"Royal" Disney Princesses into "Desperate" Disney housewives?
This cartoon depicts a post- "happily" ever after a conversation among the five leading Disney princesses, as each frustratingly shares her marital struggles. Beauty's husband- the Beast- is (unsurprisingly) aggressive, Cinderella's husband, Prince Charming, is shiftless, and Snow White's husband produces many kids. Still, he does not help raise them, Little Mermaid's husband treats her like a sex object, and Sleeping Beauty 'sleeps' through all the rubbish she has to deal with. For all the princesses, this happily-ever-after was marriage but what escaped widespread scrutiny was whether they could have had happier endings; this can be attributed to the hetero-patriarchal system, which forces people into believing that marriage 'is' the ultimate route to happiness for women. Therefore growing up, most girls, upon reading Disney princess story tales, fantasize about marriage because, cleverly enough, the stories never show what happens after the so-called happily ever after. In using fairy tales such as these, the capitalist heteropatriarchal system ensures that girls continue being deceived into the façade of a happy union so that the unpaid labor that they will provide afterward, through housework, unconsented sex, reproduction, and childcare, can be sugarcoated as being their "love" for their partner which is making them "embrace" marital & domestic duties willingly. Indeed according to Manalansan IV, the heterosexual woman's equation with the family is purely explained through her "natural" love and care. This leads one to ask, how happy was the ever after if the next cycle of domestic drudgery, devaluation & violence could transform "royal" Disney princesses into "desperate" Disney housewives?