I’ve lost count of which wave it is, but lately there is yet another backlash against “princess culture”: moms digging in and fighting back against the pink and sparkly tide that drowns young girls’ imaginations. The latest book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, encourages moms to tell their daughters that poofy dresses are impractical, glass slippers give you corns, and the worst possible way you can spend your life is to wait for Prince Charming to come.
I have to agree that the pink wave is rather nauseating at best; and at worst, there is a genuine danger of girls learning the lesson that feminine=pretty, and nothing more. Older girls, with no other guidance, translate this equation into feminine=sexy, and nothing more—and we all know where that leads.
Modern Disney movies try to split the difference: the heroine enjoys a moderate amount of sparkle and froth—but only after she learns that what she really wanted was inside herself all along, and the main obstacle to happiness was everyone else’s mulish inability to appreciate the wonderfulness that is she. Yeah, she gets to be princess; but best of all, the rest of the world earns the exquisite privilege of finding out that she doesn’t need to be princess. Yay!
Of course, little girls watch these movies because they like the dancing parts, and all the self-actualization claptrap goes over their heads. At least, I hope it does. Entertainment has a certain effect, but they learn a lot more from watching their own mother’s relationships.
But of course stories do matter. Movies and fairy tales do instruct while they entertain. Which is why I would like to encourage a return to the older versions of fairy tales, before even old-fashioned, “classic” Disney got ahold of them. Blood! Betrayal! Vengeance! Torture! And an awful lot about love.
My favorite fairy tale is Rapunzel. I haven’t seen the new movie version, Tangled, and have no idea what it’s about. But here’s the original story in a nutshell: selfish wife has pregnancy craving, threatens to die; husband steals plant for wife, is caught, and promptly offers newborn baby in exchange for his life. Child grows up in witch’s doorless tower. Witch reaches her by climbing up her gorgeous, extravagant hair. Wandering prince finds her by her sad singing and wins her heart. Girl naively mentions visits by prince; witch, in a fury, chops off her hair. Prince is lost and sorrowful without girl, and is blinded by thorns, wanders in wilderness. Girls, meanwhile, bears twins alone and in secret. Blind prince happens to wander to her, again recognizes her singing. Girl’s tears fall on his eyes, his sight is restored. And then they live happily ever after.
Talk about a modern story! Here we go: a couple loses their child through selfishness and cowardice (happens every day in family court). An overbearing foster mother overcompensates, turning the girl into a prisoner of her own innocence and femininity (ever hear of stay-at-home-daughters?). The girl instinctively still craves normal relationships (shades of Jurassic Park: “Life finds a way”), but is immediately and harshly punished by being stripped of her very sense of identity (there’s a support group for that). But it’s too late for this remedy: the babies are on the way.
Then follows a long period of loneliness and suffering (that would be that dreadful transitional stage wherein young women try to reconcile the hard-won freedoms of feminism with the timeless obligations of motherhood), as her hair, presumably, regrows (but she probably keeps it in a bun now!). When the two are finally reunited, the woman heals the man through her tears: and I imagine they are tears of anger, regret, loneliness, but mostly gratitude and hope, all in one. In other words, tears of love. He has been roundly, soundly punished for taking what was not rightly his—but is mercifully rewarded with the fruits of his passion anyway, purified through suffering. The first thing he sees in years is not something new, not the prize at the end of the rainbow, but the fruit of what has already been made in secret: his beautiful twin babies. It’s not too late!
Besides being fabulous drama and an excellent modern fable, Rapunzel is a startlingly ancient story of self-discovery. Not in the Disney way: it’s not about learning to love yourself, following your heart, or discovering that the answer to all your dreams was right there at home all along. It’s about wanting something good, taking it the wrong way, losing everything, and then getting it all back a hundredfold.
Sound familiar? It’s the story of salvation.
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I once read somewhere that all the traditional “fairytales” were actually about the Resurrection. Sort of makes sense.
I read with interest your links about girls trapped in their homes under the auspices of virtuous sumbission. Just the other day I had read this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160363526909654.html?KEYWORDS=Mitch+Horowitz
I live next door to a convent of religious sisters. In the eight years we’ve been here I would estimate about forty different women have passed through - many of the young sisters in formation come to the university here to finish their education. I think about five of the young ladies decided to leave the order, and I’ve never seen even a hint of weirdness about it. They are not only not crippled financially or shunned, but they are loved and understood and helped on their way, and all of them continue a healthy relationship with the order after leaving.
A real love and appreciation of women is never controling! I’m so grateful my parents had so much love and concern for me, but didn’t try to keep me locked in a tower. Even though I do have exceptionally awesome hair.
Interesting piece. Rapunzel was always my favorite fairy tale, too. (Although I love Disney’s version of “Beauty and the Beast”.) I think a big part of the princess back-lash is that a lot of people equate princess with beauty queen while in the original renderings the princesses were usually bastions of virtue and prudence.
I think the stay-at-home daughters movement is a bit of a backlash against the common cultural philosophy that teenage girls should not have any rules about who they date (a la Miley Cyrus dating a 22-year-old when she was 15) and parents shouldn’t dare to say a word when it is obvious their daughter is making bad relationship decisions. While a college-education is certainly on the agenda for my daughters, any man they want to marry better be prepared for a thorough interrogation by me. They are the most precious things in the world to me, and the men they marry had better appreciate them the same way.
Simcha, I now have to read the original! I had no idea about the twins _or_ that the father originally offered the baby to the witch. Yikes!
I didn’t know the real story of Rapunzel, and just assumed the Disney version was dramatically different. Turns out they’re not that different. I remember thinking in the theater that this Rapunzel was much less “princess” than the others. In fact, I was surprised by how likable Disney managed to make her.
I enjoy the princess stuff, but many of my peers disdain it. In general, my response to them is that I’m not worried about my daughters getting “too princessey”. I have confidence in my ability to raise them with a solid foundation, and my ability to lay down the law if they miss the mark in their teen years. But we’ll see. I’ve got a long way to go.
Simcha, I love this. I think your analysis is dead-on, the old fairy tales are so much richer than the Disney retellings. My problem is not so much with princesses per se but with the retellings of their stories that have lost what is really worth emulating in the original versions.
When I was a very little girl I loved Disney movies but then someone gave me two huge books of fairy tales, one a volume of the Brothers Grimm and one of Hans Christian Anderson. There is no more certain way to make Disney look like weak tea than to imbibe huge quantities of the original strong brew. When Disney’s Little Mermaid came out I liked it well enough for what it was but recognized that the storytelling was far inferior to Hans Christian Anderson’s original fable, whose climax is achieved not when the girl gains the prince—she actually loses him in the original—but when she gains something much more valuable: an immortal soul.
This makes me want to read Rapunzel to my kids again.
The spouse-person and I raised our daughter as a princess with Barbies, dance lessons, Disney movies, piano lessons, poofy dresses, and all sorts of girlie stuff—she is a faithful Catholic young woman who is close to finishing a doctorate. She ain’t crippled emotionally, and even now makes more money than her old dad—her PROUD old dad.
I, like Melonie, had been given books of original Fairy Tales as a young girl. I never really liked the Disney versions after that. Some of the originals are so brutal, but the actions of many people in real life are brutal. And that brutality always ends in an equally brutal punishment in a fairy tale, which makes perfectly good sense to a child. After all, children tend to maintain an eye-for-an-eye type of justice. I never felt traumatized after reading one, although occasionally, as in the punishment of the faithless maid/false princess in the Goose Girl, I was grossed out for a few days. But she stupidly named her own punishment herself.
And I am reasonably certain that I know laura who posted above. I can attest to the fact that she really does have exceptionally awesome hair.
Have you ever read any fiction by Donna Jo Napoli? She is a Young Adult author -so not too heavy for the over taxed brain- and does some great treatments of fairy tails. Her Rapunzel novel, “Zel” is great. Follows the original, but with small twists. If you like fairy tales, you might like her work.
I also love the original fairy tales which have deeper inner meaning to ponder on. Fairy tales for adults to think about are those of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov especially ‘The Lost Princess’. Haven’t little girls always loved to dress up and pretend they are a princess?-can’t see it doing them any harm but plenty of good.
Does anyone out there remember radio? and the wonderful fairytale hour each Saturday morning produced by Nila Mack, Let’s Pretend????? I can
even sing still the commercial jingle created by the sponsor, Cream of Wheat ( it’s so good to eat!) What an imaginative hour it was for
young minds, boys and girls alike…among my favorites was Rumplestilsken
...what a nasty he was! Virtue was always extolled in the end! After the hour was over my friends and I recreated the show over and over complete with dress-ups! The technology of modern times is wonderful ...but it
also requires less of an imagination and can be so passive in many ways.
Bless your heart! That’s wonderful.
Aunt Simmy,
The new Tangled movie was phenomenal if you ask me. Nice post.
thenoblebard.blogspot.com
This is awesome! And that SAHD piece is just too creepy for words. Okay, I get it: there’s nothing wrong with an 11pm curfew and your dad stepping in occasionally and saying “you are NOT dating that idiot!” but, really, staying at home until marriage, no job and no college education? And it’s forced upon you? Heck, even in Iran more than 50% of the college students are women, even if they are swathed in black from head to toe.
I am going to have to go get the original rapunzel and read this to my girls. I too am tired of the ‘princess’ mentality pushed onto our girls. To me princess=self-absorbed and contrary to what I hope my girls will turn out to be.
If you haven’t read it, the Paul O. Zelinsky telling of Rapunzel in fairly true to the original, and beautifully illustrated, he took his inspiration for the art from renaissance paintings. It is one of my favorite read alouds.
I never had a clue that the original Rapunzel story was so rich.
I’m going to have to dig around for some good fairy tale collections I can download to my new Kindle. I’d expect the “real” versions of all of them pre-date 1923, and therefore should be available at no charge.
Oh, and as the father of a boy and a girl, I am not really worried about the effect of the princess culture on my daughter, as it doesn’t seem to have sunk in. But I’m plenty worried about the effect on my son…or more precisely, on the young women he will be starting to date before I know it. Where shall he find a girl who does not see herself and her desires and her self-actualization all at the very center of the universe?
A non-royal wife—who can find? Her price is far above rubies.
I must be out of touch. It seems Princess in this discussion means someone who is self centred and demands her own way and is tizzy (like Cinderella’s step sisters). I am thinking of Princess as one who lives by the motto ‘noblesse oblige’ being a Princess should include looking beautiful, graceful and feminine and most importantly serving others and knowing that noble status means acting at all times according to that and embracing the responsibilities that goes with privilege. Of course a Princess also needs to have an autocratic and stubborn streak that can take charge in a crisis and lop off heads of evil doers when necessary (or shoot and skin a moose to provide food for the poor).
Athol,
Yes, if you read the artcle carefully, you’ll see that the discussion is in reaction to the particularly modern pop-culture interpretation of what it means to be a princess, with its emphasis on material accouterments and as found in the latest Disney movies where the princesses seem to be much less about noblesse oblige and more about self fulfillment.
I have never read the original “Rapunzel” tale, but I can honestly say that “Tangled” is one of the best Disney movies in decades, in fact, it’s one of my favorite Disney movies ever. It is fun, romantic and surprisingly dark, I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it (it’s not as different from the original tale as you might think!). The portrayal of Rapunzel’s parents honestly moved me to tears, but it was the redemption of one of the main characters what sealed the deal. I encourage everybody to at least give it a try, you won’t be disappointed!
Ahhh those horrid Hollywood movies about royalty. Ghastly. Recently I saw some episodes of a TV series called The Palace (I think). The members of the Royal family were all nasty caricatures and seemed more like Americans than British (even swearing in that nasty America way of blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ all the time- rather than using more British swear words)- it was like Dallas or Dynasty put in a Palace setting. Americans (at least the Hollywood crowd) just don’t get Royalty and should stick to those grovelling ticker-tape movies about American Presidents who are always saved at the end.
I have always found saying “Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair” very satisfying for some strange reason. Maybe its a male thing-most of us do like women with beautiful long hair. I also love the line in “The Highwayman”- “plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair” something sort of beautiful, gothic, sexy and dark about it with a hint of the tragic events about to occur. A priest friend of mine has a theory that men loose interest in their wives when they reach the age when they cut off their long tresses and have a unisex haircut.
That may be a generational thing, Athol. What I’ve noticed is that men tend to want their wives to have the same hairstyle they had when the two of them first met (and so I think my husband wishes I would cut my hair short again, even though I have grown too ponderous a double chin for that to look good anymore!).
When i was about 10 years old i was waiting outside a Catholic Church with a cousin about the same age. inside there was a wedding rehearsal taking place. as the bridal party exited, we got a look at everyone looking festive and happy. my cousin noticed that the bride was rather plain and had some acne and said “I thought all brides are beautiful.” this was fifty years ago, but even then i knew that there was something wrong with my cousin’s thinking. i am afraid there are still people who think that way. if you are overweight, plain, or flawed in any way, you can’t or don’t deserve to be called beautiful. just when i begin to hope that we are getting away from those thoughts, someone says something that at best can be called insensitive, at worst, just stupid.
Simcha if you look like the photo of you above- don’t change a thing-you look gorgeous and very feminine with that gentle under-curl framing your face beautifully.
Susan if your comments are directed towards me- then firstly I think you should get a sense of humour. I never made any comments about women who are overweight etc being ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In fact many men like a woman with a more fulsome figure and find it very attractive. Actually I love that Mika song “Big Girl you are Beautiful”. see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSK91mUNLU
Just reread the Brothers Grimm Rapunzel story- and it is amazing how many elements in it are similar to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s tale the Lost Princess. The Grimm Brothers published their version in 1812 which was a couple of years after Rebbe Nachman’s death. The concept of the Princess being taken away into the desert and the Prince looking for her and going through many trials is in both tales. Simcha you discuss so many interesting things- keep up the good work- I am becoming an addict of this blog.
Simcha,
I love your writing style and you made me chuckle on more than one occasion. I have 5 daughters and we really enjoyed Tangled. Fun entertainment.
Perhaps you may want to look more into the Stay at Home Daughters movement (but not from a site that is bashing it - that is a little like trying to find out about the Catholic Church from WhyIhatethecatholicchurch.com
This is a beautiful movement of families trying to live out Christian values, train and educate their children, and keep their daughters pure for their vocation. In my opinion, Catholic mothers should be clamoring after these ideas and not placing our children in institutions that don’t deserve the title Catholic.
For more information try the source:
www.visionarydaughters.com
May God bless you during this Lenten season.
Susan,
Having experienced over sixty weddings so far in the course of my job, it really is true, I have yet to see a bride who wasn’t beautiful. Don’t mind your young cousin; kids don’t always get these things.
(Athol, I thought it was just another anecdote.)
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