History Main / PrincessPhase

Compare RealMenWearPink (where there's a little princess in each manly man), PinkMeansFeminine, GracefulLadiesLikePurple. Contrast OneOfTheBoys.

* Lola Loud from ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' is a six-year-old who dresses up like a princess, complete with a pearl necklace, sash, and tiara. Unusually, her [[GenderBender male version]] (who existed in a dream her brother Lincoln had in one episode), Lexx, goes through a ''prince'' phase. He's decked in a pink scarf (according to concept art, he was originally decked entirely in pink) and a prince crown.

* A dark example occurs in ''Mommy's Little Princess'', a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek. The titular character, Lizzie, discovers that she is descended from German royalty and quickly embraces it, believing that it makes her a princess. This soon causes her to do stuff like stealing her adoptive mother's credit card to buy a bunch of princess stuff, telling everybody around her that she's a princess and getting mad when people don't give her the respect she believes she deserves, and going through great lengths to play Cinderella in a play, including trying to poison one girl and planning to put poison ivy in another girl's bed so that she can't get the role. All of this is done out of Lizzie's need to feel special, due to spending the first eight years of her life with an abusive, drug-addicted mother who constantly berated her and made her feel worthless.

* Sophie at the start of the series ''Literature/TheSchoolForGoodAndEvil'' is firmly placed in one of these, using fairy tales as an escape from the mundane world she considers herself too good for. However, it is shown that she wants to emulate her pretty princesses because they are associated with the Happily Ever After she is determined to get. Sophie may crave a life of glamour, pampering, and mass adoration, but ultimately, she doesn't care if she gets it through being Good or through being Evil.

* Harshly deconstructed by Rosemary Applefield in ''Anime/AshitaNoNadja''. As a little girl, Rosemary pretended she was a princess to cope with growing up in an orphanage. However, by the time she's thirteen, the imaginary world where she's lost royalty waiting for a prince to take her away to her castle is [[IRejectYourReality the only world she can stand to live in]]. When Rosemary learns her old friend Nadja is the real heiress, her waning sanity takes a nosedive and she plots to usurp Nadja's identity, whatever the cost.
* Haruka Haruno from ''Anime/GoPrincessPrettyCure'' has this as a defining characteristic. It gets her no end of scorn from peers who look down on her dream as childish. Twilight in particular, who is an actual princess, doesn't respect Haruka for that.

* ''Film/AKidLikeJake'' is about a four-year-old boy named Jake who loves fairy tales, Disney princesses, and dressing up like a princess.

* Sophie at the start of the series ''Literature/TheSchoolForGoodAndEvil'' is firmly placed in one of these, using fairy tales as an escape from the mundane world she considers herself too good for. However, it is shown that she wants to emulate her pretty princesses because they are associated with the Happily Ever After she is determined to get. Sophie may crave a life of glamour, pampering, and mass adoration, but ultimately, she doesn't care if she gets it through being Good or through being Evil.

* One day Manny of ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' imagines herself as Cinderella with Craig as her Prince. Craig likes her but says that he can't kiss her because she reminds him of his five-year-old sister.

* "Pink" Dawn Crumhorn a.k.a. The Princess in ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse''. A young spoiled poodle who is solidly in the middle of her princess phase and who becomes powerful after her tiara comes into contact with personality-amplifying mind gel.

This trope is so strongly associated with childhood that a teenage or adult woman still clinging to this attitude cannot but come across as childish. Still, even those who grow out of it will still cling to a wistful shred or two: a taste for romance and a Prince Charming, or a pretty gown they twirl around in when no one is watching. The [[WeddingAndEngagementTropes wedding industry]] in particular is built around letting women be a "princess" for a day. The prominence of this trope in real life is likely why so many works have a PrincessProtagonist, or have a GratuitousPrincess inserted.

* ''Film/AKidLikeJake'' is about a four-year old boy named Jake who loves fairy-tales, Disney princesses, and dressing up like a princess.

* Sophie at the start of the series ''Literature/TheSchoolForGoodAndEvil'' is firmly placed in one of these, using fairy tales as an escape from the mundane world she considers herself too good for. However, it is shown that she wants to emulate her pretty princesses because they are associated with the Happily Ever After she is determined to get. Sophie may crave a life of glamour, pampering and mass adoration, but ultimately, she doesn't care if she gets it through being Good or through being Evil.

* One day Manny of ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' imagines herself as Cinderella with Craig as her Prince. Craig likes her but says that he can't kiss her because she reminds him of his five year old sister.

* Gender-inverted in [[https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/treating-sons-like-daughters/ this article]] about a thought experiment of a world where sexism is reversed. Logan, the young boy, goes through a ''prince'' phase, starting at age six where he dresses as Prince Charming and reads about princes, and ending when he's around nine or ten, when he states that princes are "babyish".

* Lola Loud from ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' is a six-year-old who dresses up like a princess, complete with a pearl necklace, sash and tiara. Unusually, her [[GenderBender male version]] (who existed in a dream her brother Lincoln had in one episode), Lexx, goes through a ''prince'' phase. He's decked in a pink scarf (according to concept art, he was originally decked entirely in pink) and a prince crown.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' has Agitha, the BeetleManiac of Hyrule Castle Town. She's not from the royal family, but a LonelyRichKid who lives alone in a fancy house for no apparent reason and who takes herself for the princess of the "Insect Kingdom", a tree inside her house where golden bugs live.
* Implied for little Virginia in ''VideoGame/SuperSizedFamily'', who wears a crown on her head.

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