Wednesday, July 23, 2008

AND NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES LUCY ASKS ME, NO, TINKER BELL IS NOT A PRINCESS: From the "We Get Letters" department, via commenter Jim Bell:

Walt has reached right into [our daughter's] life and solicited her for a future breakfast with his trademarked and copyrighted princesses... well, not exactly, but somehow a sippy cup has entered the shore home unbidden with pictures of three Disney princesses emblazoned on it (and I hate to say it, this cool perspective thing that comes from putting one cylinder inside another semi-clear cylinder with art on both... So, anyway, I know the one with black hair and ruby red lips is, like, Snow White, but how is one to tell apart the one that is supposed to be Cinderella from the one that is supposed to be Sleeping Beauty.. And, how do I know they aren't really Ariel or that one from Aladdin with hair dyed blonde, and could there more princesses waiting in the wings, and will I ever get used to all of this? Shouldn't they have nametags? Help please. You are parents. Will I be able to play the violin? That is to say, will I be sane?
For this question, I've turned to Chuck, one of our less-frequent commenters, but who is A.B.D. in Female Royalty Studies from a school you've heard of:

My nearly four-year old daughter is becoming increasingly obsessed with all the princess junk.

I keep my sanity by pointing out to her the repetitive motifs in the stories. I try to make it fun for her, but internally I am mocking the stories. For example, Ariel and Jasmine:

Ariel: Ariel has to live in the world under the sea, but she is curious about the wider world. She meets a man from "above" and falls in love with him, but this love is forbidden by her father, the king, until her father sees how happy she is, blah blah blah, they live happily ever after.

Jasmine: Jasmine lives in the sheltered world of the palace, but she meets a man from the wider world and falls in love with him. This love is forbidden by her father, the sultan, until her father sees how happy she is, blah blah blah, they live happily ever after.

You can also contrast, although I'd stick to the internal thinking on this and not sharing it with the child: Ariel is separated from the land above the sea based on species (mermaids shouldn't really be able to live on the land), and thus the story could be understood as being a veiled lesson on racism. Jasmine, however, is separated from Aladdin by class. Discuss.

Enjoy trying to find other similarities and differences, I don't want to spoil them all! Like the "small critter is your conscience" motif (Jiminy Crickett in the (non-princess fable) Pinocchio; Sebastian the crab in The Little Mermaid). Ponder why none of the true princesses have mothers, and why their stepmothers are always making them do chores. See, e.g, Snow White and Cinderella.

Also, stick with Belle, she likes to read books and she learns to love an ugly dude. I find that story more tolerable than the others. Even though she has no mother.

Thrill at and mock the marginalization in the Disney universe of the swarthy "princesses" (Mulan, Jasmine, Pocahontas). See, even you are wondering right now, "are Mulan and Pocahontas really princesses?" Note that the movie is called "Aladdin" and not "Jasmine." In no other princess movie is the princess dissed in the title. Meanwhile, Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, the whitest, least interesting, least resourceful, least curious, least clever princesses are of the highest order and are most prominent. Two of them are rescued by a kiss, the other by a fairy godmother. You go girls!

Try to learn the other names by which Sleeping Beauty is known! Learn to distinguish Sleeping Beauty from Cinderella. Cinderella has been transformed over the years from a brunette to a blonde, making this tricky. Even Disney can't keep it straight, I suspect, so in modern renderings, they tend to put Cinderella's hair up and dress her in blue. Sleeping Beauty is super blonde and is almost always in pink nowadays. She is my nominee for "most banal princess."

I know one mother who keeps her sanity by, inter alia, insisting to her daughter that in order to be a princess, one must excel at math.

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