These Ladies Would Never Be Disney Princesses

Do you ever watch Disney movies and think, "Those princesses are sure perfect! There's no way in hell the folklore can be that family friendly." You're right — many of the tales that we've become familiar with through the House of Mouse have been toned down and cleaned up to pack theaters, but they also weren't totally R-rated to begin with. Enter the blog Rejected Princesses, the blog to end all Disney-takedown blogs. Here, we are privy to royalty who were way too offbeat or NSFW to enter Walt's great animated (or now, CGI) canon.

Thanks to the very talented Jason Porath, we can read detailed versions of these women's stories, and we can also see them drawn up in Disney style. Porath does not skimp on the details — he gives thoughtful and funny descriptions of these mythological (and sometimes actually historical) women's legacies. This totally not-PG collection is an awesome look into tales that are told about women — some you may be familiar with, but others, not so much.

To clarify: Nope, not all women in folklore are totally pristine. Nope, not all of them gaze out of towers with wide eyes, hoping to meet their Prince Charming. Some of them have things for bulls (see: Pasiphaë, the mythological Greek queen).

Here's a brief look at some of these rejected Princesses, but you can visit the Rejected Princesses site to see even more and to read up on these so-bad-they're-good ladies.

Pasiphaë

She liked riding bulls... literally. So her husband built her a hollowed-out wooden cow so she could do so. Tale as old as time, no?

Lolita

You know her famous story.

Empress Wu

She killed her daughter! Porath puts it:

[...]the generally-accepted truth was that she strangled her young daughter, to frame the old queen and get her out of the way. It worked — both the old queen and the old queen’s mother were executed, and haunted her from that point forward. I thought they’d make good comic relief characters in the movie adaptation.

..and they'd have Academy Award winning songs, too.

Mai Bhago

She was an 18th century warrior-saint, and she was also the only survivor of the Battle of Khidrana.

Beloved

The back-from-the-dead titular character from Toni Morrison's well-known book.

Hatshepsut

One of the greatest Pharoahs there was, but some reason, people tried to erase any evidence of her reign.

Images: Rejectedprincess.com