A world without princess franchises

Chapter seven of Impossible Histories ends with the assertion that in its counterfactual world where democracies rule the Middle Ages, “the Disney princess franchise would be the Disney senator franchise instead.” Perhaps there are some missing steps in this syllogism, but I think you can fill them in. More interesting is exploring in a little more depth what children’s media would look like in such a world.

Remember, we have imagined a Middle Ages in which kings, by biblical and Roman injunction...