Disney Princesses - Saree Edit

My recreation and refashioning of the Disney princesses is an attempt at not only changing the way we think about their appearance but perhaps it goes a bit deeper. So bear with me while I try and explain my outlook towards it.

If we try to look at every fairytale we have grown up reading/watching with a critical eye, we would come across some glaring inefficacies. The reason I have taken up Disney Princesses and tried to portray them in a newer light is perhaps to jerk the viewers out of their complacency and unquestioning acceptance of these seemingly innocent tales where apparently the only binary which exists is good and evil.

Snow White

Every princess, in this case, Snow White, is the central figure of her story, and from an apparent perspective, all these tales are women-centric. But do they really serve as mouth-pieces for women or do they make these women speak the language of men in an out-and-out patriarchic setup? Grimm's narrative of Snow White not only pitches one woman against the other in terms of a stereotyped definition of beauty that a man might find appealing, but it also consolidates the position of white skin over a darker one. ( Do I even begin with how all of these tales are heteronormative?) The protagonist of the story not only constantly defines her existence in terms of a man's wish, but she also moves on to find the appropriate culmination of her story in the arms of a man( who also somehow does not seem to believe in consent?) because that and only that could be considered as a "happy" ending for a woman. When I break down the Westernised attire of these Disney Princesses and try to re-position them in the traditional attire of a once-colonized country, I hope to break the myths and conventions that have been fed to young minds for years, leading them to believe that these stories are the definition of 'normal' and these princesses are what we must aspire to become.

I have draped a Yellow self-embroidered Georgette Saree and paired it with a blue volume sleeves top and a red headband.

Jasmine

One of Disney's seemingly 'feminist' icons in a hero-centric tale, Jasmine is introduced as a feisty character, who has the rationality and guts to defy the Sultan's wish for her to get married. But do we forget how Jasmine is molded into the Westernised Arab woman stereotype? Or do we forget how other women in the tale are never even explicitly named? The tale of Aladdin however takes a step forward when Princess Jasmine descends the ladder of vertical mobility and chooses to marry a guy of the lower social strata, and in doing so exercises her choice.

I have draped the Turquoise Kantha Stitch in a Dhoti Style to resemble Jasmine's attire

Every seemingly perfect narrative when deconstructed yields a lot of such inefficacies. When we break them away from their moulds and stereotypical ideals of beauty, only then can we begin to read a story in more universalized terms.