What Are We Teaching Our Girls?

I've been FBing with a friend about the Twilight series tonight. I enjoyed the first book when I read it a year or so ago. Finally got around to getting the second book out of the library last month and WOW, I couldn't have hated it more. Aside from my issues with the writing (hello, melodramatic freshman creative writing student!) the whole "heroine" character made me seethe with her sorrowful histrionics. I mean, Jeez-o-MAN, stop yer bitching, bitch! Good Lord, the tears, the anguish, the contemplated suicide, all for a high school boyfriend. Believable? Yeah, I guess, the teen years are fraught with overwrought emotion but this was just too much. Or maybe I'm just not the target audience as an overtired mother approaching middle age who has seen her fair share of sorrow, some of it making a boyfriend who skipped town look like a walk down easy street.

The whole thing got me thinking about the crap young girls are fed in our society, much of it starting well before they are old enough to be swooning over the likes of Edward Cullen and his lot. Disney can stand up and take a bow as the leader of the pack when it comes to teaching our girls terrible, horrible, no good, very bad (thank you, Judith Viorst) lessons about what women need in life. Specifically, a man to rescue us.

Think about it...Sleeping Beauty would have slept on indefinitely if Prince Phillip hadn't slayed the evil fairy (Let's not even get into her petty snit that all started because she wasn't invited to a christening. Who would seriously be pissed about not being invited to that boring shit?) Ditto with Snow White...she warbled nonsensically about how someday her prince would come and come he did, just in time to kiss her awake from her poisoned slumber (again the victim of a jealous woman.) The women in Peter Pan all go goo-goo over him and stab each other in the back as much as they can to curry his favor. Belle, booksmart but still stupid, falls in love with a Beast who locks her away and loses his temper constantly. If ever there was a woman who needed a restraining order and a safe house...

Cinderella was basically enslaved until her fairy godmother came along (and took her sweet time about it, too!) Did godmother wave her magic wand and give Cinderella some start-up cash and a carriage to get out of town and start a life for herself outside of stepmother's reach? No indeed. Instead, she oh-so-practically dressed up the scullery maid and sent her off to bag herself a man who would solve her problems for her. That is, until he got bored and went back to chasing palace chambermaids. Or started smacking her around. Or watched medieval ESPN all the time. Or up and died on her. Hey, it happens and much more often than we'd like to consider and basing your happiness on a dude is like building your castle on a foundation of sand. That's why Disney is selling our girls a bill of goods with the whole "you need a prince to live happily ever after..." bidness. No, you don't. You need to be the best you that you can be and then think about finding a man who appreciates you for how fabulous you are. Girls need role models who stand up for themselves, take care of themselves, believe in their own abilities and aren't afraid to say so. I know, I know, the stories behind the Disney movies come from fables far older than the Disney machine but still, we let go of so many other archaic beliefs, why did we have to keep these misogynistic fairy tales alive?

I was lucky enough to find a true prince. I feel very happy with him. However, I didn't have to forsake my family for him like Ariel. Or forgive him for pretending to be someone he wasn't like Jasmine. Or pretend to be someone I wasn't like Mulan. Unlike Cinderella, I was happy and fulfilled before I met him and he was happy and fullfillled before he met me and that's what made us attractive to each other. Now we're living our fairy tale and working towards happily ever after, no talking mice or singing dwarfs necessary. Oh, and somedays it IS work to keep up the happily ever after, another fact Disney neglects to mention, but it's worth it. So very worth it.

Don't even get me started on how the overwhelming majority of Disney characters have at least one dead parent.

And yes, The Madam loves Disney Princess stuff and I let her watch the movies. Often. Then I tell her how smart and capable she is while the credits roll and she looks at me with a mixture of incomprehension and disdain just like she will a decade from now when I dare to contradict the sacrosanct opinions of her peers. I'll keep it up as long as she begs for another viewing though. Hey, it's the best I can do.