1 post tagged “imagination”

Full disclosure, right at the outset:  I never was very much into princesses, dolls, and that sort of thing when I was a wee lass.  Of all the games and toys I can remember from childhood, none involve tulle or tiaras--oh, well, tulle I guess when I was taking ballet lessons, but that doesn't count.  Now I have a son and from the very beginning he has been a very stereotypical boy.  It's as if a fascination with heavy machinery comes with the Y chromosome, though I guess not all boys love John Deere the way my boy does.  But, seriously, I didn't do this to him.  He liked trucks and things long before I thought he would have such male-type behaviors.  He also used to, come to think of it, sort of thump his chest and grunt when he was really little, sort of Tarzan meets Tim Allen.  Um, anyway. 

Oh, and also, I have read too much Freud.  End disclosure statement.

So, it seems that the Disney princesses have joined forces and become a highly marketable, cherry-lipped gang.  I hear they roam the aisles of toy stores in search of prey.  Their targets:  Impressionable young girls eager to slip into cheaply made dresses and do the Viennese waltz with some Prince Charming.  Apparently, Snow White and Cinderella are no longer stand alone characters in classic animated films.  No--dissatisfied, no doubt, with the lonely and stifled lives they lead being married to royalty, they have formed a league with that little tart Ariel and no doubt that tramp named Belle, too (correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe Belle and Cinderella are only princesses after marriage--aren't they both commoners by birth?). 

And, apparently, some feminists are pissed.  Barbara Ehrenreich, for example, wants to make a giant pink-and-purple tulle bonfire and send the plastic little ladies into the atmosphere (whereby creating untold tons of greenhouse gases).  On the one hand, you can understand it.  These princesses in Disney movies are not good role models.  It should not be the lifelong dream of any girl to be, to take one example, in a coma for 100 years only to be molested by royalty or, to take another, to be imprisoned by an ill-tempered beast who demands your love.  The main reason I never got into the whole princess gig is that those girls are always sort of lying around (or, worse, cleaning house!) waiting for something to happen to them and bring them happiness or something.  Crazy bitches. 

On the other hand, I think adults miss the entire point of the princesses and, indeed, of children's literature (especially Ehrenreich, but we'll get to that in a minute).  This isn't about role models or real-life aspirations.  It's fantasy, pure and simple, but it is fantasy that adults, and especially parents, find uncomfortable and unsavory. 

For example, out of all of these princesses, who among them lives with both of her natural parents?  Some of the parents are dead.  The step-parents are evil.  Belle, of course, lives with her father, until she chooses to take his place in prison, at which time the father disappears.  If you look through folktales and fairy tales aimed at children, especially Grimm's, this is a constant theme.  The implicit fantasy in many of these tales is a fantasy of independence.  It is not coincidental that children start to like these stories at a time when they are hungering for some freedom from their parents and feeling increasingly frustrated that there is still so very much that they can't do for themselves.  They are made to do things by their parents; they are banished to their rooms when they are bad; they must follow every little directive from above, and they naturally fantasize about how it would be to lose their parents.  I know many 4- and 5-year-olds who have fashioned elaborate plans to run away--I know I did, too, and I did run away for, oh, a few hours until I realized I had neglected to pack even a lunch and so I rushed back to mom who fed me.

I don't think that these fantasies are conscious, no--and no preschooler could articulate this kind of thing.  And, as a parent, it is terrible to think that your little precious wants to be away from you.  But they do sometimes.  The fantasy of the evil step-parent is just their cute little way of telling you, mom, that you are evil. 

There are also rescue fantasies, of course, like Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel and others.  When you've punished your child, ostracized them and made them feel bad, isn't it the most natural thing in the world to think that someone out there might see their beauty (internal or external) and come to save them from their wretched fate?  Many children--mine for sure--react dramatically to being punished; they sometimes do think it is the end of the world and that their parents will never forgive them or love them again or give them cookies.  And so they fantasize.  I spent many an hour in grad school seminars wishing some freakin dude on a white horse would save me from that little prison.  *sigh*

I think Ehrenreich is particularly wrong about the sex thing.  Sure, there's the kissing and the marriage and happily ever after.  And, yes, Ariel wears only shells, though the other princesses dress, um, weirdly but less sexily.  OOH, the awkward phrasing.  I don't know how to describe how they dress, honestly.  What kind of person wears that many gowns? 

Anyway, the point is that I really don't think that little girls who are wearing Cinderella gowns are thinking sexually.  There may always be latent sexuality, I guess, but I don't think this has anything to do with a 4-year-old girl's desire for a tiara or even for an Ariel bikini.  It's the adults who sexualize it.  The little girl is just playing.  She's fantasizing, again, about being something other than what she is:  having the beauty, wealth, poise, and charm that goes along with the princess package.  She probably feels less-than-confident as she is making her first steps out into the world, away from her parents, and so she imagines herself as older, prettier, and having no reason at all to doubt herself because she is, in her fantasy, perfect in every way. 

Obviously, being already perfect in every way, I had no need of such fantasies.  And I'm sure the same goes for you, fair and most lovely reader.

The point is, whenever I hear objections to some children's literature or other that are clearly coming from an adult viewpoint (too sexualized, too violent, bad role models, whatever), I just want to cry.  Having a young son, I read a lot of contemporary children's books and one thing I've found very concerning is that so many of them have a lesson.  A clear, stern, good sort of lesson.  Tolerance.  Respect.  The value of hard work.  Etc. 

It's not that those are bad lessons, any of them.  But I don't think it's good (at any age, but especially for very young children) to have a clear, set moral thrown up in your face.  That shuts down the imagination.  "Oh, this wasn't just a story, something I might mull over and ponder and come up with my own thoughts about.  No.  This was a lesson to be learned." 

I don't know for sure--I have no tangible, credible evidence or even a really good, strong argument--but I think pure imagination should be encouraged.  I think kids should wear pink tulle (or, in my son's case, cherry-shaped barrettes and pink necklaces with his tractor T-shirts) and imagine running away from their parents, even if it means they run away on the back of Prince Charming's horse.  I think kids should read Where the Wild Things Are and just imagine it, the monsters and being king and all of it.  I think there is enough time in life to learn the lessons and facts of life, and I'm not sure that a kid who never reads a book that specifically expounds the virtues of respect for others can't get there just by imagining himself or herself in all kinds of crazy settings doing crazy things.  I often think, actually, that kids who get there on their own, in their own time, via their own stories and imaginative flights, internalize a strong moral code much earlier and more reliably than kids who get it shoved down their throats through sham stories.  I think that they do, and it makes sense to me intuitively, because they made it themselves.

The point, if there must be one, is that I don't think the princess thing is really harmful.  The Disney princesses are more obnoxious than princesses in books, I guess, because Disney is somewhat obnoxious already, the music is always frightful, and they apparently have never heard of pants, but all in all, I say let the kids fantasize and play.  If you feel you must resist the juggernaut, by all means, have them make their own tiaras and stuff instead of buying the crappy shit Disney-China puts out.  Great.  I'm all about resisting the corporate-consumerist traps. 

Otherwise, let their imaginations go.  Please.