Problem: I question, however, if she was really the first. Have there been others before her?

Response: After reading The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, The Tale of the Rose by Emma Donoghue and several other written fairy tales I argue that there were several queer princesses before Elsa. Through the authors personal anecdotes and literary choices it can be concluded that the protagonists in their Stories are part of the queer community.

• love for Edvard Collin

  • "they grew up in the

    same house for a period" (Tea Berry-Blue)

• tried to break off Edvard's engagement

• sent the little mermaid to Edvard after he got married

  • "yes, it is Andersen working out his feelings about the object of his affection not being returned and feeling like an outsider for loving a man" (Tea Berry-Blue)

Context in the story:

• how she lives with the prince

• red flowers are a symbol of how Andersen left roses under Collin's pillow growing up

• the pain under the feet is his pain of unreciprocated love

• not stabbing with the knife is him no longer interfering with marriage but dying

• She is in love with a man

  • is she in love with a man, or the idea of getting an immortal soul (she is unhappy in her body)

• ok but this isn't the Disney story

  • yes, but this is the written tale of The Little Mermaid most similar to Disney's adapted storyline and the Disney version is reportedly based on it

    • expose similarities like fascination with human legs and human world (she is unhappy in body)

Arguments against Beauty and the Beast

• never explicitly says they stayed together

  • no but inferred -- “After months of looking, I saw that beauty was infinitely various, and found it behind her white face’ (303) AND “And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.” (303). 

• This is not the story most similar to Disney's Adaptation

  • yes, but still, she fell for the beast when he was not a human

  • also what she hates about Gaston is how manly he is

• maybe show how it strays from the heterosexual norms of madame de Beaumonts story and thus aligns more with tale of the rose

"More and more she grew to love human beings and wished that she could leave the sea and live among them. It seemed to her that their world was far larger than hers; on ships, they could sail across the oceans and they could climb the mountains high up above the clouds. Their countries seemed ever so large, covered with fields and forests; she knew that they stretched much farther than she could see. There was so much that she wanted to know; there were many questions that her sisters could not answer. Therefore she asked her old grandmother, since she knew much about the “higher world,” as she called the lands above the sea" (Andersen 152).

• I don't have any sources on her real life yet

Context in The Tale of the Rose

• why she made the beast a woman

• quotes suggest queerness:

  • “Taking leave on the steps, the beast said, I must tell you before you go: I am not a man.I knew it. Every tale I had ever heard of trolls, ogres, goblins, rose to my lips. The beast said, "You do not understand” (303).

  • “I saw that the beast was a woman. And that she was breathing, which seemed to matter more” (303). 

  • “This was a strange story, one I would have to learn a new language to read, a language I could not learn except by trying to read the story" (303).

  • “It took me weeks to understand why the faceless mask and the name of a beast might be chosen over all the great world had to offer” (303). 

  • “After months of looking, I saw that beauty was infinitely various, and found it behind her white face" (303).