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Many of us were absolutely RAISED on Disney when we were kids. We grew up with the incredible cinema releases of The Lion King, Aladdin, Cinderella, Mulan and The Little Mermaid, and it changed our lives forever.

The Disney princess role has changed as the generations got older (and more feminist), bringing more progressive films with 3D female characters such as Brave, Frozen, Moana, The Princess and the Frog and Tangled.

Kiera Knightly recently spoke out against the films, saying that her three-year-old daughter is banned from watching them in her home.

keira knightley smiling GIF

When asked why, she said to "rescue yourself!" from the prince is a far better message to send to young women; "Cinderella waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don’t." Right on, gal, right on. Fight the power.

However, when we were watching the classic princess films as children, I highly doubt we realised at the time just how YOUNG they all are, which arguably makes the movies seem a tad creepy.

It's basically teens getting sexualised and sent off to live with a man who has privilege over them forever.

For decades, young girls have been seeing these characters as role models; they're compassionate, fierce, caring, brave and highly intelligent.

Many of the gals are preparing for marriage, but they're in their mid-teens. Seems a little weird, considering the men they're marrying are often at least ten years older.

For example. Pocahontas' age in the film was never confirmed, but in real life she actually met John Smith when she was just a 10 year old girl. Ew.

First up: Princess Jasmine. Aladdin's bae was only 15-years-old in the film, as a recent The Mary Sue article pointed out. So when she's dressed in red and is seducing Jafar (a creepy old man), she's officially underage…

princess jasmine disney GIF

A key portion of the film revolves around the fact that she's obliged to marry a prince before her sixteenth birthday, which is three days away.

The Mary Sue also noted that Jasmine is a highly sexualised character, with Jafar commanding the genie to force her to love him. Alright…we're officially disturbed.

Plus, that waist-line is a fantasy; she'd fit maybe half an organ in there if she's lucky.

HuffPost has previously pointed out that none of the 'official' Disney princesses are older than 19, even though most of them are wed or engaged by the end of each of their respective movies.

Ariel is a sixteen-year-old who claims to be an adult, while Eric is the ripe old age of 18. So in today's day-and-age, it would be illegal for them to marry.

Granted, these films are purely fantasy, but it's pretty strange how they design the princesses as sexualised teenagers who always end up with an older man.

If this next one doesn't shock you, we don't know what will. Snow White is just 14 YEARS OLD when she meets her prince, and escapes from a cruel queen who tries to cut out her heart out of vanity.

The prince also kisses her while she's KO'd; problematic as f*ck.

snow white kiss GIF

Kristen Bell has also pointed out issues with Snow White as a film, which was the first colour Disney animation and was released back in 1938.

“Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission?” Bell says she asked her daughters. “Because you can not kiss someone if they’re sleeping!” Hello, consent?

Fairy tales don’t have a stable form, and every era rewrites centuries old fairy tales to fit it's specific agenda or zeitgeist. Many Disney princesses were based on the 1812 Brothers Grimm tales.

drunk kristen wiig GIF

They changed their book of stories to adapt to 19th-century German bourgeois family values, so why can't we update them in 2019?

Cinderella was transformed into a live-action remake recently, but ZERO alterations were made. 

Our Chinese hero warrior Mulan, famous for it's WHOPPER tunes like I'll Make a Man Out of You: she's also sixteen. Yet she has to nurture a fragile toxic male ego, and marries him in the end.

Ok, then, it took a woman to fix a man's dodgy job and her reward is a lifetime of obedience. Sleeping Beauty's Aurora was also 16-years-old, and we've got another classic case of non-consent.

sleeping beauty kiss GIF

While Disney has 100 percent made improvements for it's female characters, like Frozen's Queen Elsa and Princess Anna especially, and Brave's Merida (also 16); it's important to be aware of the classic films and their morals.

The live-action Aladdin doesn't arrive for another few months (May 24 to be exact), we have no idea if Jasmine will be a more marriage-appropriate age. The actress cast to play her is 25-years-old, at least.

Naomi Scott isn't a teenager, so let's hope her character isn't either.  Scott told Entertainment Weekly that her character’s goal is “really to protect her people, to do right by them," in December, so we have high hopes.

The eye-wateringly hot Marwan Kenzari has been cast as Jafar in the live-action flick, and he looks FAR younger than the animated character. He's a certified thirst trap.

We're relieved they're moving away from the creepy-old-man game, thank God. The movie looks intriguing, if just for a blue Will Smith as the genie. (Check out those memes about him, they're amazing)

Bring on the badass empowered female princesses, like Meghan Markle and the Thai princess Ubolratana who recently attempted to run for Prime Minister. Get it, gurls.

Feature image: knowyourmeme.com

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Hollywood actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has sent a truly heartwarming message to a little girl with Down's Syndrome, and we can't cope.

The star is known globally for his action-movie franchises as well as his roles in movies aimed at children, such as Moana. He voiced Maui in the Disney flick, which is set in Ancient Polynesia. 

Jason Kneen, a dad-of-five from Wiltshire in the UK, began a Twitter thread about his youngest daughter Rosie, who has Down's Syndrome. He wasn't expecting the tweet to go viral;

He wrote; “’My child has Down syndrome, what can I expect?’ This. 100 percent this." The beautiful picture shows his little girl Rosie smiling from ear to ear.

“Also expect this,” he tweeted again, featuring a picture of Rosie with a towel on top of her head. “#Wouldntchangeathing," he captioned it.

Both posts garnered a huge amount of attention, gaining over 88,000 likes online. Kneen then continued to share his daughter's journey in image form, showing numerous hospital visits and her adoration for Johnson's film Moana.

Kneed spoke about the difficulties of hearing that his child's life was already planned out from birth.

"Like any child Rosie has been through it- we’d been through febrile convulsions with two before Rosie was born, and whilst she avoided that, she suffered badly with bronchiolitis and was in hospital for a couple of weeks in 2015," he said.

He described the experience of Rosie's pneumonia, and her constant treatments at such a young age. He then made sure to thank The Rock for giving them the gift of Moana:

"Rosie I and became thick as thieves over that time and watched Moana together many times and EVERY SINGLE DAY-  thanks @TheRock for teaching me all the songs. Rosie was so brave, and so strong. This is her, with assisted oxygen, watching Moana."

After the tweets had gone viral, the father said the reaction was "insane." Johnson himself responded to the emotional posts, and tweeted his own feelings about Rosie;

“Look at this lovely cookie," he said. “Stay strong Rosie! Uncle Maui loves ya. What can I saaaaay except you’re welcome.”

Kneen stated that it was “really cool” for the A-lister actor to send Rosie a personal message; it clearly meant a lot to the family.

The dad has received an overwhelming amount of messages from people thanking him for sharing his little girl's story. ”We just got on with it. She’s amazing,” Kneen told the BBC.

"You can't predict how your child's life is going to be. You can't tell anyone what's going to happen. We've been through some difficulties like anybody, but she makes up for it every day when she smiles at you like that and wants to watch Moana all the time."

What a lovely story, Dwayne Johnson really made Rosie's day.

Feature image: aol.com

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North West and Penelope Disick celebrated their fourth and fifth birthdays this weekend, and it's possibly the cutest thing you'll ever see.

Also, if you're a Moana fan, then you'll love it even more (we're legit jealous).

From their Polynesian-themed costumes, to the bouncy castle and cakes, have a look at the best social media snaps:

 

A post shared by North West (@norisblackbook) on

 

A post shared by Khloe (@khloesnapchats) on

Happy birthday North and P!

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