The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses

Once upon a time, the princess slept in a castle or in a woodland bower, innocent and untouched until the brave prince defeated the evil witch to win his way to her side and awaken her with a kiss. They got married … and there the story ends.

Today’s princesses run away from the castle, seek out the witch for training, and solve their own problems. Today’s princesses earn their queendoms through their own actions and lead their people in new directions.

We have been witness to an evolution of agency-the taking on of personal power-in the heroines of science fiction and fantasy movies and television over the last 90 years. Female characters have been moving into greater and greater arenas of action, stepping up to becoming not just heroines but superheroines-and in the 21st century, goddesses.

In The Princess Powers Up: Watching the Sleeping Beauties Become Warrior Goddesses, Jody Gentian Bower traces this evolution with examples from Disney princess movies, the Marvel and D.C. universes, the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, and many others. Dr. Bower discusses how our changing culture has changed the landscape of film, allowing for new depictions of not just women but people of color, the nonbinary-gendered, and the differently abled, and shows how we are already shifting into new paradigms of heroism that are far more inclusive and diverse.