Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Princess Industrial Complex

Not Leia, Disney. (H/t: RoBoTNiK, who supplied me with the title phrase.) Nothing really to add, except I'm glad my daughters are getting inoculated with the anime rearticulation of Disney so that they may, some day, exercise the powers of comparing/contrasting and of drawing their own conclusions. Which is a roundabout way of saying, thank you, Pretty Cure. You're no PowerPuff Girls (click on both to exercise your own powers of c/c and dyoc), but you're ok in my book. Never mind what I said about you on Berube's blog (@ end of comments). Or mine.

7 comments:

Bill Benzon said...

Then there's Snow Fairy Sugar, which is cuteness to the max. We got these little Season Fairies who are in quest to find some "sparkle" so they can earn their wings and become slighly larger (and fully mature) season faries. One of them is addicted to waffles.

JP Stormcrow said...

Several non-Disney comments on the NY Times story.

1) I recall a headline-grabbing 2005 British study that revealed that girls enjoy torturing, decapitating and microwaving their Barbies nearly as much as they like to dress them up for dates.
Eloise lives!
And I was surprised to learn by reading the comments at Amazon that she is quite the controversial children's book character. For example:
This story is about a misbehaving six-year-old who colors on the walls, throws temper tantrums, makes faces, destroys her dolls, and for all intensive purposes acts like a two-year-old. ...Throughout the story she repeatedly says "Oh my Lord!" which some parents may find objectionable."

2)Tracey Grammer's Hey Ho(written by Dave Carter before his death) is a brilliant send up of the obverse side of this.

tv's on, the favorite son is
watchin how the west was won
daddy, please, a plastic gun
get brother one for twice the fun


...
[chorus]
hey ho, so it goes, the point of sale, the puppet show
the merchant kings of war and woe have turned their hands to labor
...
Highly recommended.

3) One of my sons became Kimberly (the pink Power Ranger) for about a month sometime in his pre-school days. This included answering exclusively to "Kimberly" and 24x7 wearing of a costume my wife had cobbled together out of some pink pajamas. As you might imagine, received much advice and commentary from all comers on that one. Interesting experience.

Oaktown Girl said...

One of my sons became Kimberly (the pink Power Ranger) for about a month sometime in his pre-school days.

Ha! Sweet.

Although I don't know why people felt compelled to give you and the wife advice as it seems you needed none whatsoever.

JP Stormcrow said...

I did have a whole bunch of Disney stuff to say, but it is late now and the fascinating/infuriating role of Disney in the world is probably worth a whole separate post.

In the meantime, here is a fascinating look at Disney.
Stories of the Storytelling Organization:
A postmodern analysis of Disney as "Tamara-Land".

The Constructivist said...

JPS, thanks for the link. Definitely will use it the next time I teach this!

The Constructivist said...

Bill, I'm disappointed you didn't find a way to work princesses into your recent Disney post at The Valve!

The Constructivist said...

Oh, and thanks too, Bill, for the point that some anime rearticulations are worse than the original!

JPS, wonder if the folks who did the torturing Barbie study mentioned Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye as their inspiration....