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Living In Cinderella’s Shadow: The 5 Best Live-Action Princesses

(L_R)  AMY ADAMS, PATRICK DEMPSEY

4) Giselle from Enchanted – Giselle is the live-action prototype of Frozen‘s Anna.  She’s the stereotypically flighty, impulsive princess with a post-modern edge about her.  Yes, she runs off to marry a guy that she’s only just met.  Yes, she’s somehow more naive about actual human interaction than Goku.  And yet, somehow, she stands as one of the most well-rounded and memorable female characters to crop up in the last couple decades, and it’s small wonder why.

I already touched on my frustration with the assumption that all female characters need to know Kung Fu (or some equally hyper-masculine skill) in order to be considered strong or independent.  If it fits the character and the story that she finds herself in, that’s one thing, but that’s rarely the actual case.  It’s as if in everybody’s rush to make amends for the historical lack of agency given to female characters they overcorrected: making men in dresses instead of actual women.

Giselle is a reminder that women – shocking as it might be to hear – are people.  They are as different from one another as they are from men (or, similarly, as men are from other men).  For every butt-kicking Sarah Conner or hawk-eyed Katniss in the room, there’s bound to be a few that are more traditionally feminine: more comfortable in a traditional romantic dichotomy, where a sure-armed man will swing in to save them from the lumbering troll in their midst.  And when the moment comes when they need to step up to the plate, they do so: proving themselves just as physically capable as the men in their lives through sheer determination and will.  After all, it’s not about making a feminine counterpart to traditionally male leads; it’s about making realistic women, regardless of what that means.

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