Fuck you, Walt Disney company!
Mind you, I think Disney's new animated movie - featuring its first African-American princess (about time, guys!) looks very cool.
Not so cool: the company's spokesman, Gary Forster, proclaiming that:
“We believe it is an innate desire in the vast majority of young girls to play out the fantasy of being a princess… They like to dress up, they like to role-play. It’s just a genetic desire to like pink, to like the castle, to turn their dads into the prince.”
(For more, read it here.)
Newsflash, Gary: some of us had the genetic desire to collect action figures like Green Lantern, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk.
Last time I checked, none of them wore pink.
I don't even want to go near his implications about us wanting to marry our dads. I think Freud spread around that fucked up idea quite awhile ago, actually.
What pisses me off the most is that mainstream media haven't murmured a mere peep about this outrageous comment. I found out about it from Feminist Review.
Can you imagine the uproar if Forster would have made such a stereotypical comment about an ethnic group? It just goes to show that women, while making up more than 50% of the population, are still an acceptable group to generalize about.
You notice it's a (clueless) male who made this comment, anyhow.
Each day I realize how lucky I was to grow up with a feminist dad who told me I could do anything I wanted. He'd be pissed about this kind of comment, too.
6 comments:
ughfuckindisneyugh!!!
I'm pretty sure I never wanted to be a princess when I was a girl. Actually, I wanted to be a monkey of some sort, but that's a whole nuther story.
I suspect a lot of his issues there are extremely poor word choices. Replace the word "genetic" with "cultural" and his statement actually has a modicum of truth. Social forces work to present the "princess ideal" and to push the genders towards certain colors.
For example, I have a gorgeous rich purple suit I like to wear. But when I do I hear occasional comments about being in touch with my feminine side and so forth. No, I just happen to think it is a cool color. But purple is a "girls color". Heaven help the guy who wears pink, everyone knows he is gay...because pink is the girls color.
It is set into the social awareness from the earliest days. Quick, you see a baby wearing pink, what gender are they? You see a baby wearing blue, what gender are they?
He got his words confused.
As for the whole voodoo thing, I can't get on board with the complaint there. Story writers are in a catch 22. If they don't reference things like that then they are ignoring alternative traditions. If they do then they are perpetuating stereotypes. There is no "right" answer there for them.
I have a right answer though.
"What was the name of the guy who first flew at Kittyhawk?"
"Wright"
OMG ..the last thing I ever wanted to be is a Princess..I hate dresses and crowns..
If you ever listen to Chris Mathews on MSNBC or Slimy Bill O'Reilly, you
will hear what some of the male species really thinks about us.
GiGi: I don't consider them "male species," but rather "bottomfeeders." :)
Darth: I want to see the purple suit!
JLee: Tell me more!
Viva: I think that's my new word of the day!
I never wanted to be a princess either. Except Princess Leah, natch. She kind of ruled.
Cxx
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