True Love’s Kiss Is Great and All, But Is The Prince Really the Hero?
Once Upon a Time, there was a princess in distress who got saved by a prince and they lived happily ever after. We know this plot all too well, instilled in us as children, and established as a classic princess fairy tale. But, what if I let you in on a little secret? The prince doesn’t really do much in the saving process, he just collects all the credit.
We all know the classic story of Sleeping Beauty, who on her 16th birthday gets pricked on the finger by a spindle and falls into a sleep-like death until a prince awakens her with true love’s kiss. Well, in the classic fairy tale Briar Rose by Brothers Grimm, Briar Rose was cursed to be asleep for one hundred years. Princes have tried to get into the castle but would get caught in the thorn hedge that surrounded the castle and died gruesome deaths. In this story, when the prince who was successful decided to save her, it just so happened to be the same day that the period of one hundred years was ending. Basically, the same day Aurora was to awaken and the curse was over. The thorn hedge turned into beautiful flowers, which “opened to make a path for him and to let him pass unharmed,” and he literally waltzes into the castle, effortlessly. It’s said that she wakes up immediately after his kiss, but how are we to say that she didn’t just wake up on her own? Not only was her hundred years over, but the prince had not one challenge to reach her. I argue that he isn’t the one who saved her, but rather just had impeccable timing. The curse was already over!
You may say that in the 1958 animation of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, that the prince saves her then. He breaks the spell with true love’s kiss the same day she was put under the curse and he fought a dragon. Yet again, I argue that the prince does not save her this time either. Instead, I think the fairy godmothers should get the credit. They are the true heroes. For example, these three fairies not only gave up everything they had to raise her for sixteen years but also were by her side throughout the entire movie. They put the kingdom under a spell to sleep while they took it upon themselves to save Aurora. While doing this, they figure out that the boy she met in the woods was Prince Philip and set out to find him. Not only did they find him, but had the courage to free him from Maleficent, helped him fight a dragon, and led him to Aurora. Without the fairy godmothers, Philip would have never been rescued nor had been able to kill the dragon — it was their spell on his sword that finally defeats Maleficent. Prince Philip gets the credit because he kissed her, but I’m pretty convinced the godmothers could have kissed her too and she would have awakened. It not only takes courage to go through all of that effort to save someone, but love too.
In modern times, Disney has incorporated several movies in which the prince is not the hero. Oftentimes in fairy tales, we are left to believe that a woman’s true love can only come from a man, and usually, the pair has just met, not knowing much about the person and falling in love with outer beauty. In Disney’s Frozen, Anna had been struck by ice to the heart. As she is slowly turning to ice, only true love’s kiss can save her. She is then rushed to the castle to her fiance that she met two days before, thinking his kiss would save her. When he turns on her, admitting he only wanted to marry her for power, she turns to her friend Kristoff, who had been by her side throughout the movie. Of course, Disney brilliantly did not use either guy to save Anna, but rather by true love from her sister. The movie demonstrates that you don’t need a man to save you, and that love comes in all shapes and sizes. The act of true love displayed by her sister thawed her frozen heart. Many movies are beautifully criticizing the trope set by old tales regarding true love and redefining its meaning.
