Essay

Comment

Film & TV

Weirdness

5 October 2023

5 min read

Disney: 100 years of waiting for Prince Charming

Reflecting on the Disney centenary, Lauren Windle finds herself dis-enchanted with Prince Charming and reflecting on what might be a better kind of attraction.

Lauren Windle

Lauren Windle is an author, journalist, presenter and public speaker.

A plastic wind-up Snow White toy stands to the right of the photo, with hands clasped waiting

Photo by King Lip on Unsplash.

Picture the scene: you’re outside running an errand; maybe you’re taking the bins out or cleaning your car in the street. The sun is blazing and you’re in a great mood. Bolstered by the good weather, you start to sing to yourself. Maybe you’ve got Spotify on or the car radio’s playing. Just as you’re getting your groove on to Gaga, someone comes up behind you, about a foot away and joins in with the song . . . Startled, you stop singing and swing round to see the other half of your unsolicited duet.

The other person also stops and says: ‘Hello, did I frighten you?’ Clearly concerned, you back away towards your house. The person continues: ‘Wait, wait, please don’t run away.’ As you dash through the front door and slam it behind you, you hear your uninvited singing partner pick up the song where the two of you left off in an attempt to serenade you as you flee.

They never made a Snow White 2. Maybe that’s because watching the slow and agonizing breakdown of a relationship that was entered into prematurely isn’t very ‘Disney’.

Menacing, right? No one’s stopping to swap numbers with the creepy crooner. Except this is the exact interaction between Snow White and Prince Charming in the Disney film (1937). Word for word. I sat through it to check. Did she call the police? Was she embarrassed and uncomfortable with his invasion of her personal space? Did she drop a message to the other princesses to tell them to watch out for the crackpot future king? None of the above. The next time we hear her speak about the prince, Snow White is talking to the seven dwarfs and explaining that she’s ‘in love with him’, he’s ‘the only one’ for her and ‘there’s nobody like him anywhere at all’. Those are actual quotes.

When the prince and Snow White are finally reunited, she is woken from her unconsciousness by his kiss and he leads her away, wordlessly, into the sunset. In the whole film Snow White doesn’t say a word directly to the prince.

They never made a Snow White 2. Maybe that’s because watching the slow and agonizing breakdown of a relationship that was entered into prematurely isn’t very ‘Disney’. I, for one, would pay to watch as Snow White grows to realize that marrying someone who looms up on young women and breaks into song isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; and as the prince gets fed up with all the woodland creatures leaving their droppings as they traipse through the house to help with all the various daily chores.

Now this is key so listen up: there is no ‘the one’ and you do not have a ‘soulmate’.

The relationships we saw as children to model our hopes and dreams on were fundamentally flawed and Disney was at the heart of what I will be calling from here on in ‘The Great Deception’. In our treasured childhood films feelings of love didn’t grow from a deep and mutual understanding of who the other was. It was an encounter that sparked love at first sight, followed by some questionable courtship practices. It’s a sinister day in the magical kingdom when you realise Belle was a hostage with Stockholm syndrome; Ariel changed her species and gave up her voice in order to gain favour with the prince; and Sleeping Beauty was given a non-consensual kiss while unconscious.

We know all these are fairy stories, but the material we surround ourselves with has a tendency to stick, no matter how impervious we believe ourselves to be. Somewhere between Cinderella’s pre-midnight Waltz and Aladdin and Jasmine’s market stall encounter we fell for the idea that instant attraction is preferable to that which builds and develops more slowly over a longer period of time. The reality is that some of the best, most fulfilling relationships don’t kick off with irrepressible feelings of chemistry. In some cases, that chemistry wanes over time and in others it develops with greater engagement.

That said, those of us who are conscious that a pretty face or a banging body aren’t all they’re cracked up to be when contributing to a lifetime-length relationship, do forget that attraction is still important. The best depiction of a healthy attraction I’ve heard is Will van der Hart’s on The Dating Course. He compares a relationship to a church candle – one of those fat pillar ones. The attraction is the wick; you need it to get the thing going. But if you’re all wick, you’ll burn out quickly. The wax is the substance, the friendship, the deeper understanding of each other, the experiences you share. But if you’re all wax, you can’t get the flame going. However, if you have both, you’ve got a candle that will burn brightly and for a long time.

Another glug of Kool-Aid that Snow White had guzzled down was this idea of ‘the one’. Now this is key so listen up: there is no ‘the one’ and you do not have a ‘soulmate’. Neither of those things exist. Mr/Mrs Right is not out there. Get on with your life.

The entertainment conglomerate has done its best in recent years to repent for the generations of young girls with unrealistic romantic expectations.

Back in the ancient days of Athens, Plato shared some questionable insight into the origin of humans. Turns out, way back when, people had four legs, four arms and a head with two faces. Zeus, despite being king of the gods, was afraid of what these eight-appendaged, double-faced people could do, so he split them down the middle. Humans, now incomplete, walked the earth pining for their other half, throwing their arms around each other and intertwining their bodies in an attempt to grow together. In summary, the idea of a missing person to complete you is not founded on any scientific or biblical truth. It’s misinformation from Plato and Jerry Maguire. It is not a great premise to build your life and expectations on. It’s a waste of time.

What someone should have told Walt was that there are a number of people Snow White would meet in her life who would be a suitable marriage partner for her. She would have a different but fulfilling life with each. A person would become ‘the one’ when she chose to commit to them, because she would be making a promise to them to eliminate all others from the equation. Leaving just one.

The entertainment conglomerate has done its best in recent years to repent for the generations of young girls with unrealistic romantic expectations. They’ve produced a slew of powerful and sassy women, out for adventure with no love interest in sight; see Moana and Raya and the Last Dragon. But for myself and my millennial peers, the stage has already been set. If he doesn’t rock up on a valiant steed, quite frankly, we’re not interested.

Article

Church and state

Creed

Leading

Politics

Weirdness

1 October 2025

5 min read

The one thing the new Archbishop can offer the world

How an unlikely argument between the Pope and Madonna points the way for the new Archbishop of Canterbury

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

The archbishop crowns the king.

The Catholic News Agency is a news outlet whose Instagram account posts warm pictures of the Pope, Catholic saints and so on, with heart-warming, if a little anodyne, quotations. A week or so ago, it sparked one of the most unlikely social media spats in recent times - an argument between Madonna (no, not the Virgin Mary) and Pope Leo himself.

With the announcement of Sarah Mullally as the 106^th Archbishop of Canterbury, this debate may have something to say to her as she moves from London (where I knew her well and worked with her as a fellow bishop) to Lambeth.

The CNA had posted a picture of a smiling, waving Pope Leo with the caption: “My priority is the Gospel, not solving the world’s problems.” It referred to an interview in which the Pope had said: “I don’t see my primary role as trying to be the solver of the world’s problems… although I think that the Church has a voice, a message that needs to continue to be preached, to be spoken and spoken loudly.”

The comments below were predictable, ranging from “This is a God-inspired pope!” to “The pope is irrelevant’ – and much worse. But among the 2000 or so comments was one by Madonna herself: “The whole point of teaching and learning the Gospel is to inspire people to love one another and make the world a better place. Not just with words but with actions, which is exactly what Jesus did. I am truly disappointed by this.”

Madonna has always had an odd relationship with the Catholic Church, and this was not the first time she has engaged with Pope Leo (or his predecessor Francis for that matter) online. But the story still went viral.

So - back to soon-to-be Archbishop Sarah.

She certainly faces a challenging inbox - divisions among Anglicans over sexuality that threaten to tear the Anglican Communion apart; safeguarding scandals; the ructions that being a female Archbishop will raise for traditionalists within the Church of England and with the Catholics and the Orthodox; the rise of Christian Nationalism, criticism of the Church’s commitment of £100m for reparations for slavery, not to mention the continue decline of Anglican congregations around the country.

So what should her priorities be as she starts her role?

I must confess I’m on Pope Leo’s side in this one. Unsurprisingly, the scholarly Augustinian Pope is a better theologian than the singer of ‘Like a Prayer’.

Pope Leo went on to say: “The values that the Church will promote in dealing with some of these world crises don’t come out of the blue, they come out of the Gospel. They come from a place that makes very clear how we understand the relationships between God and us, and between one another. Going back to the very basic things of respecting one another, respecting human dignity: where does that human dignity come from and how can we use that as a way of saying the world can be a better place, and we can treat one another better?”

It is the job of politicians – not the Church - to work out the precise policies and mechanisms that will deliver a better society. Yet of course that begs the question: what does ‘better’ mean? And that is where the church does have something to say.

Pope Leo’s point is that if the Church does make political interventions, they have to arise strictly from the very heart of its own faith. Christian leaders shouldn't get too involved in detailed policy recommendations, but they can outline their vision of what a good life together looks like, based on the story of the gospel itself.

The one thing that the church has to offer the world is Jesus - in other words, the remarkable, world-shattering belief that God the Creator entered human history, like an author stepping on to the stage of his own play. Yet he did it in the most unexpected way possible, without fanfare, simply showing a radical, determined, self-giving love, dying an excruciating death at human hands and rising from death as the first sign that death is nothing to be afraid of because it has been beaten once and for all.

To believe that is weird. It changes everything – life is not a search for wealth, friends and success but for holiness and wisdom. It is not a search for self-fulfilment but a radical turn away from self-centredness to a growing love for God our Maker. The poor not the wealthy are the ones who matter. We are held in the hands of a God whose love for us is endless. The universe is not impersonal and silent but pulses with love. Evil is a force trying to undo everything that God has created. Death is just the gateway to something far better for those who believe.

Tom Holland put it like this this: “If you're a Christian, you think that the heart of the entire fabric of the cosmos was ruptured by this strange singularity where someone who is a God and a man set everything on its head.”

And paradoxically, it is by focusing on that extraordinary message, that the Church can play its part in helping unravel some of the other problems, whether in the Church or the world.

Pope Leo was right. And maybe this is the advice for our new Archbishop: don’t start out by trying to change the world. Start with the gospel. It’s all we have to offer. Teach it, remind the church and the world of it. Use imagination, creativity, social media – whatever.

You may end up solving the world’s problems, you may not. The early Christians didn’t march on Rome, petitioning Caesar for new laws on migration across the empire or fairer treatment for slaves. They simply lived out their faith, creating communities that included everyone, worshipped Jesus and excluded idolatry. They taught, learned and lived the gospel. And eventually the world was changed.

So our new Archbishop will and must talk about immigration, assisted dying, poverty and other political issues, but she must make sure it’s always rooted in something Christian. Or as St Paul put it: “Proclaim the message, whether the time is favourable or unfavourable. Always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.”

And let the rest of us encourage her in doing that as well as she can.

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