How ‘Enchanted’ hit a high note in spurring my gender awakening

Becoming more like Princess Giselle helped me become more like myself

I grew up obsessed with Disney. Walking into the theatre to watch Disney’s Enchanted one late November 2007 afternoon, 11-year-old Lisa Laman was ready to witness the fairy-tale musical antics she’d adored all her life. Instead, I found myself experiencing something much more profound in that darkened auditorium. You know those shots in movies like Amélie, The Fabelmans or Cinema Paradiso where the camera zooms in on somebody’s face as joy fills their face watching some glorious sight on the big screen? That was me meeting Amy Adams as Enchanted protagonist Princess Giselle.

Suddenly, everything was different. The old queer axiom is true: there’s really no one moment when you realize you’re queer. It’s more like gradually realizing you’re submerged in hot water: you become increasingly conscious of what’s around you. However, there are moments and experiences that crack open the door for your awakening. For me, watching Enchanted was one of those moments. All of a sudden, I had gender goals I wanted to follow for the rest of my life. I wanted to be her like nobody else I’d ever seen on screen before.

I mean, granted, how could I not want to live vicariously through Giselle? Growing up, I was a neurodivergent kid plagued with endless self-consciousness. Aware of my autism from the age of three, I spent so much of my life perceptive of what separated me from others. This instilled not only internalized ableism (perish the thought of being “seen” as disabled!) but constant insecurity over how I appeared to others. Was I being too loud? Was I being “too autistic”? Would neurotypicals accept me as much as I yearned for acceptance from them? Confidence eluded me. That wasn’t a problem for Giselle.

Being an outlier inspired me to retreat inside myself. Watching Enchanted for the first time, Giselle dazzled me by going in the opposite direction.

The moment she appears on screen, Giselle embodies the maximalist joy and hope that people associate with classic princesses. She harmonizes with birds about “true love’s kiss,” happily talks to any animals in her path and doesn’t even let a troll attack diminish her joy. This all happens when she exists in the animated realm of Andalasia—after all, everyone here is similarly overexaggerated and in line with classic Mouse House narrative traditions. When she’s thrust into the real world of New York City, Giselle is suddenly as much of an anomaly to others as I was on the playground as a youngster.

Being an outlier inspired me to retreat inside myself. Watching Enchanted for the first time, Giselle dazzled me by going in the opposite direction. Despite the constant cynical complaints of her new companion and romantic interest Robert (Patrick Dempsey) that Giselle isn’t behaving “properly,” this princess is not suddenly self-conscious about what makes her different from others. She happily sings at the top of her lungs, or makes do with whatever helpful critters she can conjure up to help clean the bathroom. Giselle’s an outsider, a societal anachronism, yet she leans into it. Not only that, but her unique attributes are framed as a good thing, like in the delightful “That’s How You Know” musical number.     

 

Watching a character embody such confidence blew my mind. Here was someone who was the complete opposite of me, who leaned into her differences rather than ran from them. Suddenly, I had a role model to strive for. Most importantly, though, this personality manifested in a woman. I’d seen other similar outsize comedic characters navigating “the real world” in my youth, like Buddy in Elf. But Giselle’s wacky oversize comedic nature usually existed only for male actors like Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler. Seeing that standard subverted left 2007 Lisa in awe.

Witnessing Giselle in Enchanted provided a “eureka!” moment in terms of what women could look like on the big screen. It was much like when I saw Mamma Mia! in theatres the following year and realized it was okay for women to be loud, sexual and imperfect. Here in Enchanted, I witnessed a glorious world where ladies could be weirdos who spit fish up into cups or destroy drapes to create new dresses! They didn’t have to be either nagging shrews or glossy, perfect romantic interests! As someone assigned male at birth who didn’t even know words like “trans” or “estrogen” yet, Giselle’s gender made her feel even more out of reach. But to my 12-year-old self, that distance just made the idea of becoming Giselle even more appealing. It offered the chance to run even further from my everyday form.

Giselle’s an outsider, a societal anachronism, yet she leans into it.

Though I couldn’t have put it into words then, Giselle also instilled the idea that femininity was an expansive enough tableau that it could include me. She eschews norms of what women could “look” or “act” like. Yet nobody challenges her gender identity. Her status as a “proper woman” is only in question by Robert, who eventually grows to embrace everything unique about Giselle. Otherwise, Enchanted as a text embraces and supports Giselle’s unique personality. Because of this, she gets to define “femininity” in the real world. Witnessing Giselle depict a bold new vision of what womanhood could look like, the gears in my imagination started tumbling. Her style of outsize femininity was so fun, and her default bright blue floral-pattern dress looked wonderful. I had never seen this kind of aura or fashion sense before … but I wanted it. 

By the time 2009 rolled around, I was praying to God every night that I would wake up the following day as a busty 30-year-old woman living in a big city. In those uncertain times,  Giselle functioned as a kind of lighthouse, guiding me home in the stormy darkness of cis-normativity.  If Giselle could challenge norms of what women were supposed to look like, maybe I could too.

Of course, life doesn’t work like either the Disney movies of my dreams or my prayers. It would take many years for me to uncover the tools, language and social surroundings that allowed me to fully explore and accept my gender. As I did this, though, right from the start, I had one vision for my post-transition self: I wanted Giselle’s red hair. In classic closeted queer fashion, I’d spent those post-Enchanted years thinking I was just deeply attracted to red-headed women. Then I realized I actually just wanted to be one. 

Red hair is striking, a pronounced hue that immediately makes you stand out in a crowd. It exuded the confidence Princess Giselle channels so effortlessly in her exploits. Before I even knew about transness or terms like “gender euphoria,” the thought of being a red-headed woman inspired unparalleled ecstasy.

How soothing it was, the notion of entering this world looking a little bit like Princess Giselle. When I started dressing in gender-affirming clothes, I also began wearing a red-haired wig. Over a decade after first seeing Enchanted, this character informed my gender expression. No wonder, then, that I opted for red colouring when I bleached my hair for the very first time in late 2023. Princess Giselle continues to beckon me to new exciting ways of reaffirming my transness.

Giselle started as an escape pod from my worst instincts. I could imagine her or being her and get a temporary release from day-to-day drudgery. She’s helped me make reality so much more bearable. Specifically, she’s steered me toward my greatest gender-affirming instincts and character traits. Giselle guided me toward the colourful, flowery dresses I love wearing, the aforementioned red hair atop my head and the importance of exuding kindness in everything I do. She also inspired me to double down on my own uniqueness as I became more comfortable with my gender, rather than conform to society’s vision for what a woman should be like. In the end, becoming more like Giselle helped me become more like myself.

“Happily ever after” might not be real—but Giselle did start me down a path toward countless moments of gender euphoria so joyful they might as well be one of Enchanted’s many delightful tunes. In the movie’s last song, Carrie Underwood sings, “There is joy to be claimed in this world/ you might even wind up being glad to be you.” Thanks to Giselle, I too can access that kind of joy and self-love!

Lisa Laman (she/her) is an English-speaking writer located both on the autism spectrum and in Dallas, TX. A life-long film fan, she's now a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic/freelance writer that has been published on sites such as IndieWire, Polygon, The Spool, ScarleTeen, Fangoria, Culturess, Dallas Observer, AutoStraddle and many more. Her works focus largely on reviewing and analyzing film, as well as drawing from her personal experiences as a queer neurodivergent Texan. She also co-hosts the weekly box office podcast The Outside Scoop, secured a Master of Arts in Visual and Performing Arts from the University of Texas at Dallas in May 2022, and can always be found wearing a colourful frilly dress. When she isn't writing or watching movies, Lisa is reading good books, doing karaoke with friends, playing with her pugs, and savouring divine Tex-Mex food

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