The trouble with hot princesses

Sometimes I really wish the faerie tales were real …

For starters, all the chicks in them are seriously hot! And they’re always on the lookout for a man. Oh yeah, and they’re generally loaded, too.

Take Sleeping Beauty for example; tall, blond, blue eyes and … well, not surprisingly, beautiful … and a princess too, if I’m not mistaken … or at least, she was eventually.

Then there was Snow White; not blond, perhaps, but tall, blue eyes, unblemished skin and, again if my memory serves, got her piece of the monarchy action in the end.

Cinderella – now here’s a peach! She’s just like you and me, but get a frock on her and she catches every young prince’s eye, what with the tallness, the blondness, the blue-eyedness and a certain poise and posture which just happens to be exactly what they like up there at the Palace.

And it goes on – the Princess and the Pea – blond and princess; Rapunzel – that’s always blond hair hanging out that window; Rumpelstiltskin – beautiful, yet tragically afflicted princess makes a deal with the devil; the Frog Prince – beautiful young princess with an affinity for amphibious royalty; Beauty and the Beast - tall, blond and quite a mover on the dance floor.

OK, you get the picture … and hopefully, you also get the common elements; these gals are usually rich and royal, and are generally beautiful, often owing to their blond hair, which as you and I both know, is more often found on your general, garden-variety white person. What I’m trying to labour here, is how the faerie stories which many of us grew up with, are about really wonderful, magical good fortunes which shine on the most deserving. And those most deserving, if the Brothers Grimm and their guild-fellows are to be believed, are young, rich, white people. Is it true?

Perhaps it is … if you believe in magic. If you don’t, you’ll realise that there are far more sinister foes loose in the world than wicked witches, goblins or trolls. Things called G8; called politicians; called development banks; “Think Tanks”; multinational corporations … and religion.

If the faerie stories were real, then it’d be great for those of us with the white skin, that’d be about 25% of us humans, which are not bad odds for being more likely to receive a slice of the faerie-magic pie. For everyone else, all 4.5 billion of you, well … I’m afraid you guys aren’t eligible.

For many of the rest of you, I’m afraid you’re going to have to resign yourselves to a life devoid of magical intervention. Most of you, of course, will be living on one of the muddy banks beside the filthy, stinking river beds of this, and hundreds of other towns the world over; in homes with no clean water, no sanitation; no warmth; no food; places where your baby brothers and sisters will die; and where diseases exist that the rest of the world has not known for decades.

Places where, as a three year old, dressed in a rag and covered in filth, you are sent to the traffic lights every day to beg for money just to avoid a beating.

I saw you this morning, Alita, taking time-out from your "duties" at the lights. You were standing by a new, sleek, parked car. I saw you stretching up onto your filthy, barefooted tippy-toes, straining your neck in order to see your scab-encrusted face in the polished side mirror. I saw you standing there, mesmerised, perhaps for the first time, by your own, pitiful reflection.

Oh, Alita! How I longed right then to believe the faerie stories. How I ached to run up behind you and to shove you through that mirror into a new world, away from this abusive shit-hole that you inhabit … but I’m sorry, my poor, poor Alita, for you are not blond and your eyes are not blue. The world has decided that you are not worthy … and you will never, ever be allowed into our Wonderland.


If only. Pic: www.win.tue.nl