Clockwork Princess Conflict

Throughout I am Princess X there are four major sections that you go through: The introduction of the characters and the discovery of the webcomic, the discovery of the first key and the truth about the Needle Man’s daughter, the discovery of the second key and the identity of who the Needle Man is in the real world, and the finding of the third and fourth key. The fourth key being the final piece to the puzzle: Libby Deaton.

In “Cinderella and Princess Culture,” Peggy Orenstein compares girls lives to princesses. Society is stereotyping girls as princesses negatively impacting girls well being. As a result, Orenstein claims society should stop stereotyping girls as princesses and have parents limit the girl's exposure to them. Orenstein proves her claim by stating playing with princesses lowers girls self-esteem and can harm their mental and physical health. Orenstein also states the word princess is such a broad meaning, that it is very misunderstood. For example, when one hears the word princess they can think of a girl wearing a fancy dress, or all the princess products. A lot of girls are being stereotyped as being a princess,

The story of Tiana in the movie The Princess and the Frog is one of Disney’s more progressive princess movies in that it moved away from the typical, cookie cutter princess story in which the woman needs saving from the handsome and charming prince. The movie is the story of Tiana, a young, African-American woman of low socioeconomic status, who lives in New Orleans. The movie centers around Tiana’s dream of owning her own restaurant named Tiana’s Palace and how she gets to her happily ever after of owning her restaurant. Though progressive the movie still contains similar traits to other Disney princess movies. The Princess and the Frog exhibits traits of Feminist theories throughout Tiana’s journey in building her restaurant while the movie still undermines the oppression of women. Moreover, in her journey aspects of Karl Marxist’s commodity theory arises when Tiana interacts with other characters in the movie.

"Cinderella" is perhaps the most recognized fairy tale in history, one of the few that spans across generations and cultures. Every prominent culture in the world tells some similar version of this story of a poor girl going from rags to riches; over 700 versions have been accounted for worldwide. In America, numerous authors have penned their own version of the classic folktale. One of these is Tanith Lee, a prolific writer of stories for young adults. Lee cleverly found a way to include all of the traditional elements of the classic "Cinderella" tale, but added a new twist: Cinderella, or the character similar to her in this story, had malicious intentions for the prince, and her purpose throughout the tale was a malevolent one: revenge.

A company called Rossum’s Universal Robots makes robots for the world, but Helena (The President's daughter) is trying to convince the robots to revolt against Domino's cruelty but ends up marrying him. 10 years later and barely anyone is giving birth to children anymore because robots can replace everything, so Helena burns the formula to create robots in hope that no more robots will be made an takeover the human race. The robots end up attacking the factory and kill everyone except Alquist thinking that he can find the robot formula again, a while later Alquist hasn't discovered the formula yet and he starts to fear oblivion as the robots only have a lifespan of 20-30 years. In the end, two robots named Primus and Helena fall in love and Alquist believes that they have souls so he tells them to go off and produce life, and then Alquist died feeling hopeful of the future.

Heroes are brave, determined, courageous, and selfless people whop embark on a journey in order to fulfill a goal for the better good, every heroes journey is different. Some heroes fight dragons to save the castle and some like Westley steal the princess in order to protect her, Westley goes on a long journey where he faces many enemies and challenges but, he continues his journey to rescue his one true love. In The Princess Bride a novel by William Goldman, the character Westley is a hero because, he experiences all 6 stages of the heroic archetype structure including being called to action, crossing threshold, the road of tests, meeting the helpers, trip to the underworld, and the quest.

Automatons are able to explore areas that humans cannot safely ignore like rubble and extract survivors without the risk of landslides. An example is the SALTO robot, which can collect data from nuclear power plant areas. “Ideally, someday a SALTO-like robot will carry small sensors capable of detecting people trapped beneath piles of debris.” Its size and agility make it an ideal scout during a search and rescue effort after an earthquake or building collapse as it won’t disturb the rubble. Once it senses a buried person, a follow-up team of human rescuers will be able to retrieve the victim. It shows how robots can be used to save lives so people don’t have to risk their lives and risk death. When opponents state that the robots could take over they don’t realize that these robots are not self sufficient enough to take over, so robots and humans will still be able to save lives

In the article “In Defense of Princes Culture,” Crystal Liechty presents an argument detailing her opinion on why women should not be disappointed about children who like and idolize the princess culture. She expresses her dismay at a woman who changed the Princess story when reading it to the kindergarten to suit her values. Liechty believes that although she did not grow up believing in the Princess culture, she does not mind bringing up a daughter who believes in the culture. She also reckons that she would have enjoyed wearing the princesses’ dresses even though she had come to believe that it was a bad thing. Liechty believes that it is the best option that a parent can use to instill values to her daughter compared to other available options. Liechty points out that the princess culture presents a highly effective tool for instilling values to a girl child. Despite the essay being valid, there are some arguments presented in the essay that I do not agree with.

The director Miyazaki utilizes both physical and visual elements as represented by the characters, in order to communicate and individualize unique character traits and contrasting personalities. Miyazaki’s placing emphasis on character development is a significant aspect of not only the narrative, but also asserts how each gender is represented in a different way.

Authors James Poniewozik and Peggy Orenstein are both concerned with the increase of princess culture among young girls. Poniewozik’s article “The Princess Paradox” and Orenstein's article “Cinderella and Princess Culture” discuss similar aspects of princess culture that could be potentially harmful to it’s audience. Both Poniewozik and Orenstein take on a feminist perspective in their articles. Specifically, both authors discuss feminist themes in princess culture but Orenstein focuses on toddler to pre-teen aged girls while Poniewozik is more concerned with specifically teenagers.

Little girls? Or little women? The “Disney Princess Effect”, an article written by Stephanie Hanes was published September 4, 2011 the CS Monitor. Girls growing up in today’s society are being stripped of their childhoods. With fictional figures to dream of being, young girls aren’t falling in love with the beauty of the stories but more so they assume that they don’t look good enough to be like the world adored princesses. The author wrote this article in response to the epidemic of young girls growing up too fast and the concern it leaves. Between the Finucane Theory, the “Hottie Mystique” and the media onslaught will all reveal the beginning to a much bigger problem that these Disney princesses are creating. The author contends that young girls are losing sight of their childhoods and are becoming sexually advanced too soon.

Even some of the most recent works of science fiction such as Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her have continued to grapple with understanding the human identity as technology and the world have continued to progress and many of the speculated technological advancements of the past have been realized. Through the exaggeration of the artificially intelligent technology developing today, Jonze aims to completely reimagine what it means to be human in the modern world by exploring whether or not these physically intangible forces can be regarded as human. This challenge is initially introduced following Theo’s purchase of the OS1 artificially intelligent operating system. Soon after he has installed his OS1, which names itself Samantha, he inquires how

The August 2011 issue of French Vogue sparked outrage for its photos of a ten-year old little girl wearing gold dress with a see-through bodice, stilettos and heavy makeup. This picture propped cries of “how young is too young” to model? (Cartwright)

What if? A question that many people find themselves asking. What if someone read Lord of The Rings instead of Harry Potter? Would they be attempting to learn Elvish instead of learning magic spells? In life, there are choices that have to be made. One or the other. The same applies to literature. For example, The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern. Readers of this novel may begin to ask themselves this very question. What if Westley did not reveal his identity to Buttercup when he fell down the ravine? How would this affect the remainder of the story? There are so many different ways that the story could have gone if the author had changed when Westley revealed his true identity. There are so many times and places where it would be logical for him to uncover his disguise, but it is up to the imagination to decide on the best way. S. Morgenstern in his work, The Princess Bride, demonstrates the ability to change by allowing the reader to modify his story with their own creative thoughts.

Cramped in a small Los Angeles office, Walt Disney drew a few larger than life cartoons. After Disney’s big hit Alice Comedies and cartoons of Mickey and the gang, he moved his office to Burbank, California. There, Walt and his brother, Roy, came up with their most famous movies such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland. Now with two American amusement parks, three international parks, multiple cruise lines, multiple resorts, over five hundred films, and over thirty academy award, it’s hard to not heard of Disney. Every boy or girl has at least seen or heard of Disney movies. It’s such a big part of society today that it becomes influential in a kid’s childhood. This project will look at the underlying effect of the Disney princess phenomenon and how it shapes a young girls’ perspective of herself and how she’s “supposed” to be.