Ariel and Aurora, Jasmine and Juliet
Words by Maia Ingoe (she/her)
When I was in high school, my mum gave me a print of a 60s-style comic square. Black and white, it showed a girl with long hair carrying books. She was breaking up with the boy trailing behind her. The comic text read, in capital letters: “it’s not you, it’s the unrealistic expectations Disney has given me of relationships.”
It sat stuck on my wall for the remainder of my high school years. Back then, I hadn’t experienced relationships beyond heart-fluttering crushes that never went further than a sideways glance. Now I’ve dallied in a romance or a few. The comic has got me thinking.
As a kid, I was a true Disney princess fan. I loved the high-stakes battle in Sleeping Beauty when Phillip slashes through a thorned forest to slay the dragon and awaken his beloved Aurora. The forbidden love, the crossing of class lines, and success of the underdog in Aladdin. I couldn’t get enough of dreamy Ariel sacrificing all for a chance at love in The Little Mermaid. And I loved how, after breaking Ursula’s spell, Eric was willing to risk everything to not lose Ariel again.
My most treasured costume was a princess dress of silk and tulle. I imagined myself as the princess of these fantastical tales, lovestruck but trapped. I wanted a love who would overcome any obstacle to be with me. Now, a bit older and a little scarred by heartbreak, yet still as hopeless as ever, I’ve begun to wonder if my idolised ideas of Disney love aren’t all they're cracked up to be.
My parents divorced when I was seven; I didn’t see love there. Dad rounded through the girlfriends and Mum stayed happily single. Romance and willing-to-risk-it-all devotion came purely from watching the Disney girls. They had the happy ever after everyone seemed to dream of.
The tendency to fantasise about high-stakes romances continued into high school, where I was introduced to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I was enchanted by the story of star-crossed lovers for whom death was more favourable than living without the other. I have a treasured copy of the play: gold-lined pages with a red velvet cover.
All this has made me think I have an inclination to find something high-stakes in my limited love affairs. Something to fight for, or against. Something to overcome in the name of love. This, I’ve decided, can obscure a reality of toxicity, harm, and unhealthy relationships, causing me to trap myself in pairings thinking love can never be easy. If love only exists in times of strife, how can one be happy?
The idols of my high-stakes romances are all problematic. They reproduce eurocentric beauty standards and unhealthy body types, and they are embedded in heteronormativity (Walt Disney Co have donated thousands to homophobic organisations and politicians). In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora was a passive bystander in her own story. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel changed her entire life and left her family for a man. Romeo and Juliet would still be alive if they’d paused to think for one fucking minute.
When I moved out of home, I began to see new kinds of love. I saw wholesome interactions in front of the kitchen sink, when people lingered in the hallway, in late-night conversations outside a party, in passionate dancing at Circus on a Thursday night. I also witnessed love that was challenging and wrought with anxiety. I found myself jumping at the earliest opportunity to have someone want me. I found myself compromising my morals in ways I wasn’t proud of because I thought love had to be fought for.
First I witnessed my friend's heartbreak, and then I witnessed my own. As I slowly came back to myself and re-learned my ways of being, I recalled my childhood Disney princess idols. The forbidden romance, the foes to overcome. I saw my friends enjoy love that was good in all senses of the word. I knew which one I wanted for myself.
Love does not have to be some high-stakes fantasy. There is no need for a formidable foe, for one person to save the other. Looking for such a dynamic leads to a toxic, spiralling pairing where neither comes out unscathed.
Love is in the small things. It is in the Sunday morning scrambled egg and coffee rituals Ffion and I share. It is in the smiles of Sylvia and Fraser as they bake together, flour up to their elbows. It is in the song Oliver sung Lily whenever she felt low while they were long distance. It is in the giggles and joking frustration of Tasman trying to convince Alex to move into her room.
I have replaced my idolisation of fantasy romance with what I see in the love my friends experience. I see their relationships grow over weeks and months in the flashes of time we spend together. In the Disney movies, all we get to see are the beginnings of relationships. Often, those are fraught with miscommunications, half-truths, and something to overcome, be it class divisions, feuding families, or a dragon. The best off-screen relationships are the ones that unfold calmly, like water slowly running over rocks, fraught not with challenge but with easy laughter and shared caring.
Romantic love is still constantly revealing itself. But I’ll be sure to discover it as it unravels naturally, on my own terms, in the easy, slow place of a Sunday morning.