Bonfire of the Princesses

Contrary to the rumors I have been trying to spread for some time, Disney Princess products are not contaminated with lead. More careful analysis shows that the entire product line -- books, DVD's, ball gowns, necklaces, toy cell phones, toothbrush holders, t-shirts, lunch boxes, backpacks, wallpaper, sheets, stickers, etc. -- is saturated with a particularly potent time-release form of the date rape drug.

We cannot blame China this time, because the drug is in the concept, which was spawned in the Disney studios. Before 2000, the Princesses were just the separate, disunited, heroines of Disney animated films -- Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, Pocahontas, Jasmine, Belle, and Mulan. Then Disney's Andy Mooney got the idea of bringing the gals together in a team. With a wave of the wand ($10.99 at Target, tiara included) they were all elevated to royal status and set loose on the world as an imperial cabal, and have since have busied themselves achieving global domination. Today, there is no little girl in the wired, industrial world who does not seek to display her allegiance to the pink- and-purple clad Disney dynasty.

Disney likes to think of the Princesses as role models, but what a sorry bunch of wusses they are. Typically, they spend much of their time in captivity or a coma, waking up only when a Prince comes along and kisses them. The most striking exception is Mulan, who dresses as a boy to fight in the army, but -- like the other Princess of color, Pocahontas -- she lacks full Princess status and does not warrant a line of tiaras and gowns. Otherwise the Princesses have no ambitions and no marketable skills, although both Snow White and Cinderella are good at housecleaning.

And what could they aspire to, beyond landing a Prince? In Princessland, the only career ladder leads from baby-faced adolescence to a position as an evil enchantress, stepmother or witch. Snow White's wicked stepmother is consumed with envy for her stepdaughter's beauty; the sea witch, Ursula, covets Ariel's lovely voice; Cinderella's stepmother exploits the girl's cheap, uncomplaining, labor. No need for complicated witch-hunting techniques -- pin-prickings and dunkings -- in Princessland. All you have to look for is wrinkles.

Feminist parents gnash their teeth. For this their little girls gave up Dora, who bounds through the jungle saving baby jaguars, whose mother is an archeologist and whose adventures don't involve smoochy rescues by Diego? There was drama in Dora's life too, and the occasional bad actor like Swiper the fox. Even Barbie looks like a suffragette compared to Disney's Belle. So what's the appeal of the pink tulle Princess cult?

Seen from the witchy end of the female life cycle, the Princesses exert their pull through a dark and undeniable eroticism. They're sexy little wenches, for one thing. Snow White has gotten slimmer and bustier over the years; Ariel wears nothing but a bikini top (though, admittedly, she is half fish.) In faithful imitation, the three-year old in my life flounces around with her tiara askew and her Princess gown sliding off her shoulder, looking for all the world like a London socialite after a hard night of cocaine and booze. Then she demands a poison apple and falls to the floor in a beautiful swoon. Pass the Rohypnol-laced margarita, please.

It may be old-fashioned to say so, but sex -- and especially some middle-aged man's twisted version thereof -- doesn't belong in the pre-K playroom. Children are going to discover it soon enough, but they're got to do so on their own.

There's a reason, after all, why we're generally more disgusted by sexual abusers than adults who inflict mere violence on children: We sense that sexual abuse more deeply messes with a child's mind. One's sexual inclinations -- straightforward or kinky, active or passive, heterosexual or homosexual -- should be free to develop without adult intervention or manipulation. Hence our harshness toward the kind of sexual predators who leer at kids and offer candy. But Disney, which also owns ABC, Lifetime, ESPN, A&E and Miramax, is rewarded with $4 billion a year for marketing the masochistic Princess cult and its endlessly proliferating paraphernalia.

Let's face it, no parent can stand up against this alone. Try to ban the Princesses from your home, and you might as well turn yourself in to Child Protective Services before the little girls get on their Princess cell phones. No, the only way to topple royalty is through a mass uprising of the long-suffering serfs. Assemble with your neighbors and make a holiday bonfire out of all that plastic and tulle! March on Disney World with pitchforks held high!

Comments

[JScott]

Hmm does anyone remember some Disney animated short with that professor duck it was something about outerspace aliens and a professor has this clound over his head with math formulas while his secretary typed, she eventually it turns out is the superhero who destroys the aliens and saves the world--this musta been circa late 50's early 60's---c'mon any disney fans know of this, is it on you tube?

[LoHaze]

Oh for goodness sake! Little girls idolize the Princesses because they are pretty and wear beautiful gowns. Doesn't anyone remember being a little girl???
Many (not all) little girls want to be beautiful. Little girls who are denied access to pop culture beauty will make up their own version of adornment, just as many little boys (again, not all) denied access to toy guns will make a gun by pointing their finger!
Lisa K

[sierra]

I'm struck by the many comments about, "watching or not watching 'the tube.'" Children, that is.

Well, what about the fantasy cast out of the major media (including Disney) targeted to "believing" adults??

Children watch their parents for their reactions; as the parents watch tv (supposedly adult tv; now there's an oxymoron if their ever is one!) they also react to the tube......

Major media (including Disney) is profit oriented....nothing else...it's not there to educate, project or encourage debate, etc...

It's there to make money.

Period.

Turning off the tv is good...but, your children will "pick up" lots of what you forbid them to watch, in their interrelationships with their peers.....aka..at school, playing in the street, etc.

Our "popular society" is all about money, greed, and image.

And the major media propagates this incessantly.

[akzidenzgrotesk]

to be honest, i never got the whole princess obsession. sure, as a little girl i LOVED the disney movies, but i was always more of a fan of movies like the fox and the hound, robin hood (where all the characters were animals), bambi, or the lion king (although i have to say, i LOVED malifacent's hairpiece in sleeping beauty, which may or may not have been instrumental in my eventual goth phase during my teen years). the only princess i really loved growing up was she-ra, so i guess it could be said that girls these days ARE missing out, seeing as how she was the PRINCESS OF POWER and all. certainly a better role model than bratz, even if she did fight evil in a sweet heart corset and high heeled gold boots.

[badgirlinchicago]

Everyone lighten up. These are dolls we are talking about. I loved my Barbies as a little girl and still own some. Not once did I believe that I would grow up to look like a Barbie doll. Although I detest Bratz dolls, I have purchased some for my 6 year old daughter for Christmas because she likes them. It is ultimately up to parents to teach their daughters about life.

[TheCat]

>Let's face it, no parent can stand up against this alone. Try to ban the
>Princesses from your home, and you might as well turn yourself in to
>Child Protective Services before the little girls get on their Princess cell phones.

Actually, you can stand up to it. My daughter was eight years old before she saw a Disney movie (excepting Miyazaki imports, of course). She has never seen any of the 'princess' movies and we made it clear to our families that it is a matter of principle to us.

March on Disney by all means, but don't let that stop you from making your own small changes and rebellions.

[rucognizant]

NABNYC,
Those "cartoons" you dismiss so harshly.......
"should be free", are unhappily the, most prevalant venue of the commercial art world at this point in history.
For a single woman who embraced feminism early in the game, and who was empowered, as a single female artist, and successful with it through 1990, this is an appalling turn of events. It is a Herculian task to maintain autonomy, freedom, a single woman household, in this society.
My landscape paintings have just been likened to Vermeer; and cartooning, was just never on my radar, but I am struggling to do it because it is practically the only way to be financially rewarded in the art field! Thus to pay the bills so I can live to do another landscape painting.
Of course it is symptomatic of the decline of our civilization...............
Children's book ilustration, think N C Wyeth, has also been afflicted with distorted, ugly big headed, skinny legged characters, sure to distort our children's self esteem!
Horror Show!!!!

[StupideAmericans]

"Snow White has gotten slimmer and bustier over the years"

And so have many young women. Is there a cause and effect going on here?

As a heterosexual male I'm deeply troubled by this trend; i.e., it's very distracting, I mean do you know how difficult it is to quietly read in a coffee shop or just drive around town with all these slimmer and bustier young women parading around?

Damn, I'm a victim too. Those media powerbrokers got to me subliminally at a young age too through the pages of Playboy and Penthouse. Now I'm permanently brainwashed into eyeballing slimmer and bustier young women (or even older slimmer and bustier women) despite my best efforts to be more respectful.

Seriously, though, the distractions aren't that bad. What's really messed up is getting into a conversation with these hot babes -- yeech. Seems some slimming also took place above their eyeballs.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Barbara, great post. I have refused to purchase ANY Barbie or other 'Princess' themed toys/paraphinalia for the young girls in my life.

BTW, have you ever heard of 'BRATZ'? AKA Crack Whore Toddlers?

[Qbear]

CHILL,

I suvived the animal cruelty of Bambi's mother being snuffed in the first few seonds of probably my first movie. I survived smoking Fred, Wilma, and Barney...(OK, I do smoke.)
I also surived Prince Charmings and heoines of every hair color, racist storybooks for kiddies (they don't print anymore....after all that, I grew up happly homosexual.

don't sweat the small stuff, (and it's all small stuff)

[jasonball]

Barbara, I love you! But you're tragically wrong - it's even worse than you say. While the princesses may not have marketable skills, they each start as young, energetic, imaginative women who presumably could take whatever steps they like in life. The steps that they do take, that are in turn the steps that are modeled for children, are the most troubling. They all abandon whatever potential they have - which in my opinion is demonstrated to be substantial - in order to pursue relationships and leave the hard business of running the world to their royal fathers and boyfriends. Many of these relationships as you well know are abusive, but young women are taught that when faced with abuse in a relationship to perservere in order to prove your love to your mate (most notably and overtly Belle).

[dapperdan32]

Or it could just be cartoons used to SELL stuff.
No, it must be yet another white male patriarchy conspiracy, not that they ever call me for input......

[lakecat]

The real danger of princessness is not only passivity. It's narcisim. After all what are princesses? They are More Important Than Everyone Else. And why are they more important? Because they can run faster or do math better or sing better than anybody else? No. It's because they were born. Most little girls figure they can handle being born. A princess is always the center of attention. A princess is always looked up to by the commoners, always special and she doesn't have to worry about any of those pesky skills or achievements other people have to bother with to be special. And isn't that really what we need more of? Women who think they're more special than everyone else pretty much by virtue of their existence. Women obsessed by their hair, make up, clothes and weight because the one duty all princesses take very seriously is their duty to be beautiful. Oh I know some princesses. But they're in their 40s and 50s and it's just not so adorable anymore.

[TheCyclist]

Yes, and we boys have suffered from the over-sexualized images of men in comic books, wearing tights and with fantasy-sized biceps and impossibly muscular legs and beyond washboard abs. And these super heroes usually have DEAD parents and emotional burdens and risk their lives and have unfulfilling love lifes...

The over-sexualizing of young women is not linked to Disney Princesses. Because we live in a society that is at least aware of sexual predators and the consequences of age-inappropriate relationships, we are not facing the same kinds of social problems faced when Lewis Carroll was taking pictures of a nude Alice or when Jerry Lee Lewis was marrying his pubescent cousin. Do I think it is stupid that A&F sells clothes by showing models who are not wearing any garments? Yes. Do I think that it is appropriate that women grown and young flounce around in tees that read fcuk or sweats with the word "JUICY" plastered across their ass? Not really. But prudishness has its own traps. Water will flow downhill. Boys and girls will figure out that they want to scratch that itch one way or another. One of the underlying subtexts of the Princess myths is that finding true love is hard, it is worth waiting for and it comes with sacrifice. You may not like that it is simplified to where a three year-old or nine year-old can understand it, but that is one of the messages to young girls. We all learn that life is more complicated. Hard to understand that your three year-old will actually grow up and find that she has her own definition of a prince, and that may be some guy with 40 tattoos and six piercings. But she surely will grow up. Disney just released Enchanted and the humorous conceit is that a woman appears in NYC with the same attitude as an animated princess. And even the little girls laugh, because THEY KNOW THE CARTOON IS SILLY.

And so is this column.

[faust2001]

Americans love royalty. It's why so many of them live like peasants today.