The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (27 page)

Disney Princess Fantasy Faire 
[Closed August 2012.  Reopened as
Fantasy Faire
next to
Sleeping Beauty Castle
on May 12, 2013.]

[
FastView:
 
See the
Fantasy
Faire
entry later in this chapter for up-to-date information.  The information below is of historical interest only.
]

Disney Princess Fantasy Faire
opened in late 2006 at the
Fantasyland Theatre
as a home base for the
Disney Princesses
.

Disney Princess Fantasy Faire
was located in northern
Fantasyland
, a bit off the beaten path near
it’s a small world
and
Toontown
.  For six years throngs of children, mostly little girls, tugged at their parents’ hands and said “Come on, come on!” as they rushed to queue in hours-long lines to meet the princesses, or watched coronation ceremonies in the massive outdoor theater.

Then in
August 2012,
Disney Princess Fantasy Faire
was cordoned off. 
Aurora
and
Cinderella
and the rest of the royals were transferred across the promenade to
“it’s a small world” plaza
during that time (near the then-new
Merida
(
Brave
) meet-and-greet), so that Guests still had a place to meet the princesses.

In spring 2013
, the princesses moved into their brand new digs, a substantial extension of
Sleeping Beauty Castle
called
Fantasy Faire
. Location-wise, it just made more sense for the princesses to “live” and to greet Guests next to the castle rather than in
Fantasyland
’s northern reaches.
Fantasy Faire
is a charming courtyard that surrounds Guests with storybook architecture and the world of the princesses.  (Please see the
Fantasy Faire
entry for more information).

And what happened to the
Fantasyland Theatre
which had hosted the princesses from 2006 until 2012?  The theater welcomed an exciting new musical stage show in May 2013:
Mickey and the Magical Map
.

So …
Why did the princesses rate a mini-land in the first place?

Princesses
have always been among the primary iconic figures of fairy tales, and they have always been a
Disney
staple, beginning with the phenomenal success of the world’s first significant, full-length animated feature,
Disney
’s
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, released in 1937.
Disney
’s next animated princess film,
Cinderella
, followed in 1950, and then
Sleeping Beauty
in 1959.

Despite being ravishingly beautiful and
artistic,
Sleeping Beauty
was not the critical or box office success
Walt
had hoped it would be.  The film had taken years to produce and had been expensive to make. 
Sleeping Beauty
’s relative lack of success might explain why it would be
thirty years
before
Disney
released another animated princess film.

When
Disney
did craft another princess movie, what a movie it was! 
The Little Mermaid
’s undersea princess
Ariel
, introduced to the world in 1989, launched what many consider
Disney
’s second golden age in feature animation, a golden age subsequently advanced by princess-by-marriage
Belle
(
Beauty and the Beast
) in 1991,
Aladdin
’s
Princess Jasmine
in 1992, and Native American princess
Pocahontas
in 1995.

In the 1990’s and into the new millennium,
there was something in the air, something
zeitgeisty
(or
zeitgeistish
?), if you will, when it came to princesses.  Perhaps it was a theme that hit a nerve in our collective consciousness, assisting us all in navigating, and continuing to evolve in, a post-feminist world.  Society often finds its way forward sociologically through myths and stories—in our modern world, “myths and stories” often mean film and television.

Whatever the reason,
everything suddenly seemed to be all-princess, all the time.  The world was awash in every shade of pink-pink-
pink
.  Sparkles glimmered and tiarias gleamed.  Little girls whose grandmothers had marched for ERA, eschewing makeup and trading housedresses for business suits, were running around in pink tutus and pink boas, waving wands, and scattering handfuls of silvery pixie dust everywhere they went.

Some
feminists worried that the princess craze was a sign, if not of the apocalypse, then pretty dang close, as they predicted the unraveling of so many hard-fought, hard-won women’s rights.

It seems, rather, that it was merely the inevitable swing of the soci
ological pendulum.  After decades of women needing to get fierce to win crucial equity battles, softer sensibilities that had been tamped down were bubbling up via the princess phenomenon.

Disney
, ever business-savvy as well as creative, leveraged the princess craze, moving the princess franchise into the real world by crafting and releasing live-action features centered on girls who discover that they are princesses, whether they are literally royal (as in
Princess Diaries
(2001) and
Princess Diaries 2
(2004)) or royal in spirit (
Princess Protection Program
(2009)).

To
Disney
’s credit, its post-feminist princesses were presented as modern young women.  There are gowns and crowns and sparkles, and often there is a princely love interest, but these contemporary princesses are independent, intelligent, and strong.  Other than a love of fashion, their most traditionally “feminine” characteristics seem to be a laudable nurturing impulse, a desire to make the world a better place, and the people around them happier, but often through leadership rather than the old-fashioned tradition of being a self-sacrificing door mat.

2007’s
Enchanted
introduced
Princess Giselle
, who made history by blending animated and live-action worlds.  She is the only
Disney princess
who begins her journey as an animated character but eventually decides to become a live-action, three-dimensional woman.  Part of her emotional arc is learning to express anger and speak up when she’s dissatisfied, and by the end of the movie she is launching her own business.

In December of 2009
Disney
released
The Princess and the Frog
, a reimagining of the “Frog Prince” fairy tale. 
The Princess and the Frog
is
Disney
’s first animated feature with an African American leading lady.  Set in New Orleans, the story is a rich gumbo layered with dreams, hard work, jazz music, comical characters, mysterious bayous, voodoo, romance, and mouth-watering southern cooking.  Although
Tiana
falls in love with
Prince Naveen
and marries him, they behave as equals in the course of their adventures, and she stays true to her own entrepreneurial dream and opens a restaurant by the film’s close.

In November 2010
Disney
released
Tangled
, a spirited re-telling of the
Rapunzel
fairy tale, and 2012’s
Brave
,
Disney-Pixar
’s first feature starring a heroine, wowed audiences and critics (and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature) by brilliantly relating the adventures of Scottish warrior-princess
Merida
.  At its heart,
Brave
is a very special story of “grrrrl power” as
Merida
and her mother mend their troubled relationship while solving a royal mystery and finding a way to break the enchantment that transformed the queen into a bear. 
Merida
exhibits outstanding physical and emotional courage, and her triumph at the film’s end is deciding
not
to marry until (if ever) she’s ready to do so.

On November 18, 2012,
Disney
officially introduced its youngest princess who proved, surprisingly, to be one of its most controversial princesses.  In the
Disney Channel
movie
Sofia the First:  Once Upon a Princess
, a sweet little pint-sized royal made her debut.

Voiced by
the talented
Ariel Winter
of
ABC
’s
Modern Family
,
Sofia
continued the adventures begun in her movie by starring in a
Disney Channel
/
Disney Junior
TV show that debuted in 2013.

What was the
controversy? 
Sofia the First
’s exec producer announced in October 2012 that
Sofia is Disney
’s first
Latina
princess.  But
Sofia
’s red-brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and lack of Latin accent had some concerned—where were
Sofia
’s traditionally Latin features?

B
efore the TV movie aired,
Disney
found itself regrouping to explain why
Disney
’s first “Latina” princess had no discernable, traditionally “Latina” characteristics.  The official explanation:  Because the story is set in a
fictional
world, rather than our world,
Sofia
can’t be Latina.  She is, however, the daughter of a mother from a Spain-like land and a father from a Scandinavian-like place, and now
Sofia
and her mother are settling in an British-type country.

So
Sofia
seems to be
Disney
’s first
blended heritage
princess.

In early January 2013,
Disney
rolled out a
Sofia the First
“Series Premiere Party Kit” to help kids enjoy the January 11, 2013 series premiere on
Disney Jr.
(and pave the way for some merchandising).  The focus of the rollout? 
Sofia
is “confident” and “can do anything”.  And that is a worthy and empowering message for any child, anywhere.

Little girls of all heritages have warmly welcomed
Sofia
to the
Disney Princess
pantheon. 
Sofia
is the first princess who’s
their
age—the other princesses are all teenagers or adults.  When
Sofia
holds meet-and-greets in
Hollywood Land
at
DCA
, little girls line up by the droves to meet her.  She’s also the newest star at
DCA
’s
Disney Junior
.

* * *

It’s a part of the
Disney
mythology that all little girls are princesses, and all women are princesses or queens.

During one visit to
Disneyland
, the Cast Member who scanned our
Annual Passes
told my niece, “Thank you, your highness,” and told me “Enjoy your day, your majesty.”

This is not the
typical way for Cast Members to address Guests, but
Disneyland Resort
CMs are encouraged to find little ways to go above-and-beyond in making Guests’ visits
magical
.

The
Cast Member decided to address my niece and me literally as royalty.  It was unexpected, funny, and sweet.  It was a literal execution of the” royal treatment” that all Guests receive, an expression of the
Disney
principle that we’re all special.

Girls who grew up watching
The Little Mermaid
in the late 1980’s are by 2014 graduating from graduate school, climbing the corporate ladder in the workplace, starting their own business, and raising children.  Thanks to
Disney
(and
Disney
’s imitators who jumped on the lucrative “princess” bandwagon), two decades of little girls and young women and their families were immersed in modern, post-feminist princess mythology.