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With Disney's live-action reboot of Cinderella in the air this week (and speculation around star Lily James being digitally-edited into an impossible-standard of perfection), Culturalist users are asking each other: Do we even like Cinderella? How does she stack up against other animated royalty? We're counting down the current rankings, but you can still weigh in by making your list of the Top 10 Best Disney Princesses now!
5. Elsa (Frozen)
The latest addition to the Disney Princess roster, Elsa comes from an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. But you probably know her better as the face/voice of the billion-dollar award-winning blockbuster Frozen. It's already the highest-grossing animated film of all time, and with rumors of a sequel swirling like an Arendelle blizzard, Elsa's princess stock is on the rise.
4. Jasmine (Aladdin)
In the 1706 English language debut of One Thousand and One Nights, the princess that Aladdin woos with the help of his magical genie is known as Princess Badroulbadour. It's kind of a shame that somebody in the Mouse House decided that "Jasmine" had a better ring to it; we would have loved to see the lyrics resulting from trying to rhyme "Badroulbadour".
3. Fa Mulan (Mulan)
Disney's gender-bending princess caught some critical flak for the movie's cookie-cutter romantic resolution, but Mulan's courage and independence still captures hearts. Fun fact: Broadway star Lea Salonga voiced both Mulan and Jasmine, so it's pretty safe to say that her princess game is on-point.
2. Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
We dare you to spend more than 10 seconds thinking about The Little Mermaid without humming one of the songs. After nearly 20 years of box office misses, 1989's Mermaid almost single-finnedly resurrected Disney's animation studio, and can take a fair share of the credit for the existence of every other princess on this list. We're sure happy to have her be a part of our world.
1. Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
It's a tale as old as time...seriously: Disney's efforts to adapt the French fairy tale started all the way back in the 1930s. We're glad they spent 60 years getting it right. Beauty and the Beast set the standard for every other Disney princess: it became the first animated film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and broke through the frame to become the first animated film adapted for the Broadway stage (becoming a blockbuster in its own right). And it all started with a bored young bookworm named Belle...
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