the real princess by hans christian andersen

POC, disabled, and LGBTQ+ characters take space on the screen. Since the time of Halle Bailey’s reveal as the lead in the upcoming live adaption film, the media landscape has been littered with racist commentary, many claiming that Disney’s attempts at diversity were going “too far,” an argument that frequently appears when more diverse, i.e. RELATED: This Is the Disney Movie Based on the Most Gruesome Source Material Many literary critics theorize The Little Mermaid was itself a queer allegory, a metaphor for a love that could not be spoken out loud, a theme particularly potent during a time in Denmark when LGBTQ+ rights had not been fully recognized. Though older academia had censored evidence of Andersen’s same-sex attractions, more modern scholars, like Jackie Wullschlager, have noted Andersen’s queer history, hypothesizing the author was bisexual from his history of love letters written to men and women throughout his lifetime. However, Collin had assumedly not reciprocated the writer’s romantic interest, instead to Andersen’s heartbreak, marrying a woman.

At some point in his life, Andersen had fallen for Edvard Collin, the son of his professional patron. Though many today know the story about the young mermaid longing for her human prince, fewer know the story of real-life longing that Andersen was involved in. His 150 fairy tales include iconic stories such as The Emperor's New Clothes, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Red Shoes, The Princess and the Pea, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Match Girl, Thumbelina, and of course The Little Mermaid. Today, Hans Christian Andersen is Denmark’s most famous writer and one of the most celebrated fairy tale authors in the world. Throughout the years as he wrote, experimenting with novels, plays, and short stories, Andersen’s success truly started to take off when he began writing in earnest collections of fairy tales that combined poetic language and touched on folklore and fantastic elements. While failing to find success as an actor (partially due to his awkward mannerisms and appearance), Andersen’s skill as a writer started to get used. However, fueled by an active imagination and aspirations of social elevation, Andersen left his home at the age of 14 to travel to Copenhagen in the hopes of finding success as a performer on stage. Born in Odense, Denmark on April 2, 1805, Hans Christian Andersen was born into a poor working-class family, with a washerwoman as his mother.

The real princess by hans christian andersen