town, she's like, I'm so over his crap.
00:37:35
Speaker
And so she doesn't really like him in the prince form because he's just flaunting his wealth.
00:37:40
Speaker
But I don't know.
00:37:41
Speaker
I don't know if that makes her a pick me.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker
But again, that's another propaganda thing because I really don't like the idea of a woman who's at a very high level is like beautiful, intelligent.
00:37:50
Speaker
There's no virtue in being attracted to someone who is beneath you.
00:37:55
Speaker
Like that doesn't make you a better person.
00:37:58
Speaker
And it just seems like propaganda to get girls to have low standards and to think that there's something wrong with them if they want better or want, like, you know, someone who's their equal.
00:38:08
Speaker
She says, I'm not a prize to be won.
00:38:10
Speaker
And, like, that's pretty much the antithesis of...
00:38:13
Speaker
she's like i am not a prize to be won and like yes you are need to act like it like start making demands exactly like there's no virtue in dating a poor broke ugly abusive guy like what i'm not just talking about jasmine i'm talking about like collectively like the bell story the tiana story there's no virtue like you're not a good person or a good woman just for dating a guy who's shitty right
00:38:41
Speaker
She doesn't want to be objectified.
00:38:42
Speaker
And I think it's part of... See, it's complicated now that I'm thinking about it because the reason why she says that is because she doesn't want to be objectified by these guys because she is being treated like she doesn't have her own choices.
00:38:53
Speaker
And I think that's the subtext is that her father and Jafar are trying to put all these guys in front of her and force her to marry some guy just because he's of a certain station rather than someone who she's actually genuinely attracted to.
00:39:07
Speaker
But I think instead of balance...
00:39:10
Speaker
Maybe that should have happened.
00:39:12
Speaker
She goes full on, like... To, like, the exact opposite extreme, which is just as harmful.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, the diamond in the rough, according to the prophecy.
00:39:20
Speaker
And I'm like, how many prophecies have there been?
00:39:22
Speaker
Every guy who hasn't made it yet thinks he's going to make it someday.
00:39:26
Speaker
Like, again, in real life, she would have bet the horse on Aladdin.
00:39:29
Speaker
He never would have made it, right?
00:39:31
Speaker
And then, like...
00:39:32
Speaker
Then she'd just be married to this guy.
00:39:34
Speaker
She's like, I could have married a prince.
00:39:36
Speaker
And then they'd be miserable together for 40 years.
00:39:38
Speaker
Exactly.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Problematic Messages in 'Frozen' and 'Pocahontas'
00:39:41
Speaker
What's another?
00:39:42
Speaker
So I got beef with the movie Frozen because there's a scene in there with a song where Kristoff, who is like, he's not really Anna's love interest.
00:39:51
Speaker
I mean, the very beginning of the entire movie, Anna falls in love, does the whole Disney falls in love at first sight with a prince who turns out to be
00:40:00
Speaker
a guy who's just trying to maneuver their family out of their kingdom.
00:40:04
Speaker
So basically he had ulterior motives from, from the beginning and credit to Disney.
00:40:11
Speaker
They finally showed the downside of their like instant love connection because they see each other, you know, and they're both handsome and pretty.
00:40:19
Speaker
So that was like, it does seem like they tried to,
00:40:23
Speaker
add some complexity to the entire story of living happily ever after, because perhaps some of the writers realize how toxic of a message that is.
00:40:33
Speaker
But there's another guy named Kristoff, who I guess was raised by trolls and they don't,
00:40:41
Speaker
They don't really explain the entirety behind that.
00:40:44
Speaker
And they do this entire song called He's a Bit of a Fixer Upper.
00:40:47
Speaker
And it's all about how, oh, don't worry about it.
00:40:49
Speaker
You just got to fix him up a little bit and he'll be perfect for you.
00:40:52
Speaker
And I'm just like, no, no.
00:40:55
Speaker
No more projects.
00:40:56
Speaker
No more fucking projects.
00:40:58
Speaker
They do a whole song in a bit.
00:41:00
Speaker
And they're like, well, he smells and he's a little awkward.
00:41:03
Speaker
He's got this weird thing going on with the reindeer, but he's just a little bit of a fixer upper.
00:41:08
Speaker
And if you just fix him up with your love, all he needs is a little bit of love.
00:41:11
Speaker
And I'm like, no, no, no.
00:41:12
Speaker
That's how so many women get trapped.
00:41:14
Speaker
He needs to come all the way together.
00:41:19
Speaker
I think the only HVM in Frozen was Olaf.
00:41:22
Speaker
Oh,
00:41:22
Speaker
What?
00:41:23
Speaker
The snowman.
00:41:24
Speaker
I'm so confused by this.
00:41:25
Speaker
What?
00:41:26
Speaker
I liked Olaf, huh?
00:41:27
Speaker
Like the snowman.
00:41:28
Speaker
Because at the beginning as well, like when Anna and him were setting off, he was even, he was like, he was like, bye Sven, thinking he wouldn't come along.
00:41:38
Speaker
But then she brought him along with her.
00:41:40
Speaker
So Olaf is a little snowman who is very, he's like disgustingly ignorant because he sings a song about looking forward to summer, not realizing that he won't exist if there is summer.
00:41:53
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
I do like the closing theme with Frozen in that the, you know, true love thing is between sisters rather than, you know, between a romantic partner.
00:42:07
Speaker
And I like that because I think true female friendship or true sisterhood is more important and more valuable and more reliable and less risky than falling for a man.
00:42:18
Speaker
So.
00:42:18
Speaker
100%.
00:42:19
Speaker
I like that evolution, I guess.
00:42:22
Speaker
The true love story is Anna and her sister.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like they tried to course correct in a lot of the Disneyfication narratives and then they just made that one little misstep, I think, in the middle.
00:42:32
Speaker
Because it was also interesting how, like, how SAD didn't have a love interest.
00:42:36
Speaker
I think if Frozen was released, say, 15, 20 years ago, it would have been her going after Kristoff or that shitty prince.
00:42:43
Speaker
Well, there's Pocahontas, right?
00:42:45
Speaker
Who basically, I mean, we kind of know what happened with the English settlers and the Native Americans.
00:42:51
Speaker
But consider that she gave her whole, she was willing to give her whole family away for this random dude that she met that almost tried to kill her at first.
00:42:59
Speaker
That actually didn't even almost, directly tried to kill her until he realized she was hot.
00:43:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:04
Speaker
So like, right.
00:43:05
Speaker
Remember at the beginning of the movie, he like, he's like, I'm real good at killing engines.
00:43:09
Speaker
And then he like runs off to the woods and then he sees Pocahontas and he literally has his gun up going to shoot her between the eyes.
00:43:16
Speaker
And then it's like, well, this one's kind of hot.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:19
Speaker
The Pocahontas story I find so, so insulting, especially since the original Pocahontas was basically like kidnapped by the Europeans and treated like a zoo animal.
00:43:28
Speaker
And she was a child.
00:43:29
Speaker
They aged her up in the movie, but she was like 12, 13.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
Yeah, so she was like a literal child and was taken to the old world to be like, oh, look, we can civilize the natives.
00:43:38
Speaker
Like, we can train them to, you know, speak English.
00:43:41
Speaker
And it's just very, very dark, right?
00:43:43
Speaker
And then she's treated as like a sideshow oddity and eventually died.
00:43:47
Speaker
Kokoam, the native guy that she was supposed to marry, that she didn't want to marry.
00:43:52
Speaker
So he was like the best warrior in the village.
00:43:55
Speaker
She didn't want to marry him.
00:43:58
Speaker
I don't remember exactly what the fight was about, but there's a fight between Cocoa and John Smith.
00:44:03
Speaker
John Smith kills Cocoa during the fight.
00:44:06
Speaker
And then a war starts to ramp up after that because of the fact that...
00:44:13
Speaker
John Smith killed Cocoa woman.
00:44:14
Speaker
Then she decides to throw herself in the middle of that.
00:44:16
Speaker
And I'm like, girl.
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's really problematic, the idea of like a war between, because we know what happens later, right?
00:44:24
Speaker
Like this is, it's not like Disney made this before the European history happened, right?
00:44:29
Speaker
Like we know the end.
00:44:31
Speaker
So the, just the idea of like, you know, a native woman being
00:44:35
Speaker
essentially betraying her own people to side with like the white people who would eventually later destroy her entire civilization is just a very like problematic message to me.
00:44:45
Speaker
She throws herself over John Smith's body.
00:44:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's some pick me ass shit right there.
00:44:50
Speaker
She throws herself over his body and I'm like, again, why?
00:44:54
Speaker
This guy was gonna murder her until he realized she was hot.
00:44:58
Speaker
And in real life, he probably just would have raped her and been done with it and killed her anyway.
00:45:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, that whole, the whole plot line is just a train wreck and is just really, really dark when you know the real history behind it, right?
00:45:10
Speaker
And that's why I don't like these kinds of messages being shown to kids.
00:45:13
Speaker
It's like they're trying to build a narrative.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, they're trying to build this narrative that, like, the colonization of the New World was somehow, like, consensual or that the natives were, like, you know, savages that wanted to kill the white people and, like, they shouldn't
00:45:28
Speaker
have done that.
00:45:28
Speaker
Like, I don't like the framing of portraying them as the bad guys for that.
00:45:32
Speaker
The reality was the opposite, right?
00:45:33
Speaker
It just seems very, like, victim-blamey.
00:45:36
Speaker
I don't know.
00:45:36
Speaker
Right.
00:45:37
Speaker
He did, like, invade their whole spot, right?
00:45:39
Speaker
And then kill one of their soldiers and almost kill the princess, so... He kind of had it coming, right?
00:45:47
Speaker
So, I don't understand the whole, like, you know, throwing herself on this man and saving her his life.
00:45:52
Speaker
Like, that's some pick-me-ass stuff.
00:45:54
Speaker
And just the...
00:45:57
Speaker
The whole history behind it just makes it so much more cringy.
00:46:01
Speaker
How can you fucking sanitize the concept of the genocide of an entire culture?
00:46:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's the problem with the tokenism of diversity sometimes.
00:46:10
Speaker
I think it would have been better if they had just told a Native story.
00:46:13
Speaker
And I think they've made amends in some of the...
00:46:16
Speaker
I feel like they're trying to evolve because... With Moana, I guess.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah, Moana, exactly.
00:46:22
Speaker
Where they went to the people who they were talking about and asked them to tell their own stories rather than a whitewashed version of their stories told from the eyes of Europeans, right?
00:46:32
Speaker
So I think a much needed change in the way that they build narratives.
00:46:39
Speaker
The last story I wanted to talk about was Mulan.
00:46:41
Speaker
Because I love Mulan.
00:46:42
Speaker
That's like, that's my favorite Disney movie.
00:46:44
Speaker
That's the one that when I was a kid, I just would watch over and over.
00:46:47
Speaker
You know how little kids, they get obsessed with a certain story and they just want to watch the same movie over and over and over again.
00:46:53
Speaker
And it drove my parents crazy because they're like, you just watch Mulan like a hundred times.
00:46:57
Speaker
I felt that way about Hercules, who might have had the only FDS type woman in there.
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah, I like, let's talk about Meg, actually.
00:47:05
Speaker
Let's sidetrack, talk about Meg, because I do like her as well.
00:47:08
Speaker
What are your thoughts, Ro?
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Meg, well, she started off as a massive pick me, right?
00:47:15
Speaker
Because the reason why she was doing the bidding of Hades is because she sold her soul to him for true love.
00:47:21
Speaker
And then that guy left her.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, so she's like a reformed pick-me.
00:47:25
Speaker
Reformed pick-me.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah, relatable.
00:47:27
Speaker
Hashtag relatable.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:31
Speaker
And then, I'm trying to remember, now it's like it's been actually years since I've seen that movie, but, ooh, like, what was her entire...
00:47:38
Speaker
So what happened?
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah, so she sold her soul to get a guy.
00:47:42
Speaker
He ends up leaving her.
00:47:44
Speaker
And then the thing is, in the end, there's this one moment where Hercules makes a deal with Hades that, I'll give away my power so long as Meg is safe.
00:47:53
Speaker
And then Meg gets injured.
00:47:54
Speaker
But the way that she gets injured is like she goes and like throws her, again, one of these like...
00:48:00
Speaker
The woman pushes him out of the side.
00:48:01
Speaker
There's this pillar that's about to fall.
00:48:04
Speaker
She takes the hit instead of Hercules.
00:48:06
Speaker
And then because she got hurt, he gets his powers back.
00:48:09
Speaker
And then he goes to the underworld to save her.
00:48:12
Speaker
I know originally she was trying to find out what Hercules' weaknesses were.
00:48:16
Speaker
Hades points out that Meg is his weakness.
00:48:20
Speaker
Right.
00:48:21
Speaker
Although I will say that Hercules had a TV show.
00:48:24
Speaker
It was like Hercules in college or something like that.
00:48:28
Speaker
And they have this episode where he creates like a sculpture.
00:48:33
Speaker
It's like a Pygmalion story where he creates a sculpture of his perfect woman.
00:48:37
Speaker
And then Aphrodite comes and is like...
00:48:40
Speaker
you know, what do you want her to be like?
00:48:41
Speaker
He's like, oh, I just want her to be beautiful and crazy about me.
00:48:45
Speaker
And Aphrodite rolls her eyes and is like, all right, you got it.
00:48:50
Speaker
And so it turns out she's like obsessed with him.
00:48:52
Speaker
And he doesn't like that.
00:48:54
Speaker
Like he actually loses interest in her because of how much of a pick me she is.
00:48:58
Speaker
And then when he rejects her and leaves her on this island, she literally like goes insane.
00:49:03
Speaker
So Aphrodite kind of
00:49:06
Speaker
It's kind of a double-edged sword.
00:49:07
Speaker
It's like, oh, she's crazy for you?
00:49:08
Speaker
Like, she's literally crazy for you.
00:49:10
Speaker
So she goes there and she, like, destroys prom or whatever.
00:49:13
Speaker
And then in the end, Aphrodite's like, okay, this is a lesson in how, you know, you shouldn't just want a woman who's obsessed with you.
00:49:21
Speaker
You should want a woman with her own personality.
00:49:22
Speaker
And then he's like, okay, I want her to be her own person and have a mind of her own.
00:49:27
Speaker
And then once she has a mind of her own, she dumps him.
00:49:30
Speaker
So...
00:49:30
Speaker
That's an FDS story.
00:49:32
Speaker
That's an FDS story that I like.
00:49:34
Speaker
That's like, that's Disney dipping their toe into progressivism.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, so what happened is Meg, she does sacrifice herself for Hercules.
00:49:43
Speaker
He was about to get hit by a pillar, and she pushes him out of the way, and then she gets crushed by the pillar instead and dies.
00:49:49
Speaker
And then he goes and rescues her, and then that selfless act makes him...
Positive Relationship in 'Hercules'
00:49:55
Speaker
A god again.
00:49:56
Speaker
So that sacrifice, yeah, exactly, makes him a god.
00:50:01
Speaker
And I think it's actually kind of cute how at the end, like, he has the option of going up and living on Mount Olympus, and he's like, no, I'm gonna give up immortality so I can be with Meg.
00:50:11
Speaker
I think that's, I kind of like that.
00:50:12
Speaker
Actually, it's pretty cute.
00:50:13
Speaker
That's kind of cute.
00:50:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:14
Speaker
So, like, I like that whole story arc, to be honest.
00:50:17
Speaker
The fact that they both, like, what I don't like is stories where the woman sacrifices everything for a man and doesn't get much in return.
00:50:24
Speaker
This is a case where they both make a sacrifice and they choose each other in the end.
00:50:29
Speaker
Right.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually a very, very good point that this seemed like they're both kind of mutually meeting each other, meeting each other's intensity.
00:50:38
Speaker
Right.
00:50:38
Speaker
And even even though actually Meg's probably more reluctant than Hercules, but but at least you're kind of seeing him make the proposition to her and, you know, them feeling out each other's commitment to one another.
00:50:50
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, they tried.
00:50:52
Speaker
Not bad for Disney.
00:50:53
Speaker
I mean, considering all the other stuff we've talked about.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:56
Speaker
But apparently she doesn't count as a Disney princess because she's not like royalty.
00:51:00
Speaker
So.
00:51:00
Speaker
Of course not.
00:51:01
Speaker
Neither does Esmeralda.
00:51:03
Speaker
Actually, we need to talk about that because all the like based women are not Disney princesses, right?
00:51:08
Speaker
Esmeralda isn't either.
00:51:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:10
Speaker
All the women who were independent and had a mind of their own and were doing their own thing didn't get to be Disney princesses.
00:51:18
Speaker
Except for the new crop, there's... The 2D princesses, not the 3D princesses.
00:51:23
Speaker
Yeah, the 3D princesses are more modern.
00:51:26
Speaker
And they're more children, too.
00:51:27
Speaker
That's what I noticed, is that they stopped aging up the princesses.
00:51:33
Speaker
I think the youngest one that I know, at least the person that revealed their age was Ariel, was 16.
00:51:40
Speaker
But the rest of the princesses, it's not really clear how old they are, and they seem to be older versus, like...
00:51:47
Speaker
now with Moana, those are clearly children, right?
00:51:51
Speaker
They draw them like children and they look like children.
00:51:53
Speaker
I actually found this graph that was like, these are the ages of all the princesses.
00:51:57
Speaker
And the oldest one is Elsa.
00:51:58
Speaker
She's 24.
00:52:00
Speaker
Anna's 21.
00:52:02
Speaker
Tiana's 19.
00:52:03
Speaker
What?
00:52:04
Speaker
Yeah, Cinderella's 19.
00:52:05
Speaker
Oh, that's another one I want to talk about, Cinderella.
00:52:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:08
Speaker
So, for those of you listening, we have Patreon bonus content where I talk about the Cinderella story.
00:52:15
Speaker
So that's one.
00:52:16
Speaker
Let's plug our Patreon real quick, Ro.
00:52:18
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:52:19
Speaker
Have you heard of our Patreon?
00:52:21
Speaker
It's at patreon.com forward slash the female dating strategy.
00:52:25
Speaker
We have lots of bonus content up there as well as the opportunity to enter our raffle to have a story that
00:52:37
Speaker
From your life, either roasting a guy or celebrating one of your successes on our podcast, all you got to do is sign up for the Patreon and then submit your story to us and we'll draw a couple out of the raffle.
00:52:50
Speaker
And like we said, we have yet to get one yet.
00:52:53
Speaker
So if y'all want to go ahead and, you know, submit it, then you could be the first one.
00:52:57
Speaker
Be a pick me.
00:52:58
Speaker
Be a pick me.
00:52:59
Speaker
Just for this.
00:53:00
Speaker
Just for this.
00:53:01
Speaker
Just for this.
00:53:01
Speaker
And we also have the queen tier if you want exclusive updates on the brand and where we're going with different aspects of the brand.
00:53:08
Speaker
If you want to be on the queen tier and get some merchandise.
00:53:12
Speaker
And help sync Vice.
00:53:13
Speaker
Yeah, help sync Vice.
00:53:15
Speaker
That's it.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:16
Speaker
You'll know what we're talking about when we release the content about what we're going to do in that area.
00:53:20
Speaker
Oh, and also follow our social media because we have special deals on our social media sometimes.
00:53:26
Speaker
If you want some updates, follow our Twitter at femdatstrat or our Instagram underscore the female dating strategy.
00:53:34
Speaker
But back to Cinderella.
00:53:35
Speaker
So in this, in the bonus content that's on the Patreon, I talked about how I don't like the concept of the Cinderella story.
00:53:44
Speaker
And I have to admit, my views have changed slightly since then.
00:53:48
Speaker
Now that I've looked at the Cinderella story in more detail, I actually think that she's maybe less of a pick-me because, again, it's another case of, like, you know, she grew up in an abusive home.
00:53:57
Speaker
She had the stepmom and stepsisters who were, like, bullying her and pretty much treating her like a slave.
00:54:03
Speaker
And she had to be resourceful, essentially, to get out of her situation.
00:54:07
Speaker
Like, she ends up, like, sewing this dress.
00:54:09
Speaker
She wants to go to the ball.
00:54:11
Speaker
And she tries to improve her situation.
00:54:13
Speaker
So I kind of respect that, actually.
00:54:14
Speaker
That being said, I don't like the fact that the guy that she ends up with, Prince whatever, can't recognize her.
00:54:20
Speaker
Prince Charming.
00:54:22
Speaker
Generic Prince that you can project all your fantasies on.
00:54:26
Speaker
And then he can't even recognize her without the shoe?
00:54:28
Speaker
Like, come on.
00:54:29
Speaker
And being charming is not a good thing in most cases from, like, men.
00:54:35
Speaker
I think, like, Gavin DeBecker in The Gift of Fear, which should be required reading,
00:54:41
Speaker
for girls of Disney age often says that charm is a red flag because it's what men use to disarm.
00:54:49
Speaker
It's not a positive thing.
00:54:51
Speaker
And if you look, if you examine the charming men that you know, they're often the men who will offer things like friends with benefits or will try to get you to sleep with them too soon.
00:55:02
Speaker
It's not a positive trait if a man is overtly charming.
00:55:06
Speaker
So it's problematic that they made this guy's entire personality
00:55:11
Speaker
about how charming he was which yeah lots of horrible people are charming yeah prince charming is a red flag a lot of narcissists a lot of sociopaths psychopaths a lot of them have that superficial charm so yeah definitely something to look out for
00:55:25
Speaker
Yeah, but again, in the original Disney story, the stepsisters apparently cut off their toes to fit into the shoe thing, right?
00:55:33
Speaker
So they're the pick-me's.
00:55:35
Speaker
In this story, I'd say the stepsisters, yeah, the stepsisters are the pick-me's, literally, like, mutilating their own feet to try to get picked, right?
00:55:43
Speaker
But also, like, why can he not look at your face?
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:46
Speaker
You don't remember her face because he was too busy looking at that ass.
00:55:50
Speaker
Do we want to talk about Marita from Brave?
00:55:52
Speaker
I actually kind of liked Marita because her parents were trying to marry her off and she didn't like any of them.
00:55:58
Speaker
She says, okay, if you want to win my hand, you have to win this archery competition.
00:56:03
Speaker
And then she enters the competition and then wins.
00:56:05
Speaker
And so she's like, I'm going to marry myself.
00:56:07
Speaker
I stan that, honestly.
00:56:09
Speaker
Based.
00:56:09
Speaker
Based.
00:56:10
Speaker
Based.
00:56:11
Speaker
Ladies, if you're listening, marry yourself.
00:56:13
Speaker
But yeah, so Mulan.
00:56:16
Speaker
Why do I like Mulan so much?
00:56:17
Speaker
So what I like about Mulan is, first of all, she's got that honor, right?
00:56:23
Speaker
So when her dad's going to be conscripted, she's like, no, my dad's totally going to die.
00:56:28
Speaker
I'm going to go.
00:56:29
Speaker
And also, she, I love the matchmaker scene.
00:56:32
Speaker
She's kind of a tomboy and she doesn't
00:56:34
Speaker
really succeed at like pouring the tea and it ends up being a disaster.
00:56:37
Speaker
The matchmaker gets like set on fire and basically she's like, I'm not cut out for marriage.
00:56:42
Speaker
Fuck marriage.
00:56:43
Speaker
I'm gonna go to war.
00:56:45
Speaker
Based.
00:56:46
Speaker
So, um, she goes to war and the problem that she has is like related to the fact that she's not as physically strong as the average man, right?
00:56:54
Speaker
You know the song I'll Make a Man Out of You?
00:56:56
Speaker
Let's get down to business.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:59
Speaker
To defeat.
00:57:00
Speaker
We need to do a sing along.
00:57:03
Speaker
FDS, the musical.
00:57:06
Speaker
yeah bonus content sing along yeah so their challenge though is like at the end of that song he's like okay you're not physically strong enough you're not cut out for war and so what she does is she she does that thing where uh shang i think was the name of the guy where he shoots an arrow to the top of this pole and he's like okay you have to whoever gets the arrow like wins at life or whatever and so she uses these like weights instead of
00:57:31
Speaker
having to fight the weight of it, she uses it as like a leverage thing, as like a way of slinging herself up to that pole, right?
00:57:39
Speaker
And she gets the arrow, and so she wins.
00:57:41
Speaker
And so what I like about Mulan is, you know what, I'm not as physically strong as an average man, but I make up for it with my intelligence and with my cleverness.
00:57:50
Speaker
So I think that's a very good message for girls, right?
00:57:54
Speaker
And so they go to war,
00:57:56
Speaker
And, you know, her and Shang have kind of a thing and they build trust and build kind of a relationship eventually.
00:58:03
Speaker
And then she, again, through her own, like, ingenuity, resourcefulness, ends up, they have, like, one last explosive and then they shoot the explosive up at the mountain and then there's an avalanche and it, like, wipes out all the Huns, right?
00:58:17
Speaker
So that's obviously a better strategy than shooting, like, each individual Hun.
00:58:22
Speaker
Right.
00:58:23
Speaker
Like, use one weapon, wipe them all out, rather than using all of your weapons to wipe them out individually.
00:58:30
Speaker
But unfortunately, she gets injured.
00:58:32
Speaker
They find out that she's actually a woman.
00:58:33
Speaker
So, Shang, you know what?
00:58:34
Speaker
Shang's kind of a dickhead for abandoning her, just, like, leaving her out to die in the mountains because she's a woman.
00:58:41
Speaker
Like, she's literally a war hero, but because she's a woman, you're gonna just leave her out to die?
00:58:45
Speaker
Dick move.
00:58:46
Speaker
Anyways, she doesn't give up.
00:58:47
Speaker
She sees the Huns coming.
00:58:49
Speaker
She sees them come out of snow.
00:58:50
Speaker
She's like, I need to go warn, I need to go warn the Emperor.
00:58:53
Speaker
And then she goes there.
00:58:54
Speaker
And then again, she uses her cleverness.
Celebrating Mulan as a Role Model
00:58:56
Speaker
This is the third time she uses her cleverness to solve a problem.
00:58:59
Speaker
She's like, okay, instead of trying to brute force this issue, we have limited people.
00:59:03
Speaker
How are we going to, you know, protect the Emperor?
00:59:05
Speaker
We're gonna, again, the sling thing where they lever themselves up the pole and they, like, dress as women and it's a whole, like, funny ha-ha scene.
00:59:12
Speaker
And then she uses her fan, which I like the fan thing because at the beginning with the matchmaker, she wasn't performing femininity correctly with the fan, right?
00:59:22
Speaker
But in the final scene, she uses the fan to sort of, like, grab the sword and, like, she twists it and defeats the Huns.
00:59:29
Speaker
you know, using that symbol of femininity.
00:59:32
Speaker
You know, in the end, she, you know, the emperor, like, bows down to her, and Shang ends up being really impressed by her and how heroic and how brave and how intelligent she is.
00:59:41
Speaker
I like Mulan because it's a story of a woman who knows that she's in a patriarchal society, who is at a disadvantage physically, society-wise, and then overcomes those adversities through her own cleverness and resourcefulness, and earns the respect of...
00:59:59
Speaker
And if you contrast this with the live action version, here's what they do, is they introduce the concept of, like, magical power.
01:00:06
Speaker
So what they do is they're like, okay, now Mulan has magical powers and now she's, like, physically as strong as all of the men, or she's stronger than all of the men.
01:00:14
Speaker
And I hate that, because it just takes away from the original message to me, which was that, you know, it's okay to be physically less strong than a man.
01:00:23
Speaker
It's okay to be different.
01:00:24
Speaker
You know, you can overcome adversity in other ways.
01:00:26
Speaker
And now, it's like nowadays they're trying to be so woke that they're like, women and men are just the same.
01:00:31
Speaker
Like...
01:00:31
Speaker
you know, we can, you know, women and men are physically exactly the same and, you know, we can beat men in hand-to-hand combat.
01:00:37
Speaker
It's like the whole lib femme fairy tale where, you know, there's no differences between men and women physically or like that feeling, I have to prove that I'm exactly the same as a man or better than a man to succeed.
01:00:48
Speaker
In the first movie, the animated version, she's probably the only Disney princess I can think of that's not a pick-me and that is like a badass bitch in her own right.
01:00:57
Speaker
So what I love about Mulan and her plotline is that she's a perfect example of what it means to be a high-value woman first, and then romance, you know, not even being your primary goal.
01:01:09
Speaker
Her priority was to protect her family, to defend her country, and, you know, in the end she gets the guy...
01:01:16
Speaker
which a lot of feminists have said undermines her plotline, but I don't think so.
01:01:20
Speaker
I think that she is a perfect example of what it means to be a high-value woman, to build yourself up first.
01:01:26
Speaker
She struggles at first, but then builds herself up and works hard to achieve high-value woman status.
01:01:31
Speaker
And then in the end, she gets the guy anyways, but it's not about her trying to be picked.
01:01:35
Speaker
It's like that's not even something that was on her mind.
01:01:37
Speaker
She just wanted to defend her country.
01:01:39
Speaker
And then he sees that and is like, damn, like mad respect kind of thing.
01:01:43
Speaker
First work on yourself, be a high-value woman,
01:01:46
Speaker
Romance is optional.
01:01:47
Speaker
If there's a guy out there who sees that and is like, wow, mad respect, I love the fact that you're a high value woman, then he's a better guy for you than a guy who you have to sort of debase yourself or lower yourself in order to attract.
01:02:01
Speaker
That and also that you have to do endless fixing up.
01:02:04
Speaker
So the other subtext of that too is that he was already competent and capable.
01:02:09
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:09
Speaker
Like, he was already a general, right?
01:02:11
Speaker
Or he, I guess, a commander.
01:02:13
Speaker
So he was already a high-value man.
01:02:15
Speaker
Over time, they kind of get to know each other.
01:02:17
Speaker
But yeah, he wasn't, he was never a project for her, right?
01:02:20
Speaker
She never had to build him up.
01:02:22
Speaker
She didn't waste her time trying to, like, make him into anything.
01:02:25
Speaker
Exactly.
01:02:26
Speaker
Of all the Disney princesses, Mulan is the best one, is the least pick-me, the highest-value woman.
01:02:31
Speaker
Great example for little girls to follow, in my personal opinion.
01:02:35
Speaker
Mulan is quite literally a strategy queen, okay?
01:02:37
Speaker
Like, I...
01:02:38
Speaker
She is a ruthless strategist in her own right.
01:02:41
Speaker
Seriously, mad respect.
01:02:42
Speaker
All right.
01:02:43
Speaker
If you like FDS and want to support us, please check out our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash the female dating strategy.
01:02:49
Speaker
You can also check out our website at the female dating strategy.com.
01:02:54
Speaker
Thanks for listening, Queens.
01:02:55
Speaker
And for all you fixer uppers out there, we're not fixing shit.
01:02:58
Speaker
Die mad.