I have three nieces – ages 8, 5, and 4 – and of course they’re into Disney. (Come on, they’re related to me, so would you expect any different?) The girls particularly love the Disney Princesses. They dress up like them, make believe different scenarios involving the characters, and wear Disney Princess T-shirts as often as they can. At the same time, I’m certain the girls know, even at their ages, that the life of a princess is an unrealistic goal. For them, the princess culture is fantasy and fun.
Princesses as mere fun and fantasy? Not if Canadian photographer Dina Goldstein has anything to do with it! Goldstein has released a new photo project entitled “Fallen Princesses,” and boy is it a downer!
Ms Goldstein told Cargoh.com that she was inspired to create the images when her daughter first became interested in princesses, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer shortly thereafter.
‘The two events collided and made me wonder what a princess would look like if she had to battle a disease, struggle financially or deal with aging,’ she said.
[…]
‘My Fallen Princesses series was born out of deep personal pain, when I raged against the “happily ever after” motif we are spoon fed since childhood,’ she explains.
In one photo, Rapunzel appears as a cancer patient, her long, blonde locks merely a wig. Cinderella leans over a shot glass in a bar, Belle undergoes gruesome plastic surgery, and Snow White looks to be trapped in an unhappy marriage in an outdated living room while Prince Charming watches television.
Other photos are even more outlandish. Ariel peers at a boy from inside an aquarium tank. Pocahontas has turned into a crazy cat lady, while Jasmine fights in a war-torn Middle East – according to The Daily Mail, “some accused the photographer of ‘placing the Middle Eastern Princess as a terrorist.'”
Even non-Disney princesses get in on the action: Little Red Riding Hood has become morbidly obese, while the leading lady of The Princess and the Pea inexplicably lives on a pile of mattresses in a landfill. By far, the most disturbing image has to be a princess lying asleep (or dead?) on a bed next to an old man in the common area of a retirement home.
Naturally, Goldstein tries to make a point with her photos, and – even more naturally – her point is chock full of Leftist tropes.
The photographer said she hopes her thought-provoking images will stir the emotions of viewers.
‘The series. . . [forces] the viewer to contemplate real life,’ she said.
‘Failed dreams, pollution and ocean degradation, war, obesity, the extinction of indigenous cultures, cancer and the fallacy of chasing eternal youth.’
Sorry, Dina, but your photos don’t inspire much thought beyond, “that’s disturbing.” Beyond the shock value lies some pretty lame and predictable statements – and no sense of irony or even mischievous humor. Seems like Dina Goldstein is more living proof that leftists don’t believe in “happily ever after,” and they’ll stop at nothing to make sure nobody experiences it.
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