"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us"

Balance

Happily Ever After...it is what most little girls dream about. We pretend with our Barbie's to be rescued, we dress up like princesses who need to be saved. Disney is often blamed for these little thoughts of dreams come true, of princes on white horses that ride to your rescue, slay your captor, whether the mistress of all evil or some evil beast and than off into the sunset you ride together.



Over the years I've seen girls act in ways very similar to this, I've heard countless ridiculous conversations about love and the notion that love and marriage will be all love and hearts and unicorns and fairies and magic. I feel bad for those girls because anything as precious as marriage is not kept without a strong desire to keep it. Happily Ever Afters takes work everyday.

I however, feel like I have a completely different problem. I call it the "Belle Curse." The Belle Curse can be described as the girl in the story that is strong and helps the male character discover his true strength, to be a man and rise to his full potential. And through their experiences together they fall in love and she's the only girl for him.

In the story of Beauty and the Beast, Belle has a strong character and is able to see past the beast's pride, anger and hideous features to the man that he could become. She not only saw that he could be kind and selfless but fell in love with him. The Beast was always fearful of rejection, a life of loneliness, believed that he was destined to fail and never find love. But one girl came along and changed everything. She changed him, and his love for her was so great he was willing to be lonely forever to make her happy. And the message conveyed through this is that Belle became the only girl for the Beast, that through all of the struggles a love was formed, something that has perhaps been called true love. I think that many girls find comfort in this type of situation, as girls we are plagued by the thought of divorce, adultery and of just a guy that doesn't seem to care. (I actually think that last one is terrible, what a torturous thing to do to someone) But feeling like the only one brings that comfort that those things wouldn't happen.

As for me, I don't relate to being a princess I don't feel like I need to be saved, I have the idea that I can save myself, maybe I'm just not a patient person and don't want to wait for anyone to rescue me, and who says I need to be rescued anyways. I have this Belle Curse where I am attracted to guys that can't see their full potential, but I can. I have that desire to help them get there, to be brave. And in return I am the one and only girl that won that guy's heart. And like I said before it in a way gives that security that I am the only one ever, that I am special in some way.

I find myself leaning towards strong female characters. One of my favorite characters is Meg from Hercules. She's a confident girl with just the right amount of sass. I find that many girls probably relate to her because many have given their all in a relationship and it was not appreciate and it left us hurt, never forgetting the agonizing pain of betrayal. Secretly we desire to love again, but we proceed with much caution, very different from the person we were before. We hope to find that guy that would never hurt us.




I also have a deep love for anime and Hayao Miyazaki's films. He tells stories of beautiful strong girls who find that inner strength when all hope is lost. There is so much courage seen in these characters. Many of these girls have seen much of destruction, their lives are not without disappoint, hardship or grief. Their lives have a way of touching us realistically, but bring us into a world of fantasy. Thank you anime for bringing us bad-a girls! I am going to be Katara for halloween!! water bender :)

So I was turned into a strong female character instead of a princess because of Disney, isn't that ironic. So thanks Disney for ruining me in a different sort of way and now I have to figure out how to not seek out boys like that.