[ SECRET POST #2442 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2442 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 045 secrets from Secret Submission Post #349.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not particularly against Disney princesses, but I don't think it's harmless fun either. It reinforces gender stereotypes and makes a girl think that her greatest aspiration in life is to wear a ballgown, a tiara, and marry the prince.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I mean, can we be fair about this? No little kid is sitting there scholastically analyzing every Disney princess for her merits and contributions to feminism, they see (using Cinderella as an example) "1.) unhappy life -> 2.) magic ballgown -> 3.) prettier than everyone -> 4.) marry prince -> 5.) happily ever after." And that's not exactly the best lesson to glean out of something.

[bur]

It was more unhappy life, trying to give herself an opportunity and fix it herself by going to the ball in a gown she made with her ability to brainwash small animals with tiny clothes, have plans crushed by abusive family, and THEN getting a magical ballgown. It was more of a "Fairy Godmothers help those who try to help themselves but have shitty families" thing. It might still be problematic, but it's definitely not how you put it.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, yeah, I put all of that into the "unhappy life" part of things. We're saying the same thing, you just added more details.

[(Anonymous)]

Not really. Their summary had a completely different focus, centering on the things you glossed over and trivialized into "unhappy life." That's where the actual meat of the story is.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's fair to kids; don't confuse the movie and shallow Disney princess marketing. When I was a little girl, I saw: 1) unhappy life -> 2. refusing to let it get her down -> 3) mean people kept trying to ruin things for her -> 4) but all hope wasn't lost with the help of good friends and the will to pick herself and keep trying -> 5) happily ever after. It wasn't hard, since the best parts of the film were the fairy godmother and the mice being awesome to Cinderella, not her dancing around with the prince. But that kind of stuff isn't as easy to package in toys as a pretty dress.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, the princesses themselves are very cool characters that I'd want any kid to look up to (hell, even the ones chasing after a man were determined not to let anything get in the way of what they wanted to achieve in life - Cinderella picked her shit up and went to that ball, damn it), but the marketing behind them is cold-blooded. There's far more to those heroines than just ballgowns and tiaras and getting hitched (though ballgowns and tiaras are perfectly cool, but probably not the only reasons most kids like the princesses, since their movies aren't focused on that), yet you wouldn't know it from the products put out there for them. So while I definitely don't support denying a kid a damn doll/dress/crown if they want it, it seems a little more complicated than just "oh it's harmless fun, let's not examine anything about it at all!"

[(Anonymous)]

Yup. This isn't the case with the characters themselves, per se, but the whole "Disney Princesses" thing is really not something I'm a fan of. I especially hated the watered-down Merida they brought to the clan a while back. Seriously? This is the girl that hates getting dressed up, loves riding her horse and shooting her bow...but we're going to stuff her into the outfit she absolutely loathed in the film.

[lyndis]

Did they really do that? :(

[saiika_von_maou]

I don't get this. Maybe I was a weird kid, but when I watched Cinderella as a little girl my view on it was like: "She can talk to animals and can sew and is really nice! She's great!" I wasn't exactly analyzing her contributions to feminism either, but I wasn't sitting there thinking that the best I could hope for was to be pretty and marry a prince. Hell, the prince was no better than a footnote at that age.

That goes for all the princesses. I'd pick and choose what I liked about them and applied them to what I wanted in life. Ariel was passionate about things (plus she was a mermaid, how fucking cool was that?), Belle loved to read and was brave, Cinderella was kind and hard-working; on and on.

Again, maybe I was a weird kid, but I just don't get the idea that these movies make little girls think in a self-limiting way. I think that's giving children way too little credit. I just don't understand.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm with you there - as a kid I did the same thing (including the obsession with how awesome mermaids are)... at no point did I think "Disney has pretty dresses, so all I want to do when I grow up is have a dress and get married"... nope. I took good lessons from them, enjoyed the songs and such, then moved on. I remember wanting to be a veterinarian and help animals - and enjoyed Disney at the same time with no ill effects. Kids aren't fucking idiots.

[(Anonymous)]

Mulan doesn't exactly reinforce gender stereotypes and neither does Tiana. In fact, I'd go so far as to say neither one of them gave a shit about gender stereotypes.

[(Anonymous)]

Veering off-topic: One of the big reasons Mulan is among my favorites is because nothing she did was motivated by a desire to show the world that girls can do anything. That may have been the end result, but she had no desire to Make A Point. She was just doing what she felt was the only thing she could to preserve her family's honor and keep someone she loved safe.

[(Anonymous)]

Bullshit. I watched a lot of Disney movies, I wore pretty princess dresses and loved pink. I grew up to be one of the least girlish women I know.
I also didn't turn magically racist because of the "Indian" song in Peter Pan.