A few of the women of student media take pride in showing they have the ability to be powerful and beautiful while living their own dreams, independent of whatever hopes they may have picked up from lifelong Disney influence. The princesses (from left to right) Arianna Green (special to the Journal), Gretchen Clark (MUTV), Sara J. Martinez (Marquette Journal), Molly Newman (Marquette Tribune), Courtney Johnson (Advertising), Patty Marra (MUTV) and Lauren Frey (Advertising).

“She was ballsier than the other princesses. She wasn’t innocent. She snapped back at people,” Williams said. “She was like me. She wasn’t passive or pale or calm.”

Williams, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, said she was a “girly girl” as a child, dressing in frilly dresses and Belle-patterned pants with matching decal sweatshirts.

“I wanted to be a princess in general my entire childhood,” she said.

So did Ellie Kemmeter, a junior in the College of Communication, who looked up to Cinderella.

“She had blonde hair, and my favorite color was blue. She had the whole rags to riches, and I thought that would happen to me,” Kemmeter said. “I wanted to be a princess.”

Disney impacted many girls who watched its fanciful movies, convincing viewers that, as Cinderella sings, “Every girl can be a princess.”

Disney tapped into watchers’ fantasies, whisking girls away into a glittering snow globe of rubies, gold dresses, handsome princes, pumpkin coaches, fairy godmothers and overweight mice who could talk (“Gus, Gus!”). A world where dreams, most importantly of Prince Charming, could come true if you only believed (Do I sound like I’m singing yet?).

Cassandra Duckert, a sophomore in the College of Health Sciences, said Disney’s transformative nature was its appeal.

“Disney made you believe anything could happen,” she said. “And if you’re an everyday person, you could become something special if you work, or something happens.”

But did Disney’s fairy-godmother-like presence in girls’ lives instill too high of hopes? That Prince Charming would appear at the end of your troubles if only you just peered into a wishing well?

Ana Garner, a professor in the College of Communication, said the fairy tales and stories show our cultural expectations that the prince on a white horse will save the damsel in distress, as in the Disney movies.

“Happiness is achieved by getting some man to fall in love with her, then her life is complete,” Garner said. “I would be surprised if in their subconscious, girls still aren’t thinking about those same kind of things.”

Although the Disney princesses grew more independent throughout the century, they still achieved “happily ever after” through a man.

The princesses have reflected our cultural standards throughout time, from the “fairest of them all,” Snow White, to the newest black Disney princess, Tiana, a waitress from 1920s New Orleans with a jazz-playing alligator as a sidekick, who stars in “Princess and the Frog,” to be released Dec. 11.

Disney’s intense effect on viewers (the company expects $4 billion in revenue for 2009) affected girls’ perception of love, gender roles and race, consciously or not, from Snow White to Tiana.

Snow White, Cinderella and the narcoleptic blonde

“Those of Walt Disney seem barely alive. In fact, two of them hardly manage to stay awake,” said writer Kay Stone in “Understanding Disney.”

Disney’s early princesses pave the way for passive princesses. They wait for the prince, look pretty, sleep, talk with animals and sing. Only a man’s kiss literally brings them back to life.

Snow White was the “one who started it all.” Disney’s first princess, spawned in 1937, was modeled after the pin-up girls and silent movie actresses of the ’30s, wrote Elizabeth Bell in “From Mouse to Mermaid.”

She was “the fairest of them all,” reinforced by her name, Snow White: fair-skinned, blue-eyed, slender, docile and happy to sweep the floor of the seven dwarf’s cottage, as blue jays and deer tapped on the window.

Walt Disney described her as “a kind, simple little girl who believed in wishing and waiting for her prince charming to come along.”

Ashley Dobner, a junior in the College of Business Administration, said when she was 7 years old, she asked her mom why Snow White couldn’t get up on her own.

“I always wondered why she needed someone to kiss her to wake up,” Dobner said. “If it’s that simple, why not get up?”

Cinderella followed the same trend. She happily scrubs the floor, not changing her life. As soon as she loses hope, a plump, matronly fairy godmother arrives to give her a sparkling blue dress and a fancy updo (Cinderella was modeled after Grace Kelly, wrote Bell).

If only Mrs. Doubtfire godmothers could save us all.

She reinforces Disney’s philosophy that if you keep believing, your dreams will come true, according to Mark Pinsky, author of “The Gospel According to Disney.” But what does that mean for girls? Women can’t throw a penny into a fountain, hoping Robert Pattinson will bite them or they’ll land a job at Vanity Fair (Maybe those are just my dreams).

Of course, Cinderella was magical to watch. And generations of girls loved her.

Duckert said she liked Cinderella the best because she went from a maiden to a princess who married a prince.

“Because that’s the ultimate, you get the prince,” Duckert said.

Duckert said she relates to Disney’s happily ever after, because she plans to get married and have children. However, Duckert said that’s what she was raised to want in the small town of Waterloo, Wis., and realizes that’s not for everyone.

“It gives you the feeling that a guy should rescue you, but sometimes, you have to rescue yourself,” she said.

However, Cinderella was one of the stories given to the syndrome of “intellectual women who passively wait … for Prince Charming,” Pinsky wrote in “The Gospel According to Disney.”

Molly Moran, a sophomore in the College of Communication, half-jokingly said she blames Disney for corrupting girls.

“It’s not realistic. It’s dependency. Life is happily ever after when you end up with a prince, but you can be happy by yourself,” Moran said.

“Sleeping Beauty’s” princess Aurora, modeled after Barbie, was possibly one of the most ideal, “beautiful” princesses. Her first gift was even beauty.

She too is happy cleaning and singing to swallows, isolated from the rest of the world in a cabin in the woods with three feisty fairies, a situation similar to Snow White’s.

But she just can hardly stay awake, and has little to say until “an act of necrophilia makes that relationship consummated,” said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.

After she lies down, the prince wakes her up. The ultimate rescue fantasy. All she has to do is lie down and a prince is at her side.

Plucky princesses

With the advent of ‘80s teen princess Ariel, the Little Mermaid (Alyssa Milano, star of popular ’80s TV show “Who’s the Boss?”, modeled for the character), Disney princesses got a bit more i-n-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t.

Thompson said, “Disney princesses made after 1980, these women were very likely watching Oprah during the day, and that all seeped in.”

Little Mermaid swims up to the surface, which was highly forbidden in her “under the sea” community. Belle, a bookworm, saves the repulsive beast from himself. Jasmine stands up to the evil Jafar. Pocahontas gives up love in the end for more woods prancing. And Mulan even dresses up as a man to save her family’s honor. These princesses also took on different shades, appealing to a wider range of girls.

Williams liked Jasmine because she looked like her.

“I think it was her color was close to mine, not just how she acted. It was just that she was closer,” she said.

Dobner preferred Mulan. Dobner, a self-proclaimed tomboy, did not identify with Disney princesses when she was young. She said they were just pretty faces. Dobner even refused to dress up as Cinderella for Halloween like her mom wanted, choosing a blue Power Ranger costume instead.

But she did like Mulan for her tenacity and the balance of her feminine and masculine side.

“She didn’t run from bad things. She kicked ass. She beat people up, but she was good about it,” Dobner said. “I also like, being a tomboy, she was a tomboy, but still feminine.”

Still, the princesses lived in male-dominated worlds, where a man fulfills her life and ends the movie.

The townspeople in “Beauty and the Beast” stare at Belle in bewilderment when she prances through town with her nose in a book.

Gaston even says, “It’s not right for a woman to read. Soon she’ll get ideas, thinking.”

Belle is also still defined by her beauty, Thompson said. Even her name means “beautiful.” And she’s expected to look past the beast and see true love on the inside, while the beast is not.

“She’s expected to overlook the fact that this guy is highly undesirable, to the point that he has tusks,” Thompson said.

And Pocahontas, while she knows the woods better than clumsy John Smith, still wonders “What’s around the river bend?” and has to get swept off her feet.

“She doesn’t get into a dug-out canoe and roll across the Atlantic,” Thompson said. Disney makes the prince come to her.

The perfect life

All of the Disney princesses have wide implications for girls. They’ve made every girl want a princess wedding (when Princess Diana wore her silk taffeta wedding dress, she was compared to Cinderella and fairy tales over and over, Thompson said). And Thompson said the word “princess” is used constantly on all romantic realty shows, such as “Joe Millionaire,” “The Bachelor” and “Average Joe.”

“If one turned that into a drinking game and took a shot every time they heard ‘princess,’ you’d constantly be hammered,” he said.

And Disney has raised expectations for girls, making them think perfection is attainable.

Still, most girls said they aren’t biting.

Lauren Stolz, a sophomore in the College of Communication, who has four Disney folders and grew up playing with crowns and wands, said girls today have a more realistic view.

“Everybody wants their Prince Charming, but it’s not what they’re focused on,” Stolz said. “I don’t know when you realize that. Maybe the first time you get your heart broken.”

Kirsten DeGuzman, a sophomore in the College of Health Sciences, said she thinks about this idea a lot. DeGuzman said she grew up on Disney.

She had princess Barbie dolls, slippers and music boxes. Every Christmas, DeGuzman’s mom gives her a princess-themed present. Her first was a box of Pez covered with the faces of Disney princesses. Her senior year of high school, she received a pink aluminum lunchbox with Aurora, Snow White, Belle and Jasmine on the front. She’s even thinking of running the Disney princess half-marathon in March.

“I’ll probably be the one running with a tiara,” she said.

Still, even though DeGuzman grew up loving princesses, she said she thinks in reality. She said it would be great to have that “perfectly ever after, but that means I’d have to wait for someone to do it for me, versus me doing it for myself and being the strong person I know I am.”

Trent Carlson, a sophomore in the College of Business Administration, said he has seen all of the Disney princess movies and has noticed how the guy always saves the girl.

“Maybe it’s time the girl goes after the man,” Carlson said. “Or they focus more on the princes.”

Disney impacted girls in a way that perhaps no other media has. If nothing else, Disney allowed girls to feel pretty, to live in a dream world of royalty and ball gowns, to wish and to think big.

A chance, as Duckert said, “For an everyday girl to become something special.”

Marriage to a college student is a topic that seems distant and unimportant at the moment. But is it?

In conducting a survey of 100 undergraduate and 5o graduate students at Marquette, the results said that the individual perspective on marriage changes over time.

Out of 55 freshman surveyed, 22 are in relationships. These relationships range from one month to two years or more, and only three of the 22 have significant others in attendance at Marquette.

All 11 sophomores surveyed are in a relationship. Out of these, five have been involved for more than two years and only two have their partners at Marquette.

Although there were no junior participants within the survey, 24 out of 33 seniors questioned said they were in relationships. Of these 24, 22 of them have been involved for longer than two years and none of their significant others go to Marquette.

Forty of the 50 graduate students are in serious relationships of two years or more. Of these 40 students, 15 of them have partners still in attendance at Marquette.

What exactly do all of these numbers mean? Well, with 67 out of 100 undergraduate students and 40 out of 50 grad students in relationships of some kind, one can assume that Marquette University is home to numerous “relationship people.”

Of the 150 students surveyed, almost 95% said they felt marriage was important to think about. An overwhelming majority also said they expect to be married between age 26 and 30. The extremes were met by three individuals; two stating that they hoped to be married by 22 and one providing hopes of marriage past age 31.

About half of the participants felt a successful marriage while attending school is possible, but only the graduate students felt they personally would consider marriage while attending school.

Ideas about marriage change over time

So what happens if you and your significant other decide to act on your thoughts about marriage?

There is no need to feel nervous or worried — it is completely normal. Although the percentage of married couples at Marquette is relatively low, the percentage of couples that want to get married while at school are 100 percent successful in doing so.

How is this statistic so perfect?

The Campus Ministry Engaged Enrichment Sacramental Preparation Program and counselor Steve Blaha are keys to this success. The program provides engaged couples with a source of pre-marital counseling and guidance in numerous areas.

Led by Blaha, the couples are encouraged and taught the skills necessary to build a unity within their relationships.

“Here at Campus Ministry, we hope to build a support web for the couples,” Blaha said. “They might feel uncomfortable at first, but the developing support structure will remain with them regardless of where they go in life.”

While participating in the program, couples journey through four steps.

The first step is that of preparation. The couples go on a pre-marriage overnight retreat which focuses on helping the couples communicate through tough situations.

“The retreat is a great aspect to get them away from the stress of their daily lives and merely allow them to communicate as a couple,” Blaha said.

The second step is called “The FOCUS,” which is a pre-marital questionnaire. Couples are separated and asked to answer 150 questions on marriage ideals and the skills to obtain them. After answering, the couples’ responses are combined and discussed.

“These questions will help us to determine what aspects of the relationship need to be worked on,” Blaha said. “We talk about them and give them the resources and skills to work together and keep their relationship strong once the newlywed bliss is gone.”

The third step consists of liturgy meetings and planning. During these meetings, concepts of married sexuality, family and faith are addressed.

“They need to find a way to connect their spiritualities,” Blaha said. “We teach them how to do this and how to plan for a relationship always open to a powerful love.”

The fourth step is general counseling on personal issues and reflection. In this step, the couples talk about their marital concerns. Topics such as finance, the joining of families, maturity, sex and communication are oftentimes looked at.

“The couples have to go through this process in order to get married in the Catholic Church,” Blaha said. “It is our goal to make the process worthwhile and efficient. The rest is up to them. Love grows in many different ways. They have to take the risk to seize it; if they do this, they will make it.”

Getting there

Take Marquette graduate student Anne Talafuse and her fiance and former Marquette student Sam Rothenbach. Talafuse  is currently in her third year of graduate school as a physical therapist and Sam graduated in 2008 with a degree in engineering. The couple has been together for three years and met through the Catholic Housing system on campus. These houses provide a source of sober entertainment while building community and relationships with others sharing the same values.

“It was kind of funny,” Talafuse said. “We really just started out being friends. Catholic housing really brought us together. It was a great experience.”

Although Anne says she is currently dealing with “senioritis,” Sam has been working as a civil engineer at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in southwest Michigan for over a year.

“He has every other Friday off, so I get to see him then,” Talafuse said. “It can be hard sometimes, just like any long distance relationship, but the fact that we had two years prior to the distance helps our relationship remain strong.”

Talafuse said she really enjoyed the program through Campus Ministry.

“Steve (Blaha) worked to meet our needs and gave us the resources to do so,” Talafuse said. “The retreat was really beneficial. It allowed us to talk about our problems in a stress-free environment and focused on communication.”

Talafuse said that she always wanted to get married at a younger age.

“It is just so surreal,” said Talafuse. “Never have I once thought that I wasn’t ready for this. I think the pre-marital prep really helped to instill that feeling.”

Anne and Sam look forward to their Texas wedding on July 3, 2010.

Married life

Peter and Nikki Meirose have been together since October 2004 after meeting on a study abroad program in Madrid, Spain during their second semesters of their sophomore years and were engaged in September 2008.

Prior to getting married, they spent a year apart fulfilling their own goals.

“After graduation, I spent a year volunteering at a Jesuit Corps in El Paso,” Nikki said. “Peter spent the same amount of time volunteering in a Nativity Jesuit program. Although the year was difficult, we never once doubted our ability to maintain the relationship.”

Upon moving back to Milwaukee in February 2008, the couple decided to start their pre-marital prep program, returning to Marquette for its services.

“Our experience of marriage preparation with Marquette Campus Ministry was very enriching,” Peter said. “Steve challenged us with provocative questions and affirmed us in many ways. He created a comfortable space for us to speak in and recommended excellent readings for helping to plan the liturgy.”

Nikki spoke of how Blaha encouraged them to place their personal values within their marriage ceremony.

“He showed us how to include the poor in our wedding,” Nikki said. “We asked for offerings and donations to give to charity throughout the ceremony. We are very confident that our wedding liturgy was a true reflection of who we are and our passion for peace and justice.”

Nikki and Peter both recommend Marquette Campus Ministry for all couples looking to get married. They said that it gives them a way to remain connected to Marquette and teaches togetherness and how to raise a family.

“You have to wait for your own time,” Nikki said. “Talk about it, go to church together and work with Campus Ministry. We are very grateful to Marquette, and Steve in particular, for the gift of the marriage preparation experience.”

We’ve all heard it. Marquette hasn’t played a tough schedule. Marquette has only defeated the teams they are supposed to beat. Marquette hasn’t been tested by a team with an explosive big man.

Check off the first one. The team has entered the more difficult portion of their Big East schedule after playing both Notre Dame and Georgetown.

Check for the second one too. Marquette wasn’t supposed to win at Notre Dame. They weren’t even a heavy favorite when playing at Providence. Both of those games ended in an MU victory.

Check to the last one. Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe are two of the most dominant big men in the Big East, yet neither was able to guide his respective club past the Golden Eagles.

So after all three of these questions were finally answered in the Golden Eagles favor, the national media is showing us the love. CBS Sportsline.com has raised Marquette to #6 in its latest poll. At ESPN.com, the weekly “bracketology” has the Golden Eagles as a two-seed, and are admitting that at this rate, Marquette will merit a lot of consideration as a one-seed in the upcoming tournament.

Also, Buzz Williams is being shown the love lately. He is considered one of the best first-year coaches in the country, according to both college basketball analysts and fans. In a recent ESPN.com poll, college basketball fans were asked which coach, in his first year at a school, is doing the best. Roughly two-thirds of fans chose Williams.

While the Golden Eagles are being shown some love by the media, there are still those who don’t want to give the team enough respect. We’ll just wait and see if those people decide to show MU the love.

Where’s the love for these sports topics?

Spring training

Where’s the love for the area teams heading off to spring training next week? The Cubs, Brewers, White Sox and Twins are each heading to the Grapefruit or Cactus League to gear up for the upcoming summer. Fans, forget the way last season ended. It’s over and done with. (Yep, this is the Cubs’ fan in me speaking.) Show your team some love, and hopefully next October will treat us all better.

Northwestern Basketball

Where’s the love for the Wildcats this season? The Northwestern Wildcats are having a season unlike any other in their history. Sure they’re only 4-6 in Big Ten play, but that’s great for the perennial cellar-dweller of the Big Ten. Northwestern is the only school of the major conferences (ACC, SEC, PAC 10, Big East, Big 12 and Big Ten) to never qualify for the NCAA Tournament, and the idea that they are “on the bubble” this year is a huge step up for the program.

Arizona Cardinals

Where’s the love for this Super Bowl qualifier? Sure, this is a little outdated, but I wanted to bring it up. The Cardinals were predicted to be stomped in the big game. Even with this, they still showed up and competed with the Pittsburgh Steelers until time expired, making this one of the better Super Bowls.