Life > January 24, 2008

By Kelly Curan | Staff columnist

Everyone wants to believe in fairytales.

We grew up watching Disney movies in which love conquers all and princes and princesses live happily ever after.

The stories of Cinderella and Snow White have left us with the idea that love will magically fall into place.

A lowly commoner becomes a princess, and, just like that, all her problems are solved.

In reality, nothing happens like that. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but there is a shortage of knights and white horses roaming the quad.

Ball gowns have been replaced with cocktail dresses and horse-drawn carriages are now shuttles to frat parties.

The lack of romance in our lives is a stark contrast to fairytales, but what else can we expect from our environment?

We don’t live in a castle in a faraway land, we aren’t royalty, we can’t talk to animals, yet we still expect the same love that’s found in cartoons.

Has Disney given us unreasonable expectations about falling in love?

Upon further examination, I realize that the fairy tales we have foolishly based our romantic expectations on are not, in fact, as perfect as we think.

They all had their villains, their set backs, or their obstacles to overcome.

Take away the ball gowns and fairy dust and these poor girls had to suffer to find their happily ever after.

How can we, as non-cartoons, ever expect to have more fantasy in our lives than an animated mermaid?

Think about Snow White­ ­— she was raised in a home with a homicidal stepmother and had to run away after a hit was placed on her. She ended up as a domestic slave for seven tiny, useless, jewel-hungry men.

Her crappy situation was compounded by being poisoned and slipping into a coma. All this had to happen before the one twist of fate — more like dumb luck — that led the Prince to her creepy glass coffin to kiss her back to life.

Snow White may have ended up with the Prince in the end, but this was only after attempts on her life by the evil Queen and serving for dwarves, I think she deserves something good at last.

Cinderella’s life was no walk in the park either.

She was abused by her stepmother and was forced to be a slave in her own home. She lived with rats. She was denied any social contact.

Only through magical assistance and going to a forbidden party was she able to meet true love.

But even after all those setbacks her happily ever after was still just out of reach.

It took a city-wide manhunt to track down the owner of a very impractical shoe, finally giving Cinderella and Prince Charming their happy ending.

No Disney princess had it easy.

Ariel had to give up her family, her voice and basically sell herself to a witch just for a chance to impress her guy.

Belle was held captive by the Beast in his castle, sacrificing her life for that of her father.

Jasmine had to cross social boundaries to be with a poor homeless man.

Sleeping Beauty was cursed by a spiteful woman and was therefore secluded without her parents for the majority of her life.

The movies we grew up with have left us with the impression that love is easy.

In a primary colored, sing-along world, love is guaranteed to the heroes and heroines, just like peoples and monkeys can converse.

For us, romance isn’t that simple and we, unlike our favorite childhood characters, have to work at love and relationships.

Until you can organize home furnishings to play matchmaker for a bookworm and a monster, you may want to stick to reality- dates, phone calls and flowers.

This should be enough to start you towards your happily ever after.