I don't know how other parents with little girls feel about all the Princess crap that is constantly crammed down their throats in this culture, but I have had enough.
A sample exchange between the bank teller and our resident 4 y/o:
BT: "Here's a pretty Princess sticker for you sweetie"
4yo: "But I like Cars" (seeing the other stickers in the basket)
BT: "Well, Princesses are for girls. Don't you like them? They're so pretty."
I realize that most of this is well-intended, and I've tried to politely reject Princess crap, to ask our friends and family not to give them Princess (or Bratz!) toys, etc. None of this seems to work. The world is bent on turning all little girls into tiara-wearing Princess-worshippers. After getting into a number of arguments over this, I've developed a set of stock responses to all the claims people make in favor of Princesses:
Princesses are nice to everyone
1) Being nice to everyone is a female virtue that often works to disadvantage women in the real world. And anyway, one can "be nice" to those who deserve it and still kick some ass when necessary. Look at Princess Fiona (who is really an anti-princess, in many ways), for example.
2) Classic fairy tale Princesses (including the Disney variety) generally are nice. But the pop-culture notion of a princess has come to involve the idea of a materialistic, spoiled, self-centered, bossy little brat who will do anything to get her way. And we're supposed to be all indulgent of these characteristics, as long as the child displaying them is cute enough?
Princesses are beautiful and have beautiful voices
Being beautiful and having a beautiful voice is not the most important thing about a woman.
Princesses are "sweet"
What exactly does "sweet" mean here? Sexually pure? Acquiescent and passive? Tolerant of inconsiderate, rude, and/or abusive behavior?
Princess play boost a girl's self-esteem
Traditional princess mythology ties a girl's self-esteem to her appearance and her desirability from the perspective of the prince. In our culture this translates into the necessity to be thin, pretty, and white.
As for the pop-culture princess ideal, a spoiled and self-involved child may initially appear to be confident and have high self-esteem. However, there's a world of difference between being self-centered and having high self-esteem. A small amount of experience in the real world will shatter her vision of this imaginary world where she's the boss of everyone, and then she'll have no other skills or abilities to fall back on, having put all her eggs in the pretty, pretty princess basket.
Princesses are helped out of dire situations by acts of love, courage, and friendship
Princesses are helpless creatures who languish in bad situations waiting for a rescuer rather than doing anything to help themselves.
Princess play encourages girls to reach all their potential
How, exactly? Do princesses ever do anything other than wait for a prince, do some menial tasks around the house, and sing? And how do you reach your potential while in a coma or locked in a tower? And why would you even attempt to reach your potential when there's a prince on his way to rescue you and solve all your problems?
Princesses are good role models
Seriously? They go running off with princes they either just met or barely know. Generally speaking they can't lift a finger to help themselves. They have no skills or abilities that would allow them to be financially independent or care for the children that are sure to result from the implied tryst with the prince. In fact, snaring said prince is really their only goal in life. They're gullible and easily duped into things like eating poisonous apples from very suspicious-looking characters. In the midst of a night of magic and romance they can't even stay level-headed enough to leave for home on time. They're constantly falling into a coma or getting stuck in captivity. And, in the more recent Disney incarnations, they don't hesitate to show a little cleavage and/or asscrack if it will garner a little extra attention. Maybe they are good role models, but for whom?
Am I being too harsh? Are there other defenses for the whole Princess thing that I missed?
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You are absolutely not being too harsh.
And, for the record, I think I know these girls: "A small amount of experience in the real world will shatter her vision of this imaginary world where she's the boss of everyone, and then she'll have no other skills or abilities to fall back on, having put all her eggs in the pretty, pretty princess basket."
Just... wow. Nail has been hit on the head.
Princesses hold power over 99.999 percent of the men in the kingdom...
Is that why they so often have to wait for a man to rescue them?
Trying to be "the nice girl" has definitely come back to kick me in the ass. Being kind is a good value, being "nice" for its own sake pretty much just means "be seen and not heard". I was a knight for Halloween in the third grade (no princesses for me!), and I still struggled with being nice vs. speaking my mind.
When I was 18 or so, I read Robin McKinley's The Door in the Hedge, which offers a different take on some classic fairy tales in which the princesses have responsibilities and agency, even though their personal power may be circumscribed. I particularly remember the first story, which talks about how an only-child princess worried about the future of the kingdom and tried to live up to her responsibilities: at one point they talk about her having to hold her arms out straight for an hour to give a ritual blessing to the people. Her people. Whom she has to rule someday.
Ever since, it's seemed to me that the best thing you can do with princess play is point out that princesses are complex creatures with things to do, not relics to be fetched from enemy castles.
Absolutely LOVE Robin McKinley. Spindle's End is probably my favorite of hers. It's a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story, for non-fans. But that's what she does, most of her books are reimaginings of classic fairy tales (or at least take on the classic fairy-tale format) with actual strong women characters who do more than languish and sing to the birds.
I just wish there was a Robin McKinley equivalent for young children, because honestly, her books are not for kids. Spindle's End is doable for a child who reads well from about age 10 or so, although at that age she'll miss the nuances; I'd say about the same for Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. But under no circumstances should a kid be allowed to read Deerskin. Wonderful story, but there's that whole incest/rape thing.
There's a wonderful book series by Bruce Lansky called Girls to the Rescue that I read when I was younger. They're definitely appropriate for younger girls, and they are all anti-everything disney princess.
Rachel in WY- I don't think you're being too harsh- when I was younger my mother had similar opinions (and also rejected Barbies), and I think it definitely was beneficial to me (and my development as a feminist). However, I would personally be wary of banning all things princess when your daughter is a little older, especially if she shows a strong interest in them. In my personal experience, I did watch and enjoy Disney princess movies (but not until I was at lest 5), but since my parents talked about why they weren't realistic, and how real women do and should have more power, I was able to not entirely absorb the messages...
Sorry that was a little garbled.
The Dealing with Dragons books by Patricia C. Wrede are great kick-ass, doesn't-wait-for-a-man-to-help-her-out YA princess books. I read them in elementary school and loved them.
Girls to the Rescue and Enchanted Forest Chronicles FTW!
And let us not forget Tamora Pierce and Sherwood Smith.
Thirded! There's nothing quite like Dealing with Dragons for installing a subversive view of the princess mythos that a child can understand. Cimorene explicitly calls out all those other princess stories you've heard and rejects them- and she doesn't reject them in a binary-reinforcing "If I'm not going to be a puny princess I have to prove I can be a big tough warrior like the men" way. Cimorene has nothing to prove to anyone, she just decides what life she wants and lives it. So much love.
I taught in Korea last year and all the girls (and their mothers) were obsessed with Disney and princesses. 95% of girls were some variation of princess for Halloween (generic princess, Snow White, fairy princess, bunny princess). If I took my eyes off Lauren (who wore a tiara, it was cute) and Angelina (yes, her mother named her Angelina for English kindergarten) for a minute they were drawing princesses (one winking princess, over and over) on their papers.
On the plus side, Lauren did once say "Teacher is boy Snow White!" which was a pretty sweet compliment, I think.
This princess crap is out of control. I am an education major and I am having the hardest time talking to my fellow students about this.
One of my goals as an educator is lessen the role of advertising in the lives of my students, and Disney has got young girls in a choke hold. That scares me. Here's something from one of my textbooks that I found interesting:
"Because this literature is so pervasive and culturally approved, (feminist critic Karen Rowe) argues that the context in which naive readers read fairy tales supports the paradigm of female impotence and reliance on external agents for rescue in the real world..."
Good blog.
Yeah, I think the fact that Princess stuff is so prevalent is what makes it so powerful and so hard for people (adults and kids) to critically engage with it. It's like little girls are drowning in a sea of it.
I hate the princess thing too. Especially with Disney barely making a movie where the female lead isn't a princess, or she becomes one in their marketing to keep the trend up.
Disney's Enchanted does a lot to answer some of those criticisms. Giselle, the Princess in there, is forced to be proactive in her life after she realizes that waiting for her Prince, Edward, to rescue her is much less fun than hanging out with Patrick Dempsey and his daughter. (She also finds a career at the end of the film as a high powered fashion designer, a sly nod to the implausible hyper-domesticity of the typical Disney princess.)
Not every Disney Princess is Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. I'd argue that Cinderella is rescued not by a Prince, but through the help of a mother figure (in the actual fairy tale) and her animal friends in the Disney version. He's just there to see that the shoe fits. C'mon, what about Belle and Jasmine? Belle is incredibly self sufficient because she has to be, and Jasmine stands up to the patriarchy when she acts as the female equivalent of Cinderella's Prince. Disney pre-1950 is embarassingly anti-feminist, but things have and will continue to change.
The biggest problem I have with Beauty and the Beast is the heavy overtones of a domestically violent relationship. Despite The Beast's horrible treatment of Belle (as in the scene where he screams at her, "Fine! Then go ahead and *starve!* If she doesn't eat with me, then she doesn't eat at all! ), she is continually encouraged to give him another chance. He frightens her, yells at her, and intimidates her, throws furniture, and somehow it turns into a love story. I DO NOT want my daughter to get the message that if she just sticks around long enough, the violent guy with the hair-trigger temper will turn into a soft, sweet understanding man of her dreams.
The problem is that Beauty and the Beast is a psychological allegory, or at least the original story is. Belle leaves the house of her father, a man she would sacrifice her life for (problematic) and is forced into the house of a stranger, a man unrelated to her. It's a story about overcoming fear. The Beast is any man other than her father, i.e. a scary monster. Over the course of the story, Belle overcomes her fear and learns that boys aren't icky and that she can love her family and a significant other.
Yes, the story has abusive undertones, but it resonates in a very specific place in the development of girls. Fairy tales don't depict real life. They're not supposed to.
But I think that the overall message behind the Disney princesses as they're marketed to kids is that they're lovable and worth paying attention to because they're beautiful. Jasmine has a ridiculous body and her clothing is becoming skimpier each marketing season. We get Princess books and other items with pictures of the Princesses on them (which we almost always exchange for something else), and they're clothes really are shrinking. Snow White is the only one that seems to stay the same. And they're often positioned in these super sexy poses, like with their back to the audience, looking over their shoulder and arching their backs like porn stars. Ariel is always in some super flirty pose as well. I just think that, among other things, exposure to Princess culture encourages girls not to take themselves seriously, and I have a huge problem with that.
I'm not going to argue the poses, but having grown up in the Second Golden Age of Disney (90s), I took every female character in the Disney movies seriously. I thought Meg was tragic, I wanted to be as smart and strong as Belle, I cheered on Jasmine when she stood up to her father, was Pocahontas twice for Halloween, and wanted to be Mulan when I grew up.
Yes, I would prefer that little girls were introduced to the fairy tales in their original context, but most of the members of my generation got the Disney versions, which are not without value.
The Princess product line was created (in 2000) as a result of an already present princess culture that wasn't solely based on the Disney heroines. At the dawn of the 20th century, books like A Little Princess were flying off the shelves. The reason little girls want to be princesses is because it gives them an immediate sense of self worth (not just because of beauty but also social status and the comfort of being valued), which is what some of us need in order to find a better source, once we learn to value ourselves.
I don't know - I still haven't had anyone point out the value in Princesses that counterbalances the really negative messages they send girls. And if this is the only way we can build their self-esteem, by foisting these crazy identities on them that have nothing to do with reality, then we are truly failing our girls. Whatever happened to teaching them some real skills and abilities that they can base their confidence on? If it works for boys, why don't we think it can work for girls?
Enchanted is actually a really problematic movie. Its popularity with fans disturbs me, as it sends some awful messages of its own.
Giselle is a woman without agency who trades the Rescuing Prince for a ... rescuing business man. Throughout the movie he appears almost as a father figure to Giselle, who in turn seems to most readily communicate with his daughter Morgan. On closer examination their relationship is so fucking creepy.
Nancy trades her career and her life to go marry some guy she barely knows.
Prince Edward switches one oppressive female figure for another.
And the queen, the only woman with power and agency in this movie beyond any romantic entanglements, is depicted as an evil witch, a *dragon* even, and then thrown off a high building.
Just because Enchanted *wants* to break through the Princess stereotype doesn't mean it succeeded and in the process it created a 1950s fairy tale even stronger in its oppression of women for pretending to be against it. It's benevolent sexism with a large dose of creepy fetishism thrown in.
Tell that to Queen Esther! Oh, wait, I only know of the Queen Esther story as told by Mylika, my neice (feminist mom) when she was 4.
I think a feminist mom can help redefine Princess into a self aware, independent Queen/ leader in training.
The fact that she is female and can choose to be "pretty" by any standard is a choice- as she is the ruler/ leader-
it's her call.
You can take what's there (it's not going away) and put your spin on it.
Remember, in the original telling of the story, Jasmine was a runaway princess who was slumming with the hustlers, thieves, artist and paupers.
Or was that just how I interpreted it?
You can create your own princess story with your child.
"Remember, in the original telling of the story, Jasmine was a runaway princess who was slumming with the hustlers, thieves, artist and paupers."
Exactly the kind of thing you want your six year old daughter to aspire to.
Young adult fantasy anthologies seem to have the best princess-empowering nouveau-fairytales. Among the greatest are Firebirds, Firebirds Rising, Murder by Magic, Young Warriors, and Powers of Detection. All five were edited by classic female fantasy writers.
While some (most) of the stories are a bit old for a four- or five-year-old (primarily for the reading level and unfamiliar -- often invented -- words), they'd be a great starting point for bedtime stories.
My three-year-old daughter is suddenly princess obsessed. She begs for Disney princess videos, which we use to bribe her. (She incredibly strong willed and opinionated, so we're always looking for ways to get her to do things we ask.) She sings the princess songs, which is actually beautiful to listen to. She spots princess relics everywhere we go.
She is not, however, a girly girl. I'm quite surprised by all this. She doesn't like dolls, preferring stuffed animals. She usually plays with little boys and at their homes there are mostly trains and tool benches. Her favorite toys are blocks and Legos, and she does two or three art projects per day. Most interestingly, she's the most assertive, and even aggressive, child I've ever known. She uses her smarts, her strong, emotive voice and her physical strength to get her way.
The other day, I saw a little boy pull her hair. I didn't intervene to protect her; I didn't need to. I told the mom sitting next to me, as my daughter hollered at him, "He better stop that, or she'd gonna take a swing at him." Remember, she's only three and were working on controlling impulses. We give her time outs for hitting.
It seems so strange that she loves the princesses. Maybe it's just a phase: she's discovering colorful, sparklely dresses and enjoys the cute songs. I'm baffled. But overall, I'm proud of her diversity.
I do not think you are being too harsh at all. The only benefit I can see in princess culture is that it opens a door to discussing traditional gender roles with a child.
I would add to your list the implications of being 'nice'. Nice girls do as their told, where as feminists that stick up for what they believe in are not nice, they are loud and argumentative.
As a child I actually loved old fairy tales, and my parents were fine with that. Part of the trick of it is that I read traditional fairy tales rather than the Disney versions. They aren't more feminist, actually they are much worse and unapologetic than Disney. That's what showed me that these stories were not at all accurate to my life. When you find out that Cinderella was most likely about 13, you read the story differently.
Princesses need rescued, and will be. Romantic love saves the day. Way to set a kid up for future failure. Sure, animals and fairy godmothers help but they are not who most kids are identifying with. My impression of princesses as a kid was never that they were brave or strong, it was only that they were sugary sweet, beautiful and eventually desired by a man (Which is interesting because as a kid I hated the sappy love scenes and could have done without the prince entirely). Physical beauty is a requisite for being a princess. I think this is the way that Princesses are most damaging, they really hammer home to little girls that being beautiful is very, very, important (and beautiful means a tiny waist and wearing makeup). As a child I played with Princess dolls but they were a little too sweet and passive for me. I bought into the "beauty thing" a lot, but at least it was the more powerful She-Ra or, my own invention, a beautiful Egyptian Queen with no King who ruled an entire village (including my brother).
also
a must see
Ever After, Produced by Drew Barrymore-
re-telling of the Cinderella story.
and a must read for wee lil ones:
Father Gander
re-telling of the
Mother Goose stories
Think Geek has a shirt that says "self-rescuing princess." I want it.
I too am sick to death of princess crap. Hell, I remember being into it when I was 13. That was 7 years ago. How is this trend still thriving?
I have to disagree with a lot of your arguments. Many of the newer princesses don't apply so much to the arguments you're making.
"Princesses are nice to everyone"
This one I agree with. I think it comes more from not wanting to be seen as mean though, rather than wanting to be nice.
"Princesses are beautiful"
Seems like a positive trait to me. Looks certainly don't hurt a woman's chances, and often do help in the real world whether we like it or not. Even guys spend time on their looks, though probably not as much as we do.
"Princesses are sweet"
Should they be bitches instead? Some of the more modern princesses are a bit more bitchy and not as sweet. Jasmine, in Aladdin, was not exactly a sweet, passive, tolerates anything Princess.
"Princesses play boost self-esteem"
I think this is a cop out. There are plenty of non-white princesses. Mulan, Pocahontas, Jasmine, Esmeralda. It's only the older princesses that fit your strange Princess Schema to a T. Get with the times. We have new princesses and most of them mean business.
"Princesses need help from love, etc."
Same as above. The princesses today often do things about it on their own. They do go out and do something about it on their own. Again... you are behind the princess times.
"Princesses encourages girls to reach potential"
Many Princesses today are the heroes of their own stories. Mulan and Belle do most of the action and do a lot of the saving themselves. Again you are making arguments that do apply as much today as they might have 50 years ago when Sleeping Beauty was the new Princess on the block.
"Princesses are good role models"
Again you are only looking at the old passive princesses, using Snow White in an example here (which was nearly 70 years ago). Newer Princesses showing ass crack? I don't recall any Disney Princesses using cleavage to get their way.
Bag on the older princesses in the regard, that's fine. But many of the newer ones are decent role model types. Ones willing to stand for what they believe in, they have backbones, they do possess skills that could help them be successful in life or that will promote learning in younger girls.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the Disney princesses as they are currently marketed? Once you have a kid (if you have a girl, that is) you'll become familiar with what I'm talking about.