The classics consist of many movies. There’s Fantasia, Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, The Lion King and many of the princess movies. These movies are movies that people love, that parents love and that people’s future children will love as well. The theme in these movies tend to differ from the more recent movies. The classics all tend to have the female characters more dependent on the male and the male characters are their saviors or escape. Three examples of classic movies with classic themes are The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

The Little Mermaid is about a slightly rebellious and adventurous mermaid named Ariel. She has many sisters and her father is King Triton. Her mother had passed away which is no surprise because come on, which disney character actually has both their parents alive? The answer to that is NONE. Anyway, Ariel sees a human named Prince Eric on a boat and she falls immediately in love. Ursula, the evil and wicked sea witch, sees how vulnerable Ariel is and takes advantage of her. She allows Ariel to become human for 3 days to go on the land and try to win Prince Eric’s heart. Only one rule, she doesn’t get her voice. And if he doesn’t kiss Ariel by the third night, she loses her beautiful and gifted voice forever.

Ariel risks her life to have this boy. She doesn’t even know him let alone has she actually met him. She breaks her boundaries and rules for love. Ariel attempts to have Prince Eric fall in love with him and ends up marrying him only three days later. She leaves her father King Triton behind as well as her normal life. She lives on land with Prince Eric now and has her happily ever after.

Sleeping Beauty is a story of a girl who was cursed as a baby. Princess Aurora was cursed by the evil Maleficent and the curse is that she will die by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday. The King and Queen are beyond worried for their newborn’s future. They sent her into hiding to be taken care of by fairies. Merryweather, one of the fairies, places a spell on her that she can wake up from an ageless sleep with true love’s kiss.

On her 16th birthday, Aurora meets Prince Phillip and falls in love. Maleficent also found her hiding spot on her 16th and tricked her into pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. Prince Phillip kissed Aurora and she was awoken from the sleep-like spell. She barely knew this Prince yet he had saved her life. For Disney Princesses’, the love from a stranger is usually equivalent to “true love”.

Cinderella is yet another Disney classic that has the male character save the female. It’s the whole classic knight in shining armor idea. A man comes to the rescue and saves the weak damsel in distress. Cinderella was definitely not weak though. She became a servant for her wicked step-mother and two devious (and annoying) step-sisters when her father had passed away. Cinderella received no privileges and suffered from the amount of both demanding and tedious labor she would serve day in and day out.

On the night of a ball, Cinderella managed to sneak out and attend the ball in disguise. She couldn’t have done it without the help of her Fairy Godmother and her (animal) friends. At the ball she danced with the prince but had to cut the night short since the Fairy Godmother said she has to be home by midnight. On her way out her shoe fell off and on the next day, the Prince brought it around town finding who’s foot belonged to it since he just fell in love with the girl that he danced with for seconds. He finally found Cinderella and they lived in the castle happily ever after. She escaped her terrible and cruel life to live in the castle with Prince Charming all because of one slow dance at the ball.

These Disney movies sure are beloved but they differ from the newer films. True-love and eternal happiness are great and beyond enjoyable to watch in a movie, but let’s face it. Kids need to see love and happiness in more realistic terms. A boy and girl may not always fall in love right away. A girl may not want to follow in her family’s royal foot steps. And a girl may not even want a guy to sweep her off her feet. Women are portrayed much more independent and self-driven in the newer movies than they were in the classics. Even though the women do fall in love in the new movies, they still have more of individual independence than female characters used to.