Bird Droppings

As the Swan Queen, Nina must play both the white swan and the black swan. So here we have two female archetypes and one ladygirl who’s gotta play both roles. This reminds me of, um, every girl who consciously and subconsciously bends her ear toward our culture’s declarations about what a girl should be, only to find two (if not more) wildly competing definitions. Be the gentle white swan, perfect and careful and quiet and bad at math! But also be the black swan, dangerous and sexual and powerful and wildly talented at any old thing your crazy eyes cast upon! Be predictable and spontaneous. Be self-sacrificing and impassioned. Button the top button but get a tattoo. Be the virgin and the whore and the homemaker and the artist. Be trained your whole life as a white swan and then suddenly (when we tell you to) emerge as the black swan. But above all, be punished for being either or both.

I’m happy to report “the princess thing” is alive and well in Tangled (the GOOD princess thing, not the bad one people seem to think is still lurking around from the days of I don’t even know what). Rapunzel is probably the most kickass Disney princess I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’m pretty sure her creators based her on Princess Leia, and her romantic partner, Flynn Rider, aka Eugene Fitzherbert, on Han Solo.