By Anna Kunnecke
It will be Girl's Day soon, or The Festival of Princesses. Koto music plinks through every department store, and sandwiched between holidays requiring the purchase of sugary goods we get one that involves a set of traditional ohimesama dolls that ring in at four figures. (And still plenty of sugar: diamond-shaped rice cakes, arare puffed rice, and sugar stars in pink, green, yellow, and white.) But it's a sweet day, when girls are honored and made much of, and there is merriment and a great excess of pink.
Now in general, I'm not a fan of the pink. I resent that myself and my girlchild are habitually "hosed down in pepto-bismol," to quote from Steel Magnolias, and the branding aspect is crass and, more urgently, ugly. I resent the mind-meld that the prettified Princesses exert over our girls. (How about these perky woodland creatures? No, she wants the sparkly lady in the pink dress.) I don't mind the ball-gowns. I mind the vacant eyes and the fluttering eyelashes. I definitely mind that in their own movies they sit prettily, pouting, passive and helpless, until some strong savior arrives. I mind that there is instant love, and a quick marriage, and I mind how the story always shamelessly ends there, because it's hard to write a good second installment about a teenager who runs off with the first beefcake to make her heart go pitter-pat. The makers of the pink rot have recently made some attempts to make the stories slightly less patronizing, but as the mother of a smart and feisty girl, this stuff sticks in my craw.
So I am watching Girl's Day here with great interest. Maybe it will be a subversive symbol of the power of women; after all, that's how they do it here. No out-and-out revolt, just a firm and gentle chokehold. But here is the thing. Every display of Princess dolls comes as a matched set. You don't get a Princess without a Prince. No matter how many tiers you add (the full set sits on a small staircase) of noblemen and ladies-in-waiting and musicians and whatnot, you always come out even on the top. Now this could be lovely, see, a nice balance, yin and yang. There is only one problem. That princess perched there, swathed in her hundred layers of kimono, couldn't vote. She couldn't hold property, or choose her husband, or pass anything on to her children. Recent fictional imaginings of what it might be like to be an actual Princess have included depression, melancholia, catatonia, and suicidal longings. They're fiction, but they're pulled straight from the tabloids. This is what we're glorifying for our daughters? No thank you.
When I was in a fit of fury about the pink passive princesses, a wise and seasoned mother told me not to worry. She predicted: "The princesses will pass through your house like dysentery." I trust that she is correct. And in the meantime, we're countering the pink with plenty of red, purple, green and gold--regal colors all.
It will be Girl's Day soon, or The Festival of Princesses. Koto music plinks through every department store, and sandwiched between holidays requiring the purchase of sugary goods we get one that involves a set of traditional ohimesama dolls that ring in at four figures. (And still plenty of sugar: diamond-shaped rice cakes, arare puffed rice, and sugar stars in pink, green, yellow, and white.) But it's a sweet day, when girls are honored and made much of, and there is merriment and a great excess of pink.
Now in general, I'm not a fan of the pink. I resent that myself and my girlchild are habitually "hosed down in pepto-bismol," to quote from Steel Magnolias, and the branding aspect is crass and, more urgently, ugly. I resent the mind-meld that the prettified Princesses exert over our girls. (How about these perky woodland creatures? No, she wants the sparkly lady in the pink dress.) I don't mind the ball-gowns. I mind the vacant eyes and the fluttering eyelashes. I definitely mind that in their own movies they sit prettily, pouting, passive and helpless, until some strong savior arrives. I mind that there is instant love, and a quick marriage, and I mind how the story always shamelessly ends there, because it's hard to write a good second installment about a teenager who runs off with the first beefcake to make her heart go pitter-pat. The makers of the pink rot have recently made some attempts to make the stories slightly less patronizing, but as the mother of a smart and feisty girl, this stuff sticks in my craw.
So I am watching Girl's Day here with great interest. Maybe it will be a subversive symbol of the power of women; after all, that's how they do it here. No out-and-out revolt, just a firm and gentle chokehold. But here is the thing. Every display of Princess dolls comes as a matched set. You don't get a Princess without a Prince. No matter how many tiers you add (the full set sits on a small staircase) of noblemen and ladies-in-waiting and musicians and whatnot, you always come out even on the top. Now this could be lovely, see, a nice balance, yin and yang. There is only one problem. That princess perched there, swathed in her hundred layers of kimono, couldn't vote. She couldn't hold property, or choose her husband, or pass anything on to her children. Recent fictional imaginings of what it might be like to be an actual Princess have included depression, melancholia, catatonia, and suicidal longings. They're fiction, but they're pulled straight from the tabloids. This is what we're glorifying for our daughters? No thank you.
When I was in a fit of fury about the pink passive princesses, a wise and seasoned mother told me not to worry. She predicted: "The princesses will pass through your house like dysentery." I trust that she is correct. And in the meantime, we're countering the pink with plenty of red, purple, green and gold--regal colors all.
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