
“Disney’s Enchanted, A Tale of Betrayal and Chest Hair Fondling” by John Overmeier, Buffalo Springs Daily
Media powerhouse Disney spellbinds us with yet another Prince and Princess fairytale movie, Enchanted, for the Holiday Tree season. Starting off as what appears to be an innocent family friendly movie, parents and their enraptured children will soon wonder what Enchanted’s “PG” rating is for, but not for long…
Using snippets of the traditional storyline of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Princess Giselle falls in love with a Prince in cartoon fairyland but she gets banished by his evil stepmother to the harsh reality of New York City, emerging from a sewer man-hole cover dressed in her princess get-up and a gold crown which is stolen in due time by a homeless man with poor dental hygiene.
Wandering like a lunatic around New York City looking in earnest for her “castle”, she quickly catches the attentions of a divorce lawyer with motherless child. Here is where Disney begins the evisceration of the traditional family, albeit by way of spoofing, but to which most children will only become more confused coming as they do too from divorce and broken families.
The divorce lawyer takes in the endearing Princess for the night and in a scene reminiscent of every children’s movie, the showered and half naked Princess wrapped in a towel accidentally stumbles out of the bathroom and lands atop the divorce lawyer in a straddling sexual position, just as the divorce lawyer’s girlfriend of 5 years comes in the front door. Gee kids, it’s only accidental!
Meanwhile, the Prince has followed through the cartoon-to-reality spinning tunnel in pursuit of his precious Princess, along with the evil stepmother and a butler lackey toting along some evil fruit for the Princess. If the Prince had an inkling of what the lewd little Princess had been up to he probably would have given her the poisonous apple himself and saved the other folks the trouble.
Around this time the Princess starts to fondle the divorce lawyer’s chest hair and puckers up for a kiss, though she is supposedly to marry the Prince—her one true love—who she had previously been raving and crooning pleasantly about. This scene is particularly abhorrent since the prelude to the fondling is the Princess getting angry but then suddenly calming down and feeling attracted to the open bathrobe of the divorce lawyer—almost a “make-up sex” scene if Disney could have pumped that “PG” rating a little more. If only we could let the Prince know…
The divorce lawyer and the Princess do go on a date together, and Disney tosses about the idea that maybe people should “get to know one another” before further commitment, whatever that is, but which the audience might presume to be marriage. Over dinner the conversation meanders to the fact that there is a kid with no mother following the divorce lawyer around. The single parent divorce lawyer mumbles something about things not working out between he and his one night stand, live-in girlfriend, or divorced wife—whichever it is, Disney doesn’t reveal to us, only that “she left”. The divorced lawyer’s moping cynical existence begs the question: Why burden the upbeat Princess with your impropriety and sullenness?
Yet here the single parent divorce lawyer happily sits at dinner with the ravishing Princess, calculating his next amorous relationship with a real life floozy. Whatever happened to Dr. Laura’s advice that single parents should stay single while raising their children, instead of creating an unnecessary hectic drama that the singles dating scene is sure to burden their children with? Obviously, the cartoon-made-CGI chipmunk didn’t whisper that bit of advice in his ear.
The whole movie falls flat on its face when an unbridled swinger’s party erupts at the end and the main characters all switch love partners. Everyone gets kicked to the curb but rebounds with another love interest! The Princess falls in love with the single parent divorce lawyer, and the Prince falls in love with the five year girlfriend of the divorce lawyer—both of whom they only met the day before. Oops! Sorry for spoiling the end of the movie!
So much for “getting to know someone” when Disney returns triumphantly to the love of immediacy which they were apparently spoofing all along. Unknown to Disney and its producers is the fact that to truly satirize something (beyond immature spoofing) is to include its correction, and Enchanted unfortunately serves to exacerbate or at least tolerate societal problems of divorce and sexual irresponsibility.
Disney could have scripted the Princess falling deeper in love with the Prince after discovering the Prince really was a loving and honorable guy. The divorce lawyer could have rediscovered his love for his long time girlfriend and offered up on bended knee some bling for her finger, or reconciled with the mother of his child (Oh! the horror!), but Disney had other plans for the characters by clamoring them past the ongoing wreckage of relationships.
Wrapped in a veneer of family friendly fairytale magic and appealing animated animals, kids instead get a dose of broken families, sexual innuendo, chest hair fondling, “swinging” and a bad bout of Christina Aguilera type wailing at the end.
Enchanted is a depressing affair, not an enlightening love story. Watch Sex and the City, it does a better job.