In Defense of Princesses

So, princesses are getting a bad, bad reputation. Eventually, I’ll defend princess culture in this post, but first? First, let’s bash the crap out of them. 

 

See Exhibit A, Cinderella, whom my girl child adores. She has watched the movie dozens and dozens of times, and she has Cinderella dolls, bed sheets, a costume, dress-up shoes, wands, tiaras, wall décor, books, clothes, and so on.

But I tell you this: I can’t stand Cinderella. I love her dress, and I’m fascinated (if perplexed) about the idea of a glass shoe, but that girl is an idiot inviting people to walk all over her. She's a sweet, charming idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. I tell myself the Disney Cinderella was made in 1957, which wasn’t exactly the golden era of feminism. And let's not forget that dress.

In 4th grade, we had an assignment to rewrite a popular tale, but from the villain’s point of view. I picked Cinderella and wrote from the stepmother’s viewpoint, explaining that Cinderella received chores as punishment for misbehaving. Cinderella was just SO NAUGHTY that she was doing a LOT of chores. What was a stepmother to do? Next, her engagement to the prince was rushed and half-cocked (if I was older than 9, I probably would’ve thought to knock her up), so OF COURSE the stepmother tried to intervene. But Cinderella didn’t listen, and they ended up divorcing.

My mom thought my story was hilarious. My dad said it was “too negative."

Anyway, the Disney Cinderella depicts lots of bitchy, jealous fighting between women, and OF COURSE they’re fighting about who's most charming, the prettiest, and the most capable of winning a prince willing to marry a girl he shares one dance with, just to get his dad off his back about generating an heir. Do you think the prince will have a mistress? I do. Now, Cinderella is not just prettier than her stepsisters (though this trait does, of course, make her vastly superior from the get-go), but she’s so NICE, sweetly accepting her lot in life, which is to be dominated and exploited. And her reward for being—INEXPLICABLY—a doormat for her stepmother and stepsisters? A prince to take her away.

 

She's always under the control of someone else, no?

Good thing the prince popped up. Good thing passively waiting around for rescue, all while smiling and singing and being dressed by birds, worked out for her.

 

I cringe every time Charlotte watches Cinderella.

Therefore, I can see why people who actually give a hoot about girls are asking, WTF? Recently, a Catholic girls school took on a slogan, You Are Not a Princess. (This was followed by the line, But you can still rule the world.) The purpose, administrators said, was to urge girls to write their own story of how their life would be. Ooooh, I liked that. A lot. Parents, culture, beauty ads, and acne-faced boys tell girls How They Should Be. Write your own story. Unless you like cleaning for your snotty step-kin, MARCH out that front door and Save. Your. Self. I genuinely think this is a fantastic motto for a girls' school. I just love it.

Then there’s this virally popular ad, where princess culture is subverted by some engineering little girls who use all their pretty pink toys to say, This isn't what we want! Hearing young girl voices angrily singing, to the tune of a Beastie Boys song, "GIRLS. You think you know what we want, GIRLS," you pretty much want to stand up and cheer and buy a chemistry set and a toolbox. It’s adorable, it’s empowering. It made me feel smug about the fact Charlotte is getting trains and a bike for Christmas, and Lorelei is getting Legos, but . . . I recognized half the pink toys in the commercial. Because my girls have them.
 

But then? Through a great feat of engineering, the girls' invention changes the TV channel from froo-froo princess crap to a commercial for "Goldie Blox: Toys for Future Engineers."

 

And my excitement came down a notch. Something in that ad came up short. What was it?

 

So, I re-watched the ad. I still found it amazing and sassy. I still loved it. But remember that line from their song? "YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT WE WANT." That, matched with the buy-this! message of "Toys for Future Engineers," I realized . . . we're telling girls to give up princess culture, pink-and-purple aesthetics, sparkles, and accessories so they "can write their own story" . . .  and be engineers.

 

Huh? So, I guess the new message is, "Write your own story, so long as you become an engineer, scientist, or mathematician."

 

Not a lot of room for the girls who love the arts, stories, words, or make-believe in that particular construct, is there?

 

I think Gloria Steinem (yes, I know, she's sort of a feminist cliché, but I really, really like her) hit the pink the nail on the head. When asked what advice she had for young girls, she urged them not to listen to her advice but rather the voice inside of them. I think is a smarter angle to take.

 

Girly, princess culture is something I struggle with. Because yes, the idea of giving up your voice for a man (I’m looking at you, Ariel) is downright dumb, but also its excessive, over-the-top emphasis on PRETTY seems pretty (heh heh) high-risk. Obviously, I don’t want my girls to equate their worth with their beauty, but . . .  I love pretty things. For better or worse, I'm highly sensitive to aesthetics. I love finding fun color combinations,  or making something a little sassy or flirty or rustic or opulent or classically simple, depending on my mood. And this applies to home décor to fashion to accessories to freaking tablescapes. I admit it! I adore accessories and shoes, rings and bracelets. And ruffles. And bows.

 

My wedding dress was a big ball gown, with a long, dramatic veil, and I loved it.

And between you and me? I’d love to have an excuse to wear a tiara in a non-ironic way.

 

As a child, I loved dresses that had great twirlability. I was drawn to art, music, dance, and literature. I loved dolls. I loved princesses. I loved weddings. I loved pink. At times, I wished I lived in "the olden days," so I could wear a dress every day, not just on Sundays. Women not having the vote (or birth control!) in those golden olden days wasn't quite in my consciousness yet.

I did, however, get myself a degree in women's studies, which might seem at odds with my excitement over the dollhouse I found for my girls. And yeah, there's some internal conflict there, but I think my (completely unmarketable) background in intensely studying the ways in which femininity is constructed (I hate using that college-paper term) helps me go into princess culture with my eyes open.

 

The question is, how do I open Charlotte and Lorelei's eyes?

 

I don't have a good answer. Sure, I could've just not bought Cinderella in the first place. But the other night, while watching Cinderella, Charlotte said, "I like her so much."

 

"Yeah?" I said, not sharing my views of Cinderella's idiocy. "Why?"

 

"Because," Charlotte said. "She's nice. And her step-sisters and step-mother are NOT nice." We talked, and Charlotte liked how nice Cinderella is to the animals, how good and loyal the dog Bruno is, and how silly the mice are. Nice and mean, good and evil. And a pretty blue dress. So far, that seemed to be Charlotte's take-away. That wasn't so bad.

 

And it turns out, Charlotte loves Ariel, because she swims in the ocean, just like she bravely swam in the ocean in Hawaii.

 

We can overthink the princess thing, perhaps.

 

In the meantime, the only thing I can think of to do is follow Charlotte's (and Lorelei's) lead. She has shown zero interest in Barbie, and I suspect Barbie's lack of story is the culprit. Charlotte loves Cinderella best, though she's opting for a Little Mermaid (Ariel) themed birthday party, which I'll give her. And there is the fact that Disney has gotten much better in recent years with its princesses--Mulan is a warrior, Belle (who came a mere year after Ariel) is bookish and can't hold her tongue (guess who MY favorite princess is), Merida is literally BRAVE, and Rapunzel is endearingly lively and quite goal-oriented. And TinkerBell (okay, she's a fairy, not a princess, but Charlotte LOVES TinkerBell) never, EVER follows the rules. And her fairy "talent" is engineering, building, and fixing things.

 

Well-meaning and corrective as it is, maybe we can dial the anti-princess hysteria a bit. Don't you think?

 

Finally, I believe that Charlotte's actual reality--a mix of pink-and-purple and princesses and Spider Man and Wonder Woman and Legos and trains and sports--will do far more to guide her writing her own story than engineering her future to make her a future engineer. No, we should not just blindly buy princess crap, particularly if a child's interests are elsewhere, but I really don't think that Cinderella will stand between Charlotte and an engineering career, should she opt for and work toward it.

 

Chris and I discuss the girls--and how to help them find their own talents (like TinkerBell!)--often. We conclude that our best bet is to encourage curiosity, give space for tinkering and creativity, encourage the aspects of themselves they can control (e.g., not giving up on a task, behavior), and ensure they know they are always deeply, astoundingly loved, whether they become engineers, or artists. Or, come to think of it, princess characters at Disneyland.