The Princess and the Peach Rings: An interview with a fellow strategic communicator

Annabelle Cannon is obsessed with Disney princesses and snacks.

The 19-year-old Strategic Communication student has the appearance of a princess in street clothes, with long wavy blonde hair and a plethora of pink accessories. She crosses her legs, and explains that the princess infatuation began at birth. Her mother named her after Belle, the titular princess from Beauty and the Beast, and bought her a lot of princess toys during her early formative years. This is not an uncommon phase for little girls to go through, but according to Cannon, she “never grew out of it”. Cannon also collects Disney princess dolls, owning a large couture version of both Belle and Mulan, which are “probably worth a couple of hundred bucks”. She also has six smaller princess dolls, which are now out of production, resulting in Cannon having to search far and wide to complete her collection.

Cannon is not just in it for the dresses and fantasies though. She appreciates and advocates the messages the stories send to young girls, and struggles to understand people who oppose them: “when there’s a princess with a prince, people complain that it’s implying she needs a man. When there’s a princess without a prince, like Merida from Brave or Elsa in Frozen, people complain that she’s a lesbian”.

A self-confessed “snackaholic”, Cannon’s other love is food. She partakes in both savoury and sweet snacking, idiosyncratically and without discrimination. She eats Maltesers one of two ways: shoving a whole handful in her mouth at once, or eating the chocolates individually, eating the chocolate coating first, followed by the malt centre. She smiles to herself whenever she thinks of the “soft cold happiness” that is ice cream. She sings ‘Hungry Eyes’ by Eric Carmen when waiting for her two-minute noodles to cook. When told to ‘help herself’, Cannon never declines. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Cannon still manages to maintain the presentation of a modern day Disney princess. Some people have all the luck.

You can read about Cannon’s snacking misadventures at http://snackaholicsanonymous.blogspot.com