In Deborah Ross’ Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female
Imagination, she attempts to explain the contradictions within Disney’s
portrayal of the female imagination. She uses Disney’s versions of Alice in Wonderland and The Little Mermaid to accentuate the
idea of women seeking out their desires being put back in their place so to
speak. Alice comes to feel ashamed of her desires of exotic adventures and
Ariel’s desires and methods to obtain said desires are characterized as simply
foolish. Belle’s story in Beauty and the Beast seemed to be the only one that
truly illustrated the value of women and their will to their desires.
Additionally, throughout the essay, Ross constantly reminds the readers of
these impressions, compared to that of the actual original texts of the
stories, being placed on young girls. Traditionally, though the texts seemed to
equally highlight women’s folly fantasies and desires. As Ross repeatedly
points out however, though Disney attempted to reframe the stories in such a
way that these women were heroines, a certain undertone of the past
nevertheless seem to make itself known. Moving to a modern day perspective
however, Noah Berlatsky attempts to review more current media role models in
Bella and Katniss from the series, Twilight and The Hunger Games respectively. He
compares the butch figure of the ultimate feminist found in Katniss and the “girly”
helpless character of Bella. It becomes apparent that throughout both series,
there is a message that women even today cannot have both power and all that
they desire. Katniss has power but Bella achieves her desires. That is what
makes them different. Berlatsky also backs his claims with the books, but
rather uses them to underline his points. However, interestingly enough, at the
end of each series, whether in the books or in the movies, both women find that
they each truly were fighting for the opposite. While both authors share with
the audience, namely all women of this century, intriguing cultural comments
the feminist view today, it is somewhat disheartening that neither seems to
offer a solution or and answer as to which works better.
In Twilight vs. The Hunger Games and Escape From Wonderland, both authors write about feminism and how we either have power or our desires. Either we are "butch" an independent feminist, or we are "girly" which could be seen as more of an honest feminist. If a girl acts like a girl, she could be seen as more feminist than the strong, masculine woman. Because if a woman is acting like a man, then she is not really a feminist. In Escape From Wonderland, we see the comparison of Disney fairytales to real life girls and how characters like Alice and Ariel desire a fairytale lifestyle, but eventually give it up for gender norm womanhood, and the character Belle is the only one to actually stand firm to her desires. The question of what type of feminism is better, or which character is better is simple. It is better to stay true to your desires, no matter how "girly" they are. It's honest. Like Bella from Twilight or Belle from Beauty and the Beast, they each know what they want and they accomplish that, no matter how petty, or weak their desires may be. Alice, Ariel and Katniss from The Hunger Games, easily give up what they wanted for something else, and I think both authors would agree that it's better to stay true to who you are and what you want.
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