WHY, in a society permissive enough to condone de facto interspecies relationships with mutant babies, is there no female succession in Far Far Away?... today's little girls are still being fed the "be beautiful, sit tight and wait to be rescued" line, as favoured by Cinderella (girl, go out and get a job and career of your own), Sleeping Beauty (you should never wait 100 years for a man; you probably shouldn't even wait a week if he hasn't called for that long) and Snow White (who admittedly did have a go at polygamy before settling down with one man).

Is it too much to ask for a fairytale that empowers little girls? Why didn't the Little Mermaid just become Queen of the Ocean and demand that the prince drop his career to come and live under the sea with her? And if Rapunzel can bear the weight of a grown man on her hair, surely she could carry her own weight, get down from the damn tower and go hit the clubs.
Seriously, if it's OK for Donkey and Dragon to live together before marriage and have multiple donkey-dragon (dragkeys?) mutant babies, surely they live in a society where it's OK for a girl to take the throne.

If a frog can sit on the throne, so should a green princess

Jessica Disteldorf
June 22, 2007 (SMH)

WHY, in a society permissive enough to condone de facto interspecies relationships with mutant babies, is there no female succession in Far Far Away? I went to see Shrek the Third with such high hopes. This is the fairytale where the heroine chooses to be an ogre rather than a beautiful princess, has Matrix-style martial arts skills and can burp with the best of them.
And with the third instalment of the story there was a chance for the ultimate fairytale princess to take some real power and take over the world.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the king died, surely his eldest child, Princess Fiona, should have automatically inherited the throne. And her husband would have to fall into place a la Prince Philip. Instead, the Frog King (if a frog can do it, why not a woman?) asks Shrek to be king. Princess Fiona isn't even asked whether or not she wishes to be queen; that decision is left to her lord and master, her husband. The real heir - formerly a kick-ass princess, now just married and pregnant - is overlooked in favour of an ogre, or Justin Timberlake. Justin Timberlake!
I know the princesses have a bit of an attempt at girl power and knock out a few bad guys, but I still want to know what happened to Fiona. A little bit of princess ass-kicking is always nice but why not take control of her own life as well? Why did getting married and knocked up mean that she was no longer the cool heroine but merely the prize?
I live with a four-year-old who lives and breathes princesses. And not a modern-day Mary. Oh no, today's little girls are still being fed the "be beautiful, sit tight and wait to be rescued" line, as favoured by Cinderella (girl, go out and get a job and career of your own), Sleeping Beauty (you should never wait 100 years for a man; you probably shouldn't even wait a week if he hasn't called for that long) and Snow White (who admittedly did have a go at polygamy before settling down with one man).
Is it too much to ask for a fairytale that empowers little girls? Why didn't the Little Mermaid just become Queen of the Ocean and demand that the prince drop his career to come and live under the sea with her? And if Rapunzel can bear the weight of a grown man on her hair, surely she could carry her own weight, get down from the damn tower and go hit the clubs.
Seriously, if it's OK for Donkey and Dragon to live together before marriage and have multiple donkey-dragon (dragkeys?) mutant babies, surely they live in a society where it's OK for a girl to take the throne.