Tags: age compression, CAMD, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization
Posted August 2nd, 2012, in Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 31 Comments
So, while we’re on the topic of how the Disney Princesses–the brand that parents go to to stave off premature sexualization of their innocent girls–are changing, let’s take a look at Belle. Recall that the message of “Beauty and the Beast” is that true beauty comes from within (though you could also argue it teaches that if you hang out with an abusive guy long enough he turns into a prince…). Now let’s look at how Belle has changed since her debut in 1991. Here she is in the movie, just a girl and her book, singing, as one does: Here she is, also in the movie, in her iconic yellow gown, the one that has made countless preschool girls rip the necks of their t-shirts because “princesses don’t show their shoulders” (people tell me that all the time): Now here is the BRAND NEW BELLE circa 2012 from [...]
Tags: CAMD, Disney, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, princess culture
Posted April 24th, 2012, in Creepy Marketing, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 27 Comments
The garden used to be a wholesome place where you could wrest your child away from the tentacles of licensed products, right? No more. the ever-brilliant Rebecca Hains has made me aware of Burpee’s new Disney Princess seeds (oh yes, that’s what I wrote). Needless to say, the ladies only grace flower packets—Mickey, Donald and the rest get vegetables because, as Rebecca notes, “princesses are meant to be gazed on; they are delicate beauties…” Too bad for boys who will now doubtless be expected to reject the flower patch. Meanwhile, Rebecca points out that while regular seeds cost about a buck a pack, The DP ones weigh in at $1.99. That’s quite the royalty tax Disney’s levying ! Then there’s the mark-up accompanying Disney Princess plant labels which cost a whopping $2.97 for 6 while the regular labels are a mere $1.99 for twenty. Rebecca concludes so beautifully [...]
Tags: age compression, CAMD, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted February 13th, 2012, in Creepy Marketing, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 13 Comments
Last week my publisher ran a contest on my facebook author page in which readers posted examples of the “princess industrial complex” run amok. I could not POSSIBLY choose only three from the bounty posted. So I wheedled an extra couple of books out of my publisher. I wish I could put a winner’s wreath (NOT a crown!) on everyone because each entry illustrated the reach and impact of princess/diva culture on younger and younger girls. You can see all entries by scrolling down the facebook page and hitting “older posts.” Meanwhile, would the winners please email your addresses to my publisher at: Erica.Barmash AT harpercollins.com to claim your prizes!Now, drum roll:GRAND PRIZE (signed copy of CAMD; a copy of Girls Like Us and a Harpercollins book tote): For Illustrating How Bombardment By Princess Products has Undermined Little Girls’ Imaginations and Flattened their Individuality: Beth Tischler Becker. When the children in [...]
Tags: CAMD, fighting back, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, princess culture
Posted January 18th, 2012, in Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 30 Comments
Rebecca Hains, best be known these days as the woman who got busted by the TSA for trying to take a red velvet cupcake through airport security, is, in her real life a media studies professor at Salem State University and author of Growing Up With Girl Power; Girlhood on Screen and in Every Day Life. She is also mother to a little boy who loves “My Little Pony,” a show, Rebecca says on her blog, that, like the beloved Powerpuff Girls, appeals equally to both sexes, defying the notion that boys/men won’t watch stories about girls/women. I have to admit I’m not a “My Little Pony” aficianado—my daughter was never into them and I recalled the old show as being inane, and largely about selling toys (the fact that the ponies were revived for the Hub, a TV station owned by Hasbro, and are skinnier and “prettier” in their [...]
Tags: age compression, CAMD, Disney, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, princess culture
Posted December 14th, 2011, in Princesses, Recommendations Girls, Why I Wrote CAMD | 39 Comments
Did Disney blink in releasing its new “age-appropriate” Sofia the First princess character and TV show? If Sofia is deemed “just right” for preschoolers, after all, wouldn’t that mean the now re-labeled “adult” princesses…aren’t? Yet for the past ten years, the Princess concept has been sold (and sold and sold) to the exact same demographic with the Disney assurance that they are “developmentally appropriate,” ”safe,” and imparting good values. No more. Sofia, they assure us, won’t be about romantic fantasy. She won’t need a prince to make her happy, a message that, according to one report Disney recognizes as a “legitimate worry” for parents and a “bad message for little girls.” Yet when I spoke with Disney execs while reporting Cinderella Ate My Daughter, they poo-pooed my concern, insisting that the romantic story lines and passive heroines of “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Little Mermaid” etc.–which, again, they were shilling to the very same preschool girls they now [...]
Tags: CAMD, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd
Posted November 14th, 2011, in Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 20 Comments
Somehow I missed last spring’s report from the commission on undergraduate women’s leadership at Princeton. It seems one of the more important and damning pieces of research on gender to come out in a while. Was there a huge fuss and I was so busy with post-book publication that I missed it? Or maybe it came out during the two weeks I was out of the country. Anyway, here’s the deal: over the last ten years, for the first time in the history of the university as a co-educational institution, there has been a significant decline in the number of female students holding major campus leadership positions–something that, as the report’s authors note, is not unique to Princeton. Plenty of elite colleges have taken their turn in the spotlight for their hostile environments towards women. (Yale, for instance, and MIT, which has undertaken a series of reports on the status [...]
Tags: age compression, CAMD, girlie girl culture, Let kids be kids, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization
Posted September 18th, 2011, in Creepy Marketing, Why I Wrote CAMD | 18 Comments
Even though I don’t like to harp on Toddlers & Tiaras contestants (because as I always say, looking at their extreme behavior desensitizes us to the every day sexualization “regular” girls face, plus they get enough PR) I can’t help but be fascinated–and concerned–by the trajectory of Eden Wood. I wrote about her and her mother, Mickie, in CAMD back when Eden was four. Now she’s quit pageants and, according to People, it’s become clear as to why: she’s got bigger things going on. This week 6-year-old Eden made her Fashion Week debut modeling footwear for the kids’ line Cicciabella: Ahem. You’re supposed to be looking at the boots. The evening’s hostess, Kelley Bensimon (could this GET any weirder?) said Eden was just having a “fun girly moment.” Because, you know, she’s wearing PINK and all. But I guess that’s the kind of comment you get when you look [...]
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: age compression, CAMD, fighting back, girlie girl culture, pink princess culture camd, premature sexualization, princess culture
Posted July 11th, 2011, in Barbie, Princesses, Why I Wrote CAMD | 20 Comments
I used to sort of enjoy Polly Pockets when Daisy was into them. I think it was their size. And they had some cool gear. And sometimes I’m a hypocrite, so sue me. Of course, Pollys, like most toys for girls, had aged down: initially, for instance, Barbie was aimed at a 9-12 demographic, but little girls, trying to be cool like their older sisters, start wanting them too and then they became anathema to the older girls. So now rather than starting with Barbies at 9, girls are done with them by 6. I write a lot about age compression in Cinderella Ate My Daughter and also how it’s affected the nature of the Barbie fantasy. Anyway, the thing with the Pollys is that they are now marketed (according to Amazon) to girls ages 2-5. And those little rubber clothes and shoes are really impossible for girls that age [...]
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