Highlights
In the opening scene of Disney’s Shrek (2001), the ogre uses an illustrated fairy tale page as toilet paper, flagrantly signaling the film’s intent to subvert traditional fairy tales. Among the many fairy tale patterns that are overthrown is the symbolism of the prince. Instead of a traditional prince who marries the princess at the end, the hero is an ogre, and the “prince” is a ridiculous control freak.
Fairy tales are not superfluous stories that can be subverted without consequence. They serve as “tuning forks for civilization,” according to icon carver and symbolism educator Jonathan Pageau in a conversation with Jordan Peterson. “If we forget them or try to twist them," Pageau said, "we are also twisting in some ways the fabric of Western civilization.” Peterson replied by emphasizing their significance, stating that fairy tales “are the things you can’t forget: you literally can’t forget them because they embed themselves in your memory, but also you forget them at your peril.”
In many of these unforgettable tales, Pageau has written, the prince “represents love, marriage, and family.” The female enters a season of chaos and difficulty around the time of puberty as she begins transforming from a girl into a woman. Eventually, she emerges from this temporary lostness by her connection to a prince who gives her a new purpose and a reason for the challenges she has encountered: marriage and family. At the conclusion, the female matures when she leaves girlhood and enters her new place in the prince’s kingdom.
Fairy tales are not superfluous stories that can be subverted without consequence.
Given the symbolic significance of the prince in traditional fairy tales, it is noteworthy that many modern fairy tale movies have either cut out or twisted the character of the prince. In Disney’s Tangled (2010), there is no prince. Rapunzel falls in love with an outlaw who helps her on a journey to discover her true identity as the “lost princess.” They do get married in the end, but it is the outlaw who enters the kingdom of the princess. In the original Grimm’s tale, Rapunzel is not a princess, but the daughter of commoners, who marries a prince.
In Moana (2016), inspired by Polynesian mythology, Disney eliminates any love interest or princely heroism. Moana’s parents are raising her to become the chief of their tribe, and while the other villagers are content with their island life, Moana longs for more and continually returns to the ocean, wishing to explore beyond her home. Moana’s father repeatedly holds her back from her calling. The Demigod Maui, who voyages with Moana, is portrayed as self-important and insecure, deserting the quest in a moment of challenge. Moana’s grandmother and mother are the only ones who see her vision and encourage her to save their island. The women alone are the heroes. There is no prince to be found.
In the 2025 live action Snow White, the princess is brought up by her parents to rule the kingdom. When she and the bandit Jonathan fall in love, one hopes they might at least marry and lead the kingdom together. Alas, the film’s final scene disappoints. As the white-clad crowd celebrates the restoration of the kingdom in a dance resembling a wedding reception, the camera pans to Snow White’s face, cutting Jonathan’s head out of the frame completely. There is no wedding. The people wear white to praise Snow White, the savior of the kingdom. The movie makers quite literally decapitate this pseudo prince in their attempt to give Snow White all the glory.
In older fairy tales (such as The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brother’s Grimm), the prince is often the resolution to the troubles of the girl’s adolescence. When movie makers cut out the prince, they run the risk of distorting the path from girlhood into womanhood, confusing women and harming men. Without the prince, the focus turns from female maturation to female empowerment, which asserts that women are already the best but are unjustly held back by society, removing the need for any significant character growth.
Cutting out the prince communicates that men are, at best, useful assistants and, at worst, impediments to women’s potential.
Modern female protagonists are heroines from the beginning. That was never the point of the old fairy tales, many of which are coming-of-age stories of moving past bad fortune, naivete, and character flaws, and eventually arriving safely at adulthood. When female empowerment replaces female maturation, young women are encouraged to focus mainly on themselves rather than give of themselves. Cutting out the prince communicates that men are, at best, useful assistants and, at worst, impediments to women’s potential.
Whether or not it is intentional, this message disparages two fundamental things that allow both men and women to mature and find fulfillment: marriage and family. No wonder young women today are less interested in marriage and increasingly feeling tension between work and family. Young people are delaying marriage, and fertility rates are plummeting across educational lines. A huge number of young men see themselves as failures. Men are demoralized and don’t know their place, in part, because popular media has cut them out.
As Lisa Britton recently wrote in this space, “Girlboss messaging saturates our culture, telling every girl since K-5 that independence is everything, men are optional, and marriage and motherhood can be postponed indefinitely.” Faced with this, young people need stories that properly tune them to reality.
We must carefully choose the stories we pass on. Instead of telling stories that idolize women and emasculate men, we need to give these old fairy tales proper attention and respect. Let’s stop telling little girls to become heroines who don’t need a prince, and instead give them the freedom to become mature women who embrace their prince and cherish family.
Morgan Morin is a wife and mother living in Richmond, Virginia. She holds a B.A. in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, policies, or positions of the Institute for Family Studies.
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