If you’re like me, but you’re probably not, you have a small girl in your house. Likely this small female human has asked you to allow her to view various movies produced by the children’s entertainment goliath known as Disney. Most of us acquiesce to the begging and pleading and permit the viewing, hence the mammoth Disney Empire.
Probably, again if you’re like me, you’ve accumulated a collection of DVDs prominently featuring an array of princesses. You may even have purchased sheets, paper plates, or toothpaste branded with your child’s favorite animated royalty.
In my house, as my child is beginning the process of leaving behind these characters, our discussions have changed. At one time she might have asked, “Daddy, which one of the princess do you like the best?”
I would have answered something like, “Well, Belle has a good head on her shoulders, prettiest girl in town, brunette…I’m gonna go with Belle.”
“Why do you care what color her hair is?”
“Well, look at your mother dear. Blonde. My girlfriends before her, blonde. Daddy is coming to grips with middle age and the roads not taken. “
“Oh. I like Cinderella. She has talking mice.”
In the present day weasel household, more that one conversation of late has started like this.
“Honey,” I ask, because I’m curious to her reasoning, “if there were a war between the Disney princesses, who would win? Which one would be the last one standing?”
Of course this initially leads to a discussion of what constitutes a princess. Pocahontas isn’t technically a princess, but she’s close enough right? Mulan on the other hand is billed as a princess, but ends up with a soldier. To make matters easy on ourselves we decide to include the female leads we can think of.
Out of fairness, we exclude any of the animal princesses. Can you imagine Ariel fighting the female mouse from the Rescuers? Of course not, that’s not even close to fair. Nor would it be fair for Sleeping Beauty to try and tangle with Nala from the Lion King (talk about a cat fight).
Trying to approach this logically, we put our European cookie cutter princesses (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Belle) in one pile and leave them for dead. These girls with no level of fitness or training are ill equipped for the likes of Pocahontas or Mulan.
Ariel from the Little Mermaid, likely has some decent cardiovascular health due to a lifetime of swimming, but since she’s only had legs a few weeks, I doubt she could mount a decent challenge to the Native American or Asian princesses previously mentioned.
Esmeralda on the other hand is a Gypsy and a dancer. As a Gypsy she probably has had more than a few run-ins with the local Constabulary. Her jail time and street life have probably given her ample time to learn to defend herself as a means of survival.
I wager if Pocahontas and Esmeralda went at it, the later would quickly go dirty, pulling a razor from under her skirt and dispatch Pocahontas to the happy hunting ground toot sweet.
The last two standing would undoubtedly be Esmeralda and Mulan.
Here we have no contest. Mulan has military training, a wicked smart brain, and has endured weeks of Donny Osmond singing at her. No wacky musical number is going to distract her. Mulan, needing only her most basic martial arts skills would take away Esmeralda’s razor and use it to give her a Columbian necktie.
“Dad, I’m glad you corrupt everything that was sweet about my childhood. Can you do it again sometime?”
“Sure baby, is December 25th too soon?”
