outside the (toy) box

When I was a budding feminist, characters like Cinderella and the Little Mermaid, (the 9 Disney damsels - “G9″ he he - didn’t become “The Princesses” until a marketing overhaul in 2001), and Barbie made my blood boil.  Their big boobs, mini waists, and glamourization of victimhood infuriated me — role models of the most irksome kind.   Today, as a parent, they still get to me.  Add to this world of warped femininity the marketing juggernaut that is Bratz, and kaboom, and there is a lot to make my skin crawl. 

But (did she just write “BUT”?), I have to confess that my sensitivities have changed.  When I see princess paraphernalia, I cringe, but if I’m completely honest, it’s not the bodies that bother me most.  In the last couple of years my anger has shifted. 

I no longer get stuck on Barbie as a low self esteem cocktail, instead my eyes are trained on the colonization of childhood, and a range of choices that seems infinitesimally small and astonishingly prevalent.

This image is still a bothersome one, but these ideas about gender are exacerbated by their phenomenally efficient distribution, thanks to the nature of contemporary capitalism.  If Barbie or Disney princesses or Bratz (ooh, wouldn’t a massive Bratz recall be wonderful?) were options in a sea of choices, maybe then I could hate them the way I used to, but with virtually all major media owned by only a handful of massive  conglomerates and the rest of the capitalist marketplace concentrated so extensively that most consumer goods categories are controlled by only two major players (e.g., think Coke and Pepsi, Burger King and McDonalds, Mac and PC, Borders and Barnes & Noble — and more relevant here, Mattel and Hasbro), brands are now able to be leveraged in ways that render them ubitqutous.

If I can offer a partial list of “princess” items:

toothbrushes, underwear, training diapers, notebooks, clothing, band-aids, water toys, scooters, basketballs (Yes, Viriginia, they have Disney princess basketballs), make up, paper plates, party favors, balloons, figurines, collectible plates (Don’t forget to buy your handsome plate display rack — to showcase your elegant Disney princess plates), snow globes, jewelery, workbooks, backpacks, stationery, pens and pencils, films, bedding, musical eggs (I’m serious), roller skates, art supplies, Broadway musicals, bikes, lamps, furniture, banks, bookends, watches, books, curtains, mirrors, musical instruments (including the “Disney princess stylin’ electric guitar”), costumes, sleeping bags, books, and even wedding dresses – REAL wedding dresses, for actual women (Sounds like a Saturday Night Live parody, doesn’t it?).  I’ll stop now, before I throw up in my mouth.

In a capitalist environment where legitimate competition is protected, circumstances like these are unimaginable.  You don’t even have to hate princesses to have a problem with this. It wouldn’t matter if it was a world awash in Thelma and Louise merchandise, I’d still be screaming uncle.

If you are a girl in the preschool set, Disney princesses and Barbie aren’t two of the options, they are the options.  I’m reminded of Thing 1 meeting a friend’s mother for the first time.  Mom of pal looked at dd and said, “Hi there. Tell me something, do you like Princesses (pulls out stickers, but gets no comment)? I bet you do! Which one is your favorite?”  Thing 1, whose fave color is yellow, points to Belle. “Oh, Belle, Janie likes Belle too!”  Choice reduced.  Which princess are you? 

I’m also reminded of an essay I read last year, excerpted here, 

“Much as I’d looked forward to dressing my almost 2-year-old daughter as something extraordinary for the neighborhood Halloween party, between post-Wilma chaos and work I could barely improvise a gypsy costume. Oh well, I thought, there’ll be all sorts of fantasies in effect.

Instead, there was only one. Every other girl among the 20-some toddlers was a princess or a fairy or something with a big fluffy skirt that made it hard to do much besides look adorable.

Where were the witches, cats, cowgirls and superwomen? I’d expected a few frilly visions. But an entire party of fledgling divas?

I thought feminism had moved us past this 30-some years ago, but apparently we’ve gone back to the ’50s, only with more marketing and more sex.

”We had Free To Be . . . You And Me, they have Disney Princess crap.”

This is cultural imperialism — Disney as childhood, no longer as part of childhood.   Preschoolgirls: post Elmo and Dora, pre Bratz, defined by their consumption “choices.”  “Do you like Princesses?,” she asked dd… as if there is a choice! To be a preschoolgirl is to identify with princess or to be excluded. 

This is a good example of why I called this blog “outside the (toy) box.”  Children are confined by these tiny boxes, as brand loyalty and the desire for social inclusion are exploited to the nth degree.  Do they love the princesses? Yes. Why?

And the onslaught of consumer goods and mass mediated stories seep into other forms of play as well.  My daughter plays princess at school.  Today she told me that she and three friends payed princess on the playground.  The two girls were princesses and the two boys were bad guys who captured them.  (wait. gasping for breath, heart palpitating, anxiety attack coming on…).  So, although we own nothing princess, and my dd has never even seen a disney film, she is part of the culture.  She lives in the colony, and she too is colonized.

At any rate, these days I hate Cinderella for her prevalence more than because of her symbolic challenges.  I hate the image and the narrative that she comes with, but if “Princess” were one cultural option instead of the culture itself, her weight would be ameliorated (talk about double entendre).  I hate the marketing, I hate the characters on every inanimate surface, and I hate the suffocating tediousness in such a shallow pool of choices (thank goodness Disney is launching it’s soon to be monsterous Fairies brand, anchored by Tink, then we’ll have some real alternatives - ouch, help, tongue. hurting. cheek.).

In the words of one of my effervescent media students, “I had to go with animation - I love cartoons.  My entire childhood was completely defined by Disney.”  I doubt she recognized the significance of what she was saying.  Disney taught her how to have fun, what to enjoy, what to pretend, what life might be like in her wildest dreams (getting captured?).

When I was little, I loved the Disney movies too, but they were just that - movies, not underpants, not curtains, not toothpaste.  I hate to say it but I miss the bad-good old days when I could just be pissed about body image.