A nation of little princesses

The wild success of the Disney Princess brand means that my daughter is obsessed with all things pink and sparkly. What's an enlightened father to do?

By Christopher Healy

Nov. 24, 2004 | When my daughter turned 2, among the gifts she received were a doll and a fire truck. It was that bright red plastic emergency vehicle that captured her attention for days on end, while the doll, for the most part, languished atop a pile of untouched stuffed animals -- except for the rare occasions when its plush body was squished into the back of the fire truck. Progressive parents that we are, my wife and I saw this as vindication of the decision we'd made, while Bryn was still in utero, that we would not outfit our child's world in the trappings of traditional girldom. If she were to end up conforming to any classic little girl mold, it would be with no help from us.

A year later, that truck is gathering dust in the bottom of a closet and Bryn has openly expressed her desire to live in a pink castle. It all began when Dora the Explorer betrayed us.

I'd always been somewhat pleased that the cartoon character my daughter latched onto was the intelligent, intrepid Dora. For four seasons on Nickelodeon (and then its sister station Noggin, and then CBS), this school-age Latina role model eschewed nearly every girly-girl gender stereotype, the pink T-shirt that hangs loosely over her realistically rounded 8-year-old belly being the only token element of her nascent femininity. Dora's brain is touted as her main asset (she's bilingual; she solves jungle-based brainteasers), but she's also ruggedly athletic (she's the star of both her baseball and soccer teams; she never blinks before shimmying up a banyan tree or scaling a volcano). Dora's esteem-building, multiculti adventures are the polar opposite of the glitter-spewing, cutesy-fests -- think Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony -- that women of my own generation grew up with.

Then last month came "Dora's Fairytale Adventure," a feature-length Nickelodeon special (now on DVD) in which our heroine visits Fairytale Land and goes on a quest to become a "True Princess." By the end, her tomboy bob has been magically transformed into flowing Rapunzel-length locks and she's suddenly clad in a shimmery, puffed-out yellow ball gown. Dora is showered with "oohs" and "ahhs" from her talking animal friends who proclaim things like, "Look at Dora's shoes --they're so sparkly!" Then she flies off on a unicorn with a rainbow-striped mane. Seriously. It was at this point in the program that my daughter -- who I don't believe had any prior concept of royalty -- placed a pink shoe-box crown on her head and started twirling around, saying, "I'm a princess!"

The princess has been ubiquitous in pop culture in recent years. Not that she'd ever gone away. The archetype is one of the longest-lived in all of literary history, and a spate of films ("The Prince & Me," "A Cinderella Story," the entire Anne Hathaway oeuvre, coupled with some classic toys that have undergone heavily marketed princess makeovers, such as Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, the Cabbage Patch Princess, the aforementioned Dora) have left young girls in a world where they can't turn their heads without having to shield their eyes from the glare of a tiara.

Leading the charge in this princess revolution is Disney -- no surprise, really, as this is the company that has had bustled skirts and puffy sleeves at the core of its business for well over half a century. The idea for a Disney Princess brand was born four years ago, when Disney Consumer Products president Andy Mooney went to see one of the company's famous ice shows and spotted a number of young female audience members dressed like little doppelgängers of their favorite characters. The Princess brand, which groups together eight of the studio's animated film heroines -- Belle ("Beauty and the Beast"), Ariel ("The Little Mermaid"), Jasmine ("Aladdin"), Pocahontas, Mulan, Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty -- into one big tea party posse, was an instant success. It started with some dress-up costumes sold at the Disney Store, and after those initial test products vanished from the shelves faster than Cinderella's coach at midnight, Disney knew it had a major hit on its satin-gloved hands. Sales of the Princess line were an astounding $2.5 billion last year, up from $300 million in 2001.

"We've gone beyond the dress-up and toys, and begun to look at the brand as a lifestyle, filling out all the other things girls need in life," says Mary Beech, director of franchise management for Disney Consumer Products. Indeed. In addition to the official Disney Princess merchandise for the home -- beds, comforters, cereal, toothbrushes, dolls, castle tents, storybooks, TVs, DVD players -- parents can throw their daughters an official Hallmark Disney Princess party complete with a cake that has a few regal beauties waltzing on top; they can take them for breakfast with the princesses at Disney World in Florida; And they can enroll them in a princess class at the recently opened World of Disney store in New York. There Cinderella's beautiful friend, Lady Seraphina, will educate starry-eyed youngsters in the four Princess Principles -- intelligence, grace, thoughtfulness and honesty -- through lessons involving everything from "teamwork, table manners, and truthfulness to courtesy, compassion, curtseys and kindness."

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