Girls on Film: How Frozen killed Prince Charming

Good riddance

Frozen
(Image credit: (Facebook.com/Frozen))

It was 1937 when Snow White, Disney's original princess, first danced onto movie screens. In Disney's telling, she was invariably kind and happy — even if the world around her wasn't. The wicked Queen, who was Snow White's mother-figure, envied her beauty and sentenced her to die. When that failed, the Queen tricked her into a death-like coma. The dwarves placed Snow White in a glass coffin, where she laid only briefly — until the dashing prince she barely knew strutted down, smooched her dead lips, and brought her back to life with "love's first kiss."

In that moment, an age-old archetype was reborn on screen: The dashing Prince Charming, who can make a young princess fall deeply in love in mere moments. It is an archetype that has served Disney well, and been an important building block in the company's billion-dollar global business — until the arrival of 2013's record-setting Frozen, which questions the entire foundation of Disney's romantic royalty.

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Monika Bartyzel

Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, now appearing at TheWeek.com. Her work has been published on sites including The Atlantic, Movies.com, Moviefone, Collider, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor.