akitron: ok! so you bring up some interesting...

22nd February 2012

Photoset reblogged from Saint Jimmy Sparklepoop of Hallow's Eve with 14 notes

ok! so you bring up some interesting points!

Let’s preface this with that i am possibly the biggest and silliest and twee-est girly girl of all time. If I could I’d probably go around in lovely dresses and those doc martens with the flowers on them at all times. Except i don’t buy clothes and i have no money.

Anyhow.

I think it really depends on your views and how you discuss feminism and femininity with your children.

When I watch a movie like Sleeping Beauty, she isn’t exactly a paragon of a Strong Woman in how the media wants us to see Strong Women.

She is a romantic and naive and asleep most of the movie but! The three fairies are basically the heroes of the movie aren’t they? They give Prince Philip all the things he needs to save Aurora and they themselves took care of her through the years and were delighted to be her mothers and they delighted in doing everything that it took to do so you know?

Then there is another kind of princess like Tiana, who is a young woman who works super hard for her dreams and she wasn’t looking to find love but she found it and that’s ok! You can be hardworking and have dreams and still have someone to love despite what romcoms like to tell you.

I don’t really like when people use Ariel as an example of THE DOWNFALL OF FEMINISM because yeah she got legs to see Prince Eric, but he was the catalyst! She had always wanted to see what was on land and he was like the oasis in her desert. She was curious and smart and though she loved Eric he was also her way out.

She’s a good character people!!! GOD

Basically there are negative connotations to everything and while Disney Princesses are clearly not perfect, they are not something that is the downfall of Feminism as we know it, because when i hear that i hear “We are not giving you the choice to like girly things because that isn’t real feminism”.

Anyway you want to be a girl is the right way and like, i think as long as you talk about what the problems are or can be thematically and the ways that these girls are good and wonderful people as well, and who they can be beyond the constraints of a 2 hour animated film.

I hope that helps?

The earlier Disney movies were largely based on the fairy tales associated with the movie, which, surprise, were misogynist and written years before feminism was ever even a concept. Disney changed most of the most egregious parts of the story- originally, the Little Mermaid commits suicide when she realizes she can never be with her man- while keeping true to the spirit. Belle’s intelligence and love of reading were never a part of the original concept, but a deliberate effort to modernize it and provide a better example to girls. Personally, I think the source is more problematic than the way Disney spins it.

But so what? One of my first and favorite books was Fifty Famous Fairy Tales, and it didn’t Disney-up any of those stories, regardless of poor messaging and anti-feminism. Yet, even as a child, I knew they were just FANTASY. I was still a tomboy, who dreamed of math, accomplishing things, and never having children. It didn’t matter to me that the opposite seemed to be the goal of every princess or female in the books I read- in real life, the messages were worse(girls can’t do math, all women want children someday, etc.)

I just hate how people seem to want to blame Disney or fairy tales for all the sexism that exists in society. I guess if you depend on television, books, and movies to teach your children all their moral values, it might be a problem. But my mom actually talked to me on occasion, and trusted I was smart enough to recognize fiction from reality.

Source: akitron

Shades of Gray