Princess culture turning girls into overspending narcissists.
The article starts with a mom who is concerned about her 4 yr old daughter's obsession with princesses. She laments;
"I have a four-year-old who is completely into princesses, but she doesn't know their stories. She knows what Belle's hair looks like and what her dress looks like, but she doesn't know the story," Shuler says.So what does she do about it?
A communications professor at Creighton University in Nebraska, Shuler decided to take a sabbatical to study what academics are starting to call "princess culture:" young girls inundated by films, books, toys, clothes, and enabled by friends and family who encourage them to see themselves as bona fide blue-bloods.
Excuse my confusion here. Her 4 yr old daughter knows all about Belle's fashion and hair styles, but doesn't know the story. This is identified as a problem and... Mom goes off to study princess culture? I don't know, but to me, the obvious solution would be to tell her 4 yr old the story. It could be the Disney version. It could be the watered down modern versions. It could be one of the many older versions, though those might be a bit frightening for a 4 yr old.
Well, maybe she's getting paid for it. Fair enough.
The article goes on to talk about how increasing numbers of little girls are growing up believing they really are princesses - or that they should be treated like fairytale princesses (real princesses have duties and obligations, and while they might have a lot of material wealth, there usually isn't a whole lot of freedom). It seems there are adult women who still think of themselves as princesses, manipulating the people around them, going into debt, and generally being royal pains to maintain the lifestyle they believe they are entitled to. So many, in fact, that there's going to be a TV show about them, Princess, on Slice Network.
The article examines some of the reasons for this. Of course, Disney figures largely in this, having heavily marketed their Princess line since 2000. The wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles is also viewed as a contributing factor. Finally, Disney is again brought into the picture with their boutique aimed at girls aged 3 and up.
I actually encountered someone who's daughter apparently was convinced she was a real princess. She'd shown up at one of our home school group park days. We'd started talking about helping our children have a healthy self esteem when she described how it was possible to go overboard. They had always told her daughter she had a lovely singing voice, but in reality, she had a terrible voice. Because they always told her her voice was beautiful, their daughter had no idea she was actually a terrible singer. Hmmm... Then she said that they'd always called their daughter a princess. They didn't realize this had become a problem until she started preschool. She started telling everyone that she was a princess - a real princess - and no one could convince her otherwise. I wasn't sure what to make of the conversation. On the one hand, the mother was acknowledging that this was probably not a good thing, but on the other, she seemed to me to be rather proud and amused by the whole thing. I don't know what came of it, as she didn't continue to go to the park days. This was a few years ago. I wonder how it worked out.
One thing I don't think this mother did was overindulge her daughter as described in the article. The money spent on parties, clothing and accessories, even furniture, by the parents of these princesses is pretty staggering. The money these adult princesses are spending is also staggering. One woman is described as having US$25,000 worth of shoes and handbags (which I found interesting, considering this recent post on Sociological Images), while also being $25,000 in debt. Another woman is described as planning on dumping her $20,000 in debt on her fiance. One of my nephews had a fiance that tried to do that to him - and it was just a car payment. He broke off the engagement. Wise young man that he is, he clued in that if she was willing to do that before they were married, chances were she'd be willing to do far worse after they were married. One of the primary reasons given for divorce is financial problems.
Anyhow. Back to the article.
Four factors are identified as contributing to narcissistic princess behaviour. Overindulgent parents, a culture of celebrity, the Internet and easy credit. To me, these factors would certainly be enough to create Princess MeMeMe - but I also see them as being easily countered. The parenting... well, maybe not. If a parent doesn't really know any better, they wouldn't know that what they're doing is a problem. Our culture has a significant lack of parenting role models, as we no longer have the extended families and close knit communities that used to be the source of parenting knowledge. Now, people are more likely to get their parenting advice from their doctors, books, magazines and TV shows. :-P
I've found it rather easy to ignore our culture of celebrity. I have little patience for it. I think it's easier for me because I never really grew up with it in the first place - one of the side benefits of growing up on a farm two sticks ahead of the stone ages. The Internet? That's neutral. It's how one chooses to use it that can be the issue. Easy credit? Yeah, that can be a problem. Lord knows, it screwed us up back when we were younger, and we were far from being big spenders!
The mother at the beginning of the article is brought up again...
Shuler has never been successful in entirely banning princesses from her daughter's life. She believes the biggest danger to little girls is that princess images are separated from the stories of smart, resilient young women.
Confusion again. Why try to ban princesses entirely? Why would she even want to go to that extreme? If she recognises that this separation of the image from the stories is such a problem, how is banning the image going to solve the problem? Why doesn't she, as the parent, tell her daughter the stories? My kids watched princess movies, too. They even had Barbie dolls and princess dress up stuff. I let them put on make up (though I did insist on it being real make up, not that disgusting crap being marketed for children as dress-up stuff). I also read them the stories. We had the Disney versions. We had other versions. What has developed over the years is an interest in fairy tales, and discovering the earlier versions, or finding that there are several different versions. That led to them exploring other stories, then delving into mythology, and searching out stories from other cultures. One of Eldest's favorites is a book of fairy tales where all the heroes were elderly. Youngest has developed a love for Irish folklore. All of this grew out of watching Disney's princess movies.
Shuler is then quoted;
"I don't think these images are inherently harmful. When they're drained of context, that's the harmful thing. When we strip princesses out of the story, we miss many of the potential good lessons.
"It's all about how to navigate it with our values without being killjoys."
Uhm... yeah. Banning them would certainly be viewed as killjoy behaviour, and she's back on missing the story. I'm still not getting her. She recognises the lack of context as a problem. The solution is pretty obvious. Quit "studying" the problem and tell your kid the flippin' stories already!
As the article continues, it's at least acknowledged that the marketing is taking advantage of an already existing potential market. The corporations didn't create the princess niche, they just filled it.
I found this part rather odd.
Twenge herself has had limited success in stomping on her own daughter's princess ambitions.
"When she was two, she said, `I'm a princess.' I said, `No, you're not.' So she went on eating her breakfast," says Twenge.
More than a year later, at the age of three-and-a-half, her daughter admired her mother in a dress and offered what she thought was the ultimate compliment.
"You look like a princess."
First, there's the idea that a 2 yr old has "princess ambitions" and that they need to be stomped on. Then we're apparently supposed to view having a 3 1/2 yr old compliment us by saying we look like a princess as being a bad thing. Why couldn't that just be viewed as a delightful comment from a very young child? Personally, I would have found that rather sweet.
The article goes on to talk about the upcoming show and some of the women that will be on it. There are media comparisons, such as a character in Sex and the City - a show I've only ever seen one episode of and could never understand how it became popular. The article ends with three things to blame for the Princess MeMeMe culture.
1) the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles.
2) Disney's massively marketed princess line.
3) Disney opening its Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiques, marketed at females aged 3 and up, from make overs and hair styles to wedding dresses.
I can somewhat agree with the first one. The royal wedding was a worldwide event, in a way no other royal wedding had ever been before. Lady Diana was almost a commoner (she was still a Lady, after all, but not royalty). She caught the eye of a prince and became a real princess and was expected to someday become queen. It was the fairy tale come true, complete with horse drawn carriage and all the glamour a princess wannabe could imagine. I can see that the young girls who watched this fantasy turned reality (even though the fairy tale ending was far from Happily Ever After) would grow up to have little girls they'd want to treat like the princesses they imagined themselves to be. I don't think it's quite enough, though.
As for the other two, I think blaming Disney is far too simplistic. Yes, their Princess line is being marketed to death, but as was briefly mentioned earlier in the article, they didn't create the market, they just took advantage of it. Blaming their boutiques, however, is even more of a stretch. Just how many people live near one of these boutiques? I'd never even heard of them until I read this article. Looking it up, I see that there are only two of them, and they are part of the the theme parks. They even have a "Cool Dudes" package - gel hair and confetti! To me, that makes it even more of a stretch, since the theme parks are all about the fantasy. These are highly localized services, not available all over the place the way the merchandise is. It would make more sense to me to blame the creepy child beauty pageants or helicopter parenting.
I don't know. My family is so far out of the mainstream, I have a hard time imagining the combination of things that would create a Princess MeMeMe. How is parents playing along with the Princess fantasy any worse than playing along with the Easter Bunny fantasy or Santa Clause fantasy? At what point does it cross the line?
Where is the line?
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