Slowly, I rose, knees quaking, tight in last year's tweed coat, to address the hundreds of participants seated in the General Assembly. Surely, this should have been Jason's job. He was the social studies savant. However, India, by chance, had a seat on the Security County of that year's Model United Nations, so Jason was there, and I held our seat in the General Assembly.
I was not alone. I had a partner, i was teamed up with a senior with less experience, participating for no other reason than to pad his college resume. His name? Oh yes, he was Prince Charming.
Actually, I'm serious. He WAS prince Charming. If you've ever been to any of the Disney parks anywhere in the world, then you know that there is a vast cast of familiar Disney characters who wander the campus, dressed in ornate suits with furry heads and bushy tails. There are very few characters, however, who appear without a mask. One of the most notable being, Prince Charming.
Rick, my partner's actual given name, was a part-time employee of the Mouse in Anaheim, working weekends and summers in royal costume, playing the part of Mr. Charming himself, using his own god-given head to do so. He was, in a reality, Prince Charming.
He was also a dimwitted over-sexed moronic buffoon. We were up to our collective asses in diplomatic alligators, for god's sake, and all he could do is flirt with the tight-shirted diplo-cunts from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, seated across the aisle from us.
Rick had golden wavy hair, rippled in smooth curls, green eyes, straight nose, poofy lips, and a cleft chin. His wealthy parents had purchased him a fine new suit for this event, and his briefcase carried only one object. A hair brush.
The brush had a fine-stained oak handle with what seemed like a thousand metal bristles standing at attention. He would absurdly click the latches on his all-but-empty briefcase every three minutes and run the brush through his ridiculous curls. He would bat his long eyelashes at the doe-eyed girls, and ask me absentmindedly every hour or so what was happening.
I was running a thinly-held coalition of rogue states together toward a gavel-winning gambit, is what the fuck was happening, but prince Rick couldn't pull his curly-coiffed head out of his designer-suit-wearing ass long enough to attend a caucus meeting! I didn't care how cute the whores were. We had a shot at a trophy, goddammit!!
But there was only so much that I could do on my own. The Caucus collapsed. My resolution failed. We lost the Gavel.
I was sunk. I was crushed. I was pissed off.
I needed to lash out, but really, Rick could kick my ass, and we both knew it. I acted, therefore, out of pure instinct. I acted with subtle malice. I struck at my enemy.
Rick had actually gone across the aisle to sit at the St V and the Grenadine's desk, making time with rapid fashion. Without looking down, without so much as a twitch, my thumbs popped open his briefcase, and I wrapped my hand around that godforsaken brush, sliding it silently into my breast pocket.
It was done. I had stolen Prince Charming's hair brush.. And really, for years afterward, that singular act continued to bring a sly grin to my mouth every time I recalled it.
And once Prince Charming took enough time to notice, he was none too pleased himself. But prince Charming must have his princesses, though. It is his sole literary purpose.
And Prince Charming came to mind again, as my three-year-old girl, for the first time in earnest, discovered the Disney Princess movies with their well-defined gender roles, stereotypes and literary archetypes, just this weekend. The poncy prince is there, always, usually in the background, sexually accessible, but non-threatening, frequently musical, and always a poof.
Always there, with mad love and affection for the princess. Any one of the six.
C'mon, you can name them. Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine. Wide-eyed, smooth-skinned, vocally talented. Culturally-relative paragons of generational desire. Is Snow White sexy? Sure, but she looks like my great grandmother's wedding picture...
So, sitting today, I wondered as my mind wandered, who exactly is the sexiest Disney princess. which one is the hottest piece of animated ass.
So, Snow White, whistling while she works, the 1930's feminine ideal, she can whip the masculine archetypes into order with motherly grace, sweep the floors, cook a pie and talk to animals. However, she still needs her prince to save the day.
Her coquettish brunette flapper style and pure porcelain skin makes one wonder what going on under the blue dress, but the sticky-sweet sing-song voice, makes you think twice before looking...
Sleeping Beauty. I don't get it. It's sort of a retelling of Snow White, but with a dragon. Sleeping Beauty Is kinda like your hot cousin. She's really HOT, but dude, she's your cousin. And, she bares a striking, and unfortunate, resemblance to Laura Dern.
Then there is Cinderella. She is THE proverbial rags-to-riches heroine. She works hard, she plays hard, she cleans up well. and good god, take a look at those proportions!
Most of you know how I feel about Redheads, and Ariel is certainly a fine piece of tail... (pun intended) True she has good trout-kissing lips and she spends most of the story in a bikini top, but holy hell! She's just too annoying.
Hot, yes, If only she never got her voice back!
Then, of course, there is Belle. Smart, bookish, stacked. Her willingness to stay in the castle with the beast betrays a dirty-mindedness deep beneath the lemon-cascade hoop dress...
Jasmine. Token minority.
So, of these, I suppose, there is a toss up between two. A cage match, as it were. A bare knuckle knock down drag out cat fight between Cinderella and Belle.
I can see how you would choose Cinderella, what with the cleavage, the hair and the pumpkin carriage. My money is on Belle, though.
Something more than this provincial life, in deed...