In Meghan Markle, will Britain get a sleeping beauty or our first woke princess? | Gaby Hinsliff
A ‘feminist princess’ feels a bit like an Engineer Barbie. But Markle could just drag the Royal family into 2018
by Gaby Hinsliff
Mar 03, 2018
4 minutes
Once upon a time, there was a princess. She had long red hair and a mermaid tail – and if you were near a primary school on World Book Day, you might have seen a six-year-old version of her bombing around the playground. But Ariel is a faintly cautionary figure for wannabe princesses. In the original Disney film of The Little Mermaid, she starts off as an adventurous, even rebellious character, but something changes when she falls for a human prince. Love drives her into a Faustian pact whereby she surrenders her voice in exchange for a human body that makes her more desirable to her man. Spoiler alert: the mute-but-lovable thing
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