Anyway, I’ve been thinking of the whole project exactly as “After the Happily Ever After.” Each picture tells me a story of what went horribly wrong after I closed the book. I consider each photo a wake-up call aimed at girls/women who grew up thinking “I’ll be happy in the end if I act just like the princesses.” Which unfortunately usually means “smile, be polite, pretty and quiet – your prince will find you and just marrying him will make you happy for the rest of your life.” And that is a very flawed concept, I think.

The stories I see:

Cinderella’s prince died shortly after they married and as he didn’t have time to write his last will, she ended penniless and with nobody to take care of. (For she had always lived just for other people, never really cared about her own well-being and never learned to love and respect herself.) Desperate, she turned to alcohol.

Jasmine thought that her husband would protect her against anything, but then the war came, he got killed and she found out that she’d been so sheltered she didn’t even know there WAS a war going on. (And which ammo to use with which gun, in case of emergency.)

Little Red Riding Hood thought her grandma was never going to die. When she did, Little Red lost all motivation – she stopped going on walks in the woods, she started bingeing (there was more food left, because she didn’t have to bring grandma anything.) She got fatter and fatter, until one day she met the wolf, who laughed at her for being overweight. This triggered an eating disorder and such loss of self-confidence (she always believed what other people said) that she hid herself in her little house for the rest of her life.

(…)

I admit the Rapunzel gag seems a little shallow, but overall – all the depicted situations make my imagination run wild (“how did that happen?” “how COULD that happen?”) and that’s exactly what art should do.
I think the whole collection points out the dangers that stem from Cinderella complex.

Uh… I hope I’m making some sense here. Please excuse all cases of shitty grammar, I’m not a native speaker.

http://www.racialicious.com/2009/06/19/fallen-princess-jasmine-raises-questions-about-stereotypes/#more-2534

Real interesting debate going on- I thought you might be interested.

Thanks again for reading/commenting!

- J

I do see how they are fallen in the sense that they are without a happily ever after, but I suppose it still bothers me to see real life situations (like being a mother) somehow considered less-than or something that is undesirable (thus, not happily ever after.) I feel like the term “fallen” comes with a value judgment that can’t be taken away from it.

Upon further reflection I think my problem with this series is the same as the problem with my post – its just not a very sophisticated analysis of anything. The artist’s message seems to be all over the place, the quality of work is incredibly varied, and they just don’t really inspire much… even though the idea itself has so much potential – as shown by Alix Olson and the many others who have reimagined fairytales in a clever, creative, and positive way. Take Big Red, for example, what was the artist’s message? What does this say about our culture? I see a cheerful looking fat woman and I’m told that she is in some way fallen, yet out of all the princesses depicted she looks the happiest… what am I supposed to think about that? Honestly, this image just bothers me because it really fails to convey much of any message – good or bad – without the implications of the series title.

All in all I think that if the title of this series was something like “After the Happily Ever After” I would take MUCH less issue with it, because no value judgment is implied. I also think I am giving this waaay to much thought now!

So, thanks for commenting – I really appreciate your perspective, and your critique of my thought process. (And I’m with you on the Rapunzel thing, where did that come from? I guess she just wanted to create a visual pun with her losing her hair, which was her defining characteristic?) I’d love to hear more of what you think!

I didn’t see the project as examples of failure, but rather as the “fallen princesses” in the sense that they didn’t get their traditional disney-like happy ending. As in not everything they dreamed off came true, so.. with snow white it’s not like being a mother is in any way a failure but her happy ending was not supposed to be ending up with three kids and a husband who just sits on the couch and watches tv. I’m guessing her dream was the loving and caring husband who also happens to be a wonderful parent to all of their kids. So it’s more about the failure of her marriage rather than her being a mother.

When it comes to little red riding hood, it doesn’t just show a fat girl walking around. It shows a fat girl with lots of fat food (unhealthy food), and she’s eating it too, so it’s just saying that she’s made some pretty unhealthy choices about her diet and she’s gotten fat, and since the food she’s eating is pretty bad I’m guessing she can’t be all that healthy. Granted it doesn’t talk about all the reasons why someone could be overweight, but some people are overweight because of a bad diet and that’s all the picture is saying. I’m having a hard time seeing how it equals fat to fallen. I just see it equals a bad diet of unhealthy food in great quantities as a failure.

I didn’t really care about the other pictures, except for the rapunzle with cancer, I’m just puzzled about how in the world the photographer got to that conclusion. What could possibly make you think that she got cancer? that’s just a random ending.