You better be positive he's a prince before you marry him, Ainsley. I can't tell you how many women I know who married a toad and found out he was incapable of being anything other than a toad.

(If you're not very careful you can marry a toad and he'll turn into an ass.) I'll save this sage bit of wisdom for when I'm allowed to say "ass" in her presence.

I was thinking about what I hate about the Princess Culture. It's the same reason I hate The Bachelor, Rock of Love and Flavor of Love - all Princess Culture derivatives.

All the princesses wait to be CHOSEN. They never do the choosing. That's a passive position to take when considering who to marry.

Instead of conditioning girls to pick the person that's best for them, the paradigm encourages girls to wait to be chosen. Will he like me or the step-sisters? Will he choose me if the slipper fits?

That's a self-defeating way to teach girls how to pick a spouse.

No wonder there's a one in two divorce rate. Half the women realized they got picked by a wrong or incompatible prince.

The Princesses are willing to spend the rest of their lives someone they don't even know.

Try as I might I have verbally, and by way of example and distraction, done my best to steer Ainsley away from Princess Culture. I tell her to pick another movie or book. I tell her what's wrong with the Princesses choices and assumptions about her capability to save herself. I expose her to better and more powerful characters in literature, movies and television.

I stop short of completely forbidding all Princess Pretend Play because I don't want to make it more attractive - as the forbidden often is. I want her to be able to talk to me about anything and obviously if I can't take a little Cinderella chat then sex will be out-of-the-question later. I want to keep the dialogue open.

Still, for all my talk, I send a Princess in the Pea to school on Favorite Character Day and she comes home Sleeping Beauty. For Halloween we dress up to be caricatures of 1980s beauty queens and she declares herself Cinderella.

Same pink frilly and pouffy thrift-store dress.

Very different idea of who girls and women are. I hear the argument that mothers are the biggest influence in their daughters lives - I make the argument all the time - but all evidence suggests there is no amount of magic on earth that's going to negate Disney's GIRL CRACK message that girls should be a b-l-e-e-p-i-ng Princess.

Empowering Girls: Enchanted: New Generation Princess Fable

Empowering Girls: Princess Culture Examined

Cinderella Should Have Saved Her Self

Ariel - The Little Mute

Belle - Battered Codependent

Ever wonder how and why the Disney Princess Culture distorted and minimized girlness, leaving girls as the extra character or one that desperately needs to be saved?

My film-maker friend, Aaron Lea, sent me this rejection letter to a Mary V. Ford from Disney dated 1938. It states that she should not bother sending her portfolio because the creative talent is, by company policy, men.

Which does help explain how the Disney Princess Girl Culture became so distructive and minimizing to girls.

Dear Miss Ford:

. . . .

Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school.

The only work open to women consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with pain according to directions.

In order to apply for a position as "Inker" or "Painter" it is necessary that one appear at the Studio, bringing samples of pen and in and water color work. It would not be advisable to come to Hollywood with the above specifically in view, as there really are very few opeinings in comparison with the number of girls who apply.

Yours very truly,

Walt Disney Productions, LTD.

Aaron explained how during World War II Disney was put in a position, like most companies, to need women artists, which is how one of his creative idols was given some creative power. Here is a story on Mouseplanet about how women came to work at Disney.

"Mary Blair was an art supervisor and designer at Disney when they were at their highest level of brilliancy. Disney optioned to use her artwork for storybooks versions of certain films in place of stills, said Lea.

"Blair's influence can still be found today (she inspires a lot of us creative types). The opening credits for Monsters, Inc. is definitely an homage to her, as well as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends," Lea pointed out.

To illustrate Blair's influence Lea shares a sample of Blair's work and a sample of his own.
I Can Fly illustration Mary Blair.

Claudia Carey illustration Aaron Lea.

There is an article In New York Entertainment examining whether things are that much different at Disney in 2008 than they were in 1938. "The IMDb credits for Disney's latest No. 1 movie, Ratatouille, list 26 separate animators — of whom exactly zero appear based on first names to be women," they cite. To check the fact, here is a link to the entire credits. Two female story participants were given the glorious titles of "additional story material," indicative of their involvement.

Over a rainy weekend my daughter and I rented Enchanted. Disney's newest version of it's own princess tales. Tune in tomorrow for analysis of Disney's new generation of Princess film.

The main premises of the Geena Davis Institute is that when there are more women involved in the creative process of film and television it results in more empowering girl characters.

What can YOU do to ensure more girls are included in children's media?

• Make a video. The GDIGM has a YouTube project asking for people to get behind a camera and notify the film and media industry,

  I Want To See Jane! 
  
  

• Donate money to the GDIGM so they can wine, dine and educate the film makers who do influence our daughters.
  
• GDIGM is running a contest for girls. They invite all girls/women 13-26 to make a Video Ad citing the organizations research points. Someone has to win - why not your daughter? Go to the < site to learn more.
  
  

Cinderella Should Have Saved Her Self

Ariel - The Little Mute

Belle - Battered Codependent

Over a rainy weekend my daughter and I rented Enchanted. Disney's newest version of it's own princess tales. Tune in tomorrow for analysis of Disney's new generation of Princess film.
Image of Mary Ford's Disney rejection letter.