I probably know too much about the Disney Princess canon in the first place so it was a surprise when I rewatched Enchanted for the first time in a while and realized, or remembered, Giselle is a Disney character. But not an official Disney Princess!
And frankly I don’t think she -or her movie- gets her due.
Enchanted was a pretty darned successful and enjoyable movie when it came out. It’s about your typical Disney animated fairy tale girl wonderfully played by Amy Adams who is cursed by a wicked witch and becomes a “real” woman stuck in New York City.
Prince Charming (the underrated in nearly everything but especially this James Marsden) comes after her but not before she meets a handsome lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) and the de facto cute kid who, in the most unbelievable part of any Disney movie, takes her home and lets her stay the night despite the fact she’s seemingly in the middle of a break with reality in his mind.
The movie also stars Susan Sarandon as the Witch and Idina Menzel (the future Elsa) as Robert’s girlfriend.
So it has a great cast.
Giselle also has many other trappings of a first rate Disney Princess:
Great costumes.
Okay the first unanimated dress is a bit much and the park scene dress maybe a bit too cutesy but it’s wearable. And I would wear everything in this movie but the big ball gown.
She’s got great music. Fun dance numbers. I swear no matter how long it’s been since I watched the movie Happy Working Song is always on my Be Happy playlist.
A witch. A dragon.
And like most great Disney stuff it shamelessly and knowingly “borrows” from all the Princesses that came before her.
And it does have that cringe scene in the lobby of Robert’s office where Giselle asks the woman if she can touch her hair.
It’s classic Disney.
So why doesn’t Enchanted get more love?
I think it comes down to sex and animation.
Enchanted is the first and only Disney “Princess” movie where I’ve ever (super maturely) known, “These two are having sex.”
I mean I’m sure you’re thinking technically most of them got married but come on… do you really look at Cinderella and think heck yes she and the Prince had a sex life? Does anybody think that or is my over stressed brain just losing it?
To be honest even in the recent live action versions I don’t buy it. I mean after I watched Beauty and the Beast all I could really think at the end was Emma Watson was probably thinking, “Oh go back to being the Beast!” I liked Lily James and Richard Madden in the live-action Cinderella but again there was like no chemistry or tension and they probably just spent happily ever after obsessing over how adorable they are.
But Enchanted did push it a bit with the after shower scene and Dempsey and Adams had enough chemistry to make me go… yep they’re hot for each other.
And now the reason why it’s most likely Giselle and Enchanted don’t get their due with the legendary Disney Princesses (that’s not you know out of my dirty mind) she’s simply not animated enough.
Really the animated section of the film probably amounts to all of 7-10 minutes at most and it’s nice but not much time has been put into it. You couldn’t pick animated Giselle out of a line-up. Save for the park dress which speaks to the good costuming in my mind but otherwise perhaps if they ever get the sequel off the ground they’ll animate it more.
Of course Giselle might likely never be official a Disney Princess due to the rights issues (ie securing the right to Amy Adams likeness forever) but that’s hardly fun to think about. I think it’s sex and animation.
But regardless I do hope to see a sequel one day. I think the film mainly holds up as a whole and it was fun singing down memory lane a bit.