Sooo,,, I’m literally obsessed with Barbie and the 12 dancing princesses. Like it was my favourite movie as a kid and is still one of my fav movies now. And I CANNOT stop thinking about a retelling where there is one brother.
Either make one of the 12 a boy, or add a boy to make 13. But there’s one brother, in the middle of the girls around young adult aged (bonus if his colour is yellow/gold so the entire set of siblings makes a rainbow with their colours). And because he’s raised with e heap of sisters, he’s just 100 ok with letting the girls take charge. He loves them and will protect them of course, but is fully aware that they can all defend themselves and each of them is a capable and intelligent princess. The sisters, in return, love their one single brother and appreciate the hell out of him for adapting to a life full of girls and not getting a complex over it. And of course, they all love dancing. While the prince is always willing to practice things like lifts and duets with his sisters, he does particularly like dancing the ‘girls’ part in most dances. And the sisters are all for it. They’ll have fun trying to loft him, letting him twirl under their arms.
So when Rowena comes in and starts fucking things up, she starts trying to push the princesses into feminine submission and the one prince into masculine domination. Gender essentialist bullshit. And the siblings are having exactly none of it. The brother just does not feel right bossing his sisters around and being mean to them, and refuses to give in. And the girls obviously don’t want to be pushed around and stepped all over just because they’re girls. The brother would obviously have his own bedroom, so he’d have to sneak into the girls room to get to the magic stones to go to the pavilion with them. When the king gets sick, there’s talk of the prince stepping in for him, because he’s the one male heir. Even though he’s not the oldest, and the eldest princess is way more fit for the role. The siblings have to both deal with saving their dad, and confront the idea of who’d take over when the day actually comes. The eldest sister or the prince? Go with who is most capable, or the gendered expectations of a male heir. All of them work together as they do in the original movie to fight Rowena, they save their dad etc etc.
But the whole story covers several topics of gender.
-Gender essentialism is bad.
-It’s ok for men to be feminine and women to take more ‘masculine’ roles.
-Toxic masculinity is bad, so is toxic femininity and shoving men and women into the extremes of each gender, pitting them against each other is bad.
-If a man isn’t capable for a role, but a women is, the role should go to the woman. Not the man just because he’s a man.
-Men can be soft, dainty, emotional, pretty, loving etc and still be a man. It doesn’t make them any less of a man. Not all feminine men are ‘eggs’, some are just feminine and that’s ok.
I just love the dynamic of 11-12 sisters, and one brother. The dynamics that can be explored with a female dominated family, the expectations that come with being royalty and a “feminine” art form like ballet being such a big part of a boys life. The messaging that a man can be soft and emotional and sweet and that doesn’t make him any less of a man. That the girls can rely on their brother when they need him, but he can also rely on them. I think my trans masc inner child would be so healed by something like that existing in the world.
