Janey Lee

Matilda was introduced to Disney princesses when she was 20 months old by her older cousin. At the time, she was fascinated by the dolls and later the dresses. I decided that I would not fight back against it and let her have her princess dolls, sheets, and books. After all, I liked princesses back then and still do.

Now that she is older, I am really starting to be concerned. He favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty and she has started to complain daily that she does not have light skin and that she wants long yellow hair. She constantly plays at “being married” and asks me who is her prince.

Perhaps I should just chill out.   But as I put Matilda to bed at night and read her one of the below stories, I cant help but to worry about what the effects hearing these stories over and over again. There are repeating themes of competition between females, not having a mother or friends, stress on the importance of beauty not to mention the violence.

Here are my evaluations of the popular, Disney princess books. The film versions differ greatly from the books. Matilda is scared to watch movies, so we have not gotten to that point yet.

Sleeping Beauty

Every character in this story has a name except her mother!

This is a really scary story for kids. The drawing of the witch is scary and its scary how Aurora get lured up to the highest tower by the witch so she can meet her fate.

This is the most violent of the stories. Just try to explain this to your child –  “when the baby reaches her sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on a spindle and die”. The book features a page where the prince stabs the dragon/evil fairy in the heart. There is blood.

Beauty and the Beast

There are so many stories in our culture of  beautiful, long suffering women who love men who are violent and have terrible tempers. In the grown up versions of these stories, the woman usually ends up dead so that the male character can feel badly about it.

Stories like Beauty and the Beast teach girls to believe that we can change the beast into a prince through the power of our love! Beauty and the Beast is probably the first story of this theme that girls are exposed to.

Belle like most girls in most stories, has no mother. She also appears to have no friends.

There are good things about Beauty and the Beast however. Belle is a brunette and the smartest girl in her town.  They sell dumbed down versions of the book that show Belle and Beast as just friends. They are like Goofus and Gallant. Belle is polite and clean and Beast is rude and dirty. I try to stick to these books rather than the actual story.

Snow White

The female competition between step-mother and daughter is intense in this one. Snow White’s step mother decided to kill her because she is more beautiful than the aging queen.

Thankfully, Disney books has edited the story. In the original, the evil stepmother instructs the hunter to take Snow White to the forest, cut out her heart and bring it back in a box. In the new books, he merely abandons her in the forest. A strange man comes and kisses her at the end and carries her off.

Matilda used to like this story a lot but I had to stop reading it to her because it gave me nightmares.

Cinderella

More female competition.  Cinderella has mean, ugly stepsisters and a step mother who hates her.

Her big achievement in the story is to have small feet and marry the prince.  Matilda asks me all the time when is she going to get married. And tells me the details of her wedding.

This is probably the one that I read to Matilda the most as there are no witches or violence. I also like the way that Disney worked the mice into the story.

The Little Mermaid

I actually have few problems with this one. Ariel does not wear a crown and in the stories she actually has a fully developed personality. She actually spends some time with Prince Eric before they marry and he seems to be a nice prince. Her underwater friends are great too.

Though Ariel has no mother, she has a complex relationship with her father and defies him.

Ariel’s story is best told in the movie. It doesn’t work well as a 15 page book.

I have tried a couple of things to deal with the princess problem. I attempted at one point to retell the stories my way. But she caught on pretty quickly that I was not telling the story “correctly”.

Disney has of course introduced some diversity to their line of princesses. There is Mulan, Jasmine, Pocahontas and Tiana. However, Matilda has no interest in these princesses.

So tell me. Is your daughter obsessed with princesses and does it concern you?