Love to Hate?

Before you come for me, saying "don't come at my childhood!" Just let me explain where I'm coming from. Most of these movies I did not watch until later on in my life so my opinions may differ. I will talk about my favorite characters just to cleanse the palate of my irritability from talking about these dumb characters.

Let's start with Disney and the Princess lineup. Again, Don't go off. There were a lot of Disney movies and characters that I missed out on, even if I had seen them. I'll leave out the classic era princesses since they were portrayed by women in their time period so I'm going to start with the one that everyone seems to love, beginning the Renaissance Era, Ariel from The Little Mermaid. This, I did see as a child and even then, I didn't like Ariel. It was a good movie. I like everybody else and I liked the songs but something about Ariel always irked me. SO..... she's a mermaid who wants to know what it's like to be human. Okay. She has been sneaking up to the surface, collecting "thingamabobs" and falls in love with a prince on land. Her father finds out after forbidding her and he basically destroying her treasures. Okay. I kind of understand he's being protective but BRUH. So, what does this dumb b***h do? She runs away from home and makes a deal with a SEA WITCH for a pair of legs. How spiteful can a teenager really be if their parents forbade them from doing something and when they don't listen, they get mad when they ruin any form of images of your crush, you run off to the most dangerous creature for help? Maybe, it's because of how I was raised. If my parents told me not to do something for my own safety, I"M GOING TO LISTEN!

Anyway, next is Jasmin from Aladdin. First off, I want to say, we miss you, Robin. Again, great movie, fun songs, but Jasmin, I think I hated the most. Far more than Ariel. Every Black girl said that there was finally a Brown-skinned princess that they could look up to. I think this was why I did not see Aladdin as a child. My mom probably did not want me giving in to the hype that this MIDDLE EASTERN character had any resemblance to my AFRICAN heritage. What exactly made young Black girls think that this is how they wanted to be represented in all things, Disney. I finally watch the movie around the time I was in middle school, and I remember thinking, "Okay, this is funny" until Jasmin came on the screen. Her whole attitude just annoyed me. Now, I get this was a new path for Disney to come up with new female leads to be more independent from their princes but that's not what I had the problem with. When we first meet her, she basically sicks her pet tiger on someone all because she wants to marry for love. While I commend her for that, she was just being a spoiled brat the whole movie. And don't even get me started on how she didn't recognize Aladdin as a prince. (That might be my general peeve with disguises in movies and shows, but that's another conversation). He did not have that much of a glow-up for her to be salty. And during the fight with Jafar, She does NOTHING! Just like Ariel "battling" Ursula. I can't even explain it plainly enough. I just don't like her. PERIOD. I actually liked the remake version better.

Now for that palate cleanser. Let's talk about my all-time top five favorite Disney princesses. First, Mulan, hands down, is the ultimate. I don't even need to explain. The second is Pocahantas. She is just so open-minded and courageous, she could make a difference in this world. Third, Tiana, The first REAL Black princess. Next is Esmerelda. Even though she's unofficially part of the lineup, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the best Disney movies so therefore she is my favorite. And my newest favorite, RAYA. I feel like I relate the most to her in regards to who you can trust and have faith in (Again, another story).

Well, that's it for the 2-D characters. Let's discuss the live-action portrayals. Well, there's only one. Now, around the time I was in middle school, a new wave of teenage mania swept the nation and the world with the Twilight Sagas. And the most annoying, meaningless character in the whole series: Bella Swan. Now, in the beginning, I didn't get into the hype. I just didn't see what was the big deal was. So, I watch them and I have to say the Bella is ... I can't even put it into words, she is so bad of a character. Mind that I watch each of these movies at least once back then and I had no thoughts, so forgive me if I don't explain the plot right because it's just so bad, I have to block it from my mind. But recently, I was on Youtube, watching videos of people reacting to the first one and all I have to say to them is Thank you for understanding where I'm coming from. I couldn't think of the words at the time but I think Bella has some mental issues. Think about it. She doesn't care about her life. She meets and falls in love with a vampire and suddenly decides to become the living dead. That would mean she's sort of suicidal, in a way, right? Why would you want to be a vampire? And she is so vain about her age. Girl. You won't have to worry about gray hairs and wrinkles until you're at least in your forties. Sure, Death is scary but nothing good comes from living an eternity, either. And I have never seen a woman so attached to a man in any film I've seen. She and Edward bugged the hell out of me. She is so codependent on Edward that I feel suffocated. In the second movie, when Edward leaves her, she is so depressed and lost without him, she comes up with ways to endanger herself to bring him back. And Jacob is enabling this for a while until he starts catching feelings for Bella. She's feeding on this attention and she just keeps reminding Jacob that she can't be with him because she loves Edward too much. He ends up sort of hating her for hanging out with a bunch of vampires and practically tries to isolate her from them. He even pulls a dick move when Edward calls Bella's house, asking for her father and Jacob had he's planning a funeral, implying that Bella's dead, prompting Edward to expose himself so this ancient vampire clan will have cause to kill him. This romance is unrealistic. All the girls in my school were all, "Team Jacob! No, Team Edward!", and either of these guys were good for her. Both of them are simping for her like ... no other couple, real or fiction, I've even heard of. I just want to say to any woman who were going crazy over this ridiculous love triangle, I hope you did not want this kind of relationship and I really hope that you didn't end up in this kind of relationship.