So Which Came First, the Princess or the Product?

Resolution: And does it matter?

There is lots of evidence (see The Princess Makes the Product) that suggests young children actively seek gender differentiation and will even create differences where there are none in their quest for a gender identity.  But this predisposition to Princess play does not make it an inevitability; Disney marketers have exploited children’s natural tendency to engage in imaginary role-play. 

I agree with author and professor Lyn Mikel Brown when she says in Orenstein’s New York Times article, “Playing princess is not the issue … The issue is 25,000 Princess products…  When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”  Imaginary play, even gendered, can have variety.  The lack of choice in consumer products for young girls is unsettling.  Almost everything is pink and frilly.  Maybe it’s true that young girls don’t want so much variety and they want all little girls to be the same so they fit in.  But do we think that what is available now is best for them and their development? 

Disney execs point out that, “There are no studies proving that playing princess directly damages girls’ self-esteem or dampens other aspirations,” but there are also no studies proving that they do not.  So how do we assess the effects of Princess play on young girls?  Short of any empirical or observational studies, we have to rely on our own observations and extrapolations. 

I, like many of my peers, grew up watching Disney movies.  Ariel was my favorite and I would often mimic her antics during bath-time.  However, my fantasy play was not dominated by Princesses, possibly (probably?) because the Disney Princesses marketing campaign was still years away.  I usually dressed up in my grandma’s old nightgowns and alternated between playing a wealthy woman who got to boss around her servant (my younger sister) and the serving girl who frequently ran away to the chagrin of her employer (my younger sister).  Thus the common theme of my play seemed to be the torture of my sister and the joy of having power over someone, rather than the fantasy of following proper Princess plotlines and behavior. 

Which brings me to my next question: what exactly are little girls playing when they play Princess?  Again, in the absence of observational studies of recent child play we are left with speculation.  My guess is that there is a lot of variety.  Some girls may mimic exactly what they see (for example, I have seen my older sister caught on tape at 5 years-old, watching Sleeping Beauty and acting it out gesture by gesture with her best friend… she took the role of Aurora and made her friend be Prince Philip) while other girls may deviate from the fairytales and create their own adventurous stories.  For them, Princess might be a sort of superhero costume that gives them the power to achieve.  A Disney exec comments: “I see girls expanding their imagination through visualizing themselves as princesses, and then they pass through that phase and end up becoming lawyers, doctors, mothers or princesses, whatever the case may be.”

I often have to remind myself not to underestimate children.  Yes, they are impressionable, but they are also masters at processing information, and info from many different sources at that.  It is easy to get caught up in thinking about the traditional female role messages of Disney films and forget about all the other messages girls are getting from different sources.  Do we think that Snow White will influence a little girl more than Mom and Dad?  Or guide her behavior even more than her older sister or other family members or peers? 

Maybe the issue is not the tangible harm of Princess play, but more subtle psychological influences that we are worried about: ideas about beauty, femininity, and love that constrain women’s progress.  (It is good to remember that the Princess marketing campaign only began 3 years ago; the targeted children have yet to reach adolescence, so ill effects of the heavy marketing may be yet to be seen.)  Or it could simply be the principle of the thing that nags at us.   Whether young girls internalize these stereotypically feminine role models to their detriment or not, it is simply the overwhelming presence, acceptance, and popularity of these characters in our culture that bothers us. 

Which Came First: the Princess or the Product? (a 3 part post: part III)

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