Disney Princesses v. Other Disney Heroines

Back-to-school season is upon us, and the scholarly feel in the air has me thinking about real big-picture, existential quandaries.

Namely, whether I am more in the camp of the Disney Princess, or the non-Princess Disney Heroine.

damn, are they always hanging out?

It's something I started thinking about after making my Snow White vid (You can click here if you haven't seen it yet). And after writing the outline for my upcoming Sleeping Beauty vid, it made me start missing my non-princess ladies even more. 

It's funny when you start dissecting fictional characters, especially those as ~allegedly~ one-dimensional as Disney princesses. You start to think about them as real people and also about how compelling they actually are as characters and how they help convey the overall message of the story they are telling or are in. Are they just there to look pretty? (re: make money? sell merch?) Or can they be just as complex and layered as you and me? 

you've always been my compass, Belle.

Is a princess written to be more "shallow" than a non-princess? Or not? What do you think? I ask this because I feel like my non-princesses (Jane, Tinkerbell, Sally, Lilo) often don't get as much love (re: sell as much merch) as the princesses do. I love me some princess, but the afore-mentioned ladies are completely compelling heroines in their own right. Or am I just wanting my non-princesses to somehow be "smarter" and "realer" because I'm Daria that way? Comment below and let me know what you think!