princesses and Peter Pan

[anotheranon]

Ran across this story about the negative effects of fairy tales on women's adult relationships at Redneck Feminist. While the redneck feminist makes good points re: little boys aren't raised to be princes the way (some) little girls are raised to be princesses, so getting them all hung up on Cinderella is going to leave them with some really self-destructive notions about men and romance, I guess my perspective is: why would any girl/woman want to be a princess in the first place?

Maybe it's something I just am not wired to "get". I've never been good at the whole princess thing; I was never "daddy's little girl" or similar and what preciousness my parents did try to foist on me I resented terrifically - I'm not a china doll, dammit!

Also, the article talks about girls loving fairy tales like "Rapunzel" or "Cinderella". Me, I was hooked on Peter Pan (Disney version) - and I always identified with Peter. Who the fsck would want to be Wendy, after all? She just whined and got rescued, Peter fought pirates and hung out with the Lost Boys and had fun. And that was always the big decider for me. If I learned anything from fairy tales it was: girls get to look pretty and get rescued. Boys get to actually do stuff.

This carried over into my other childhood pop cultural obsessions. Princess Leia gets rescued. Han Solo does stuff. Most of the music videos I loved growing up: women look pretty, guys (the band) do stuff. Even my beloved Monty Python - Carol Cleveland had her moments, but most of the time she was just a pretty foil for whatever the guys were doing - hell, they kept all the good female roles for themselves! :P

I don't think it ever occurred to me that this was sexist or old fashioned as a child - I simply didn't have that kind of in-depth awareness, and who does as a kid? But for some reason I put myself into the male character's shoes in my imaginatino rather than the internalizing the "I'm a girl so I must be a princess" meme. Maybe it helped that I simply wasn't good at "princessing" in real life, maybe I just didn't get anyone telling me that what I saw on tv was how things had to be. For whatever reason I've always seen myself as the white knight rather than the damsel in distress.

I'm sure - or at least, I hope - there are children's stories out there with female characters who do stuff. Not keeping up with pop culture the way I used to, I have no way of knowing. But I did think it was an interesting article, as I've run into a few "princessy" type girls in my life. Most were either unhappy or terrifically narcisstic - i.e., crashing bores.

Comments

Princesses and Peter Pan

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Allison! It's Heather! Summer is coming on, which means I now have a little time at work to catch up w/your journal. I'd like to HEARTILY recommend Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, which you'll find in the "young readers" section. The first book is "The Golden Compass", and the main character, Lyra, is one girl who DOES stuff. I won't say anything else, and don't even bother to read the back -- just dive right in. I know you'll love it!

Re: Princesses and Peter Pan

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

You know, the title sounds awfully familiar. I fence with a teenage girl who reads a lot of fantasy, maybe that's where I saw it.

I see a bodacious library trip in my future ;)