Disney Princesses Get Gritty Makeover (PHOTOS)

Not a fan of damsels in distress singing about the day their princes will come? Neither is deviantart user joshwmc.

In a complete re-imagining of all the beautiful but incredibly helpless princesses from Disney lore, joshwmc makes them over as fierce warriors ready to kick some a--.

Heck, we might even like them better this way; especially the machete-wielding Jasmine.

Perhaps because they were such an iconic part of most women's childhoods, the Internet seems to be fixated on translating the lovely ladies to all sorts of modern situations -- like hipsters, for example.

Another particularly fascinating iteration was a look at what Disney Princesses would look like in real life.

LOOK:

Loading Slideshow

• Jasmine

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Snow White

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Tiana

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Cinderella

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Belle

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Mulan

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Rapunzel

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Pocahontas

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

• Aurora

  Credit: <a href="http://joshwmc.deviantart.com/">joshwmc, DeviantArt</a>

Comments

[ashisu]

10:36 AM on 06/18/2012

I thought I was going to like this because they're 'tough' females, but they're still overly sexualized. This is not something I would feel comfortable showing to my daughter and certainly not what I consider to be an example of female empowerment. This looks more like a teenage fanboy's fantasy.

[Liban CZ]

07:46 PM on 06/11/2012

Cindy got the silicon boobs-balloons.

[strawberyblondi]

10:59 PM on 06/10/2012

Cinderella and Belle are fat and where is Ariel????? Aurora is the best one! She looks like Britney Spears :)

[Caryn Banker]

09:54 PM on 06/09/2012

LOL, They look like they were done by a 14 year old fanboy. I think some people here are really over thinking this whole thing.

[Highball]

07:36 PM on 06/08/2012

Nice work. I really like these re-imagings.

[cummingskristi]

06:47 PM on 06/08/2012

I fail to see how these thuggish and tons of skin-bearing drawings are an improvement. I also remember several of these princesses saving their princes as well. How about showing some intelligence instead.

[LeeRose]

08:33 AM on 06/09/2012

Scared of strong women? Too bad

[cummingskristi]

12:47 PM on 06/09/2012

I am a strong woman. I don't need to show all my skin in the process. My mind is my strength.

[DivineJ]

05:52 PM on 06/09/2012

I agree about these ridiculous drawings. It's fine if women are strong, sure, as long as they look attractive to men while they are doing it. These drawings do not represent "strength." They represent "sex."

[Erin81]

06:11 PM on 06/08/2012

Sorry people, but just because you give a character a sword while she's showing off her clevage or thigh in tiny little skirts nad belly barring tops, doesn't mean this is an "improvement" on Disney Princesses. Yes, lets show little girls these images! So they too can aspire to show some thigh and breast for male comic fantasy!

[tiamo]

02:37 PM on 06/10/2012

Dear Erin81,

Good point. She may also aspire to violence, unnecessary violence.

PEACE-TIAMO

[tcpcat]

05:25 PM on 06/08/2012

like that!

[Marielaina Perrone]

12:53 PM on 06/08/2012

This looks cool. Will have to show this to my daughter later today.

Marielaina Perrone DDS
http://www.drperrone.com

[sacz425]

12:27 PM on 06/08/2012

that was pure crap, sorry. the only one kind of cool looking was tianna. and then again she just reminded me of an african-american lara croft. all in all, this was a bad idea....

[JabCross]

10:59 AM on 06/08/2012

I don't understand this current trend of showing willowy girl heros swinging broadswords in full platemail while the guys are shown as bumbling idiots. Is this supposed to be about "girl-power"? Emasculating and ridiculing the male characters while portraying the female ones as superhuman and hypermasculine?

Not only is it damaging to young boys to watch men constantly made the butt of the joke while women are celebrated, but it also gives those girls unrealistic expectations and violent tendencies. Nice job challenging gender norms...

[allisoninwonderland]

12:41 PM on 06/08/2012

Spoken like a man who likes his woman in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.

This trend is not new...only in cartoons. Someone already mentioned Xena Warrior Princess. Pocahontas was degraded in the Disney movie from her true story. How about Queen Elizabeth I...a truly strong woman who changed the course of history forever. Are you referring to the movie Brave...where a girl decides to choose her own fate? What about Alice (in Wonderland) who found her own way?

Need I remind you that the original "Snow White" by Grimm is closer to the one currently in theaters, where she raises her own army to go and fight?

Best example yet, of fictional equality: Princess Leia. Need I make an argument for her as a strong and brave female role? Hardly part of the current "trend" is she?

What is more degrading to young boys: making them watch movies where they are forced to assume an archaic role in life that men are superior to women, who are weak, and they have to rescue them...or teaching them that both men and women are capable of being the hero of their own story? Why do you say they are emasculated just by showing, for lack of a better term "girl power"?

Women have been subservient since we were Neanderthals. Is that how you prefer it?

[Carla Peele]

06:31 PM on 06/08/2012

Actually... I think there can be a balance. Women don't have to be damsels and men don't have to be little bitches, either. I like strong women, but I also think a strong woman needs a strong MAN, not to BE the man?

[JabCross]

11:26 AM on 06/11/2012

woah cool your jets lady.. read your first line to me and then read your last one. Are you just gonna make assumptions about me based off of what I said or are you actually asking me and letting me speak for myself?

I don't want women barefoot and in the kitchen at all lol far from it. I want them achieving their dreams and living their lives to the fullest. The trend I'm talking about is not one of strong female leads, it's of violent female leads and while not new, what does seem new is the total emasculation and degradation of the male characters. What you (and sadly most women) don't seem to be able to grasp is that this is not a zero-sum game. You don't have to show all men being stupid and weak in order to show women being strong... and yet that seems to be exactly what you want. Ideally? I think we should have different movies for boys and girls, because frankly they seem to like to watch different things. It's kind of sad that we used to only show men saving women, and now we only show women outperforming men. Life isn't like either one of those. But yea, TL:DR: you can show strong masculine men and strong feminine women without one being subservient or degraded or whatever, stop trying to put men down in your attempt to raise women up, it's supposed to be a team effort...

[betamale23]

01:58 PM on 06/08/2012

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these strong female characters. Some of us would love to come across a strong girl hero who would emasculate and ridicule them. whew... just thinking about it teeheehee

[Earthling1125]

10:18 AM on 06/08/2012

Why is it that strength is equated with violence? I see nothing powerful in these rather pitiful "make-overs" at all - they're all some macho male fantasy of "strong" women. Men, in particular, seem to feel the only respectable type of strength is physical. That's actually the last bastion of the spiritually and intellectually weak. Why can't these princesses be depicted as wise (and fully clothed), accomplished leaders instead of "super hero" caricatures? I find these depictions insulting, to say the least.

True strength does NOT equal violence.

[Morrisfactor]

01:23 PM on 06/09/2012

"they're all some macho male fantasy of "strong" women. Men, in particular, seem to feel the only respectable type of strength is physical."

Sorry Earthling, you are projecting feminists views which are not correct.

As a sixty year old male who's been around a lot of men in my life (across a broad spectrum), I've got news for you - it's NOT some macho male fantasy of strong women. I've never met a single man or boy who cares for it. Mostly we just groan. Give us a supportive, smart girl like Hermione from Harry Potter anytime.

We think it's ridiculous when women are portrayed as physically beating up males (the endless scenes of females kicking men in the crotch or a slip of a girl armed with a sword easily defeating ten burly male opponents). Double groan.

Men are a steadily declining percentage of TV and movie viewers, but advertisers don't care, as they know women control the spending (.85 of every dollar), so women are their target audience. Since women want to feel good about themselves as they thrash men, the advertisers will continue to give them what they want.

Just don't blame it on male fantasy. It's not anything we care for.

[Earthling1125]

02:28 PM on 06/09/2012

My personal experience with men has shown me quite the opposite. While I'm heartened by your disdain for these violent depictions of women, I also believe you're, unfortunately, in the minority of men when it comes to this opinion. Perhaps it just seems so based on most media depictions I've seen (including comic books, major films, and video games). However, most of this material is written or designed by men - so where does this worship of violence come from? Even those women who may feel empowered by a fantasy of physical domination of men have been taught by a VERY male-centric world that violence equals strength and/or power. You have but to simply look around you to see that unfortunate truth.

One of my many hopes for this world is that men such as yourself will become the norm, not the exception.

[Elroy Jetson]

07:00 AM on 06/08/2012

Nice. But some look like they would fit well in the current Zombie movement.

[vball4lifealwayz]

02:41 AM on 06/08/2012

this is so cool!!!!! i like how elements of their story were included in simple ways such as being on their belt or weapon. yay disney princess!!! =]

[Lorraine Roe]

01:19 AM on 06/08/2012

Can't we just leave the princesses alone? Is nothing sacred? Personally, I liked the simplicity of the gals I grew up with in the Disney movies of yesteryear...feminine, yet strong. Sure they were always rescued by a man, but they weren't all co-dependent. They had their own inner strength.

[tangelan]

07:33 AM on 06/08/2012

I've never agreed with teaching little girls they have to wait for a man to save them. When my mom tried to read theses stories to me I told her I didn't want to hear anymore. And she didn't want to read any of them because I kept asking her questions. I mean really, who takes an apple from a witch?

[allisoninwonderland]

12:16 PM on 06/08/2012

I always hated that the Princess had to be rescued by a man..the whole damsel in distress thing irked me even as a little girl. As a grown woman, even more so.

Maybe that is why Alice in Wonderland was always my favourite Disney film...she is curious and figures her own way out. I always wondered why she became the step-child that Disney has constantly tried to forget about.

[edtastic]

12:36 PM on 06/08/2012

Why do you hate the idea of men rescuing women? This is a good thing, it shows the love men have for women when they are willing to risk their lives to protect them. That kind of romantic vision is something we lost sight of while chasing after the feminist version of equality. We can be equals and still acknowledge men's willingness to sacrifice for women.