A friend who had heard the Nuclearity princess series emailed about the movie Enchanted.  She said she hated the ending and wondered what my wife and I thought about it.  Here were my thoughts.

 We enjoyed seeing Enchanted, especially since we were on vacation on an unexpected, fun stop.  The movie referenced many  of the Disney Princess movies, including Snow White’s apple, Cinderella’s shoe, and Sleeping Beauty’s sleepiness.  It was able to critique these movies and enjoy them at the same time.  It was  like the type of movies I used to watch that supposedly made statements against violence by being very violent.  At some point you have to ask whether the filmmaker just likes violence and is using an anti – violence message as an excuse for excesses.

In the same way,  Enchanted is a parody of princess movies made by and for people who like princess movies.  They try to get away with a little bit of everything.  They give us a helpless princess in need of rescue, just like animators in the 1940 – 50’s did.  And they give us a princess who can rescue a man, like the later princess movies do. 

I liked the beginning, where the positives and negatives of these stories were held in tension.  The real world was critiquing the unrealistic princess world and the princess world was critiquing present day attitudes toward femininity and relationships.  I agree that the ending was less fulfilling than the first half.