Tags: fighting back
Posted February 5th, 2012, in Fairy Tales, Recommendations, Recommendations Girls, Recommendations Grown-ups | 13 Comments
Before being co-opted by Uncle Walt (and, for that matter, the Brothers Grimm), the medieval, European fairy tales were a women’s medium, an oral tradition shared over long hours of repetitive work, such as spinning (that’s where “spinsters” comes from…). The tales were the entertainment of their day: the movies, the TV, even the porn (did you really think that Rapunzel and the Prince just talked in that tower?). The Grimms recorded the tales of their time and place, but as their compendium went through a variety of reprints–and as the stories became aimed at children–the brothers took out the sex (especially the pervasiveness of incest as the motivation for a heroine’s flight) and amped up the violence. They figured, like many of the day, that scaring the beejezus out of kids would get them to behave. Personally, I love fairy tales and there are those (such as Bruno Bettelheim) [...]
Tags: age compression, CAMD, Disney, girlie girl culture, pink, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted September 7th, 2011, in Creepy Marketing, Fairy Tales, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 82 Comments
I just received a press release (excerpted below) below from the Disney Store. Those pseudo-empowering” Rapunzels and Belles are just bait-and-switch for trusting parents. The big money–the REAL money (the $5 BILLION a year) is creating and selling to what here is called the “Princess Fashionista” and then keeping her business and loyalty as she reaches the high-spending tweens and beyond. Interesting that girls here are no longer encouraged by Disney to live HAPPILY ever after but STYLISHLY ever after. Hence my theory that really, the thing to be concerned about these days is NOT the rescued-by-the-prince fantasy so much as the way today’s Princess culture girls to a of femininity that is sexualized, narcissistic, self-objectifying, vain, commercialized, self-objectifying….and need I say UNHEALTHY? Fashionistas receive the royal treatment with an enchanted evening of pampering and accessorizing, Disney-style PASADENA, Calif., September 7, 2011–Disney Store will celebrate New York City’s Fashion’s Night Out [...]
Tags: fighting back, girlie girl culture, princess culture
Posted August 12th, 2011, in Fairy Tales | 6 Comments
The first “Hunger Games” movie is set to hit theaters in March. The next one was just announced as well, set for November 2013. Both will star Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. She’s a little old for the part, true, but I A*D*O*R*E*D* her in Winter’s Bone which was one of the best movies I’ve seen in years (MUST SEE MUST SEE MUST SEE). So I am crossing my fingers that she will be the anti-Bella……
Tags: CAMD, Pixar
Posted June 8th, 2011, in Fairy Tales, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 71 Comments
Awhile ago I posted some art for Pixar’s upcoming film Brave, its first with a female protagonist. And, naturally, I pointed out that Pixar has seemed almost perversely incapable of creating a female protagonist and how utterly offensive that is since they’ve made films about Anyway, among the comments someone inevitably asked “What about Jessie? What about Sally in Cars?” I started to answer and then realized this deserved its own entire post. So here goes. Let me begin with this: if a studio as innovative as Pixar made 12–that’s TWELVE– films with female protagonists and a few had perhaps 1 or 2 strong tertiary characters were who were male and maybe 1 in 10 male characters with ANY speaking parts at ALL wouldn’t you think that was a teensy-weensy bit disproportionate, minimally a failure of imagination and maximally openly hostile in its dismissal of boys and men? Would [...]
Tags: Disney, pink princess culture camd
Posted May 28th, 2011, in Fairy Tales, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 18 Comments
In case you haven’t heard, Pixar’s 13th movie will have a female heroine. They say that like they should be proud of themselves. As if it isn’t a HUGE EMBARRASSMENT that they have done a DOZEN films without a single woman in a starring role? That in Toy Story I there were no females at all (except Bo Peep) and they didn’t even notice? I’m just saying. Also, just to gripe a little more, after waiting patiently (and sometimes not so much) through 12 genre-busting films about male robots, male superheroes, male cowboys, male rats, male cars, male ugs, male fish and a small male mailman, it would have been nice if the movie was NOT about a princess, even a kick-ass princess. But there it is. It may well be great, but honestly, that was a huge failure of imagination. It will also be interesting to see if, as [...]
Tags: Disney, pink, premature sexualization, princess culture, snow white
Posted December 2nd, 2010, in Fairy Tales, Girl Crush, Uncategorized, Why I Wrote CAMD | No Comments
She also does Belle and Little Mermaid. Each one is bitingly brilliant. Though I thought of some of the jokes independently and they’re in my book. Right here, right now, for the record: I THOUGHT OF THEM BEFORE I EVER SAW THESE VIDS!!!! But I still love these.
Facebook
Twitter
Email Sign-Up
RSS Feed
