Boys avoid it; girls rush toward it. It’s the “pink aisle,” and it can
be found in toy stores and chain stores throughout the country. If a
member of your family is a girl, you’ve been there. Located on this
aisle are dolls, dollhouses and accessories for dolls – miniature shoes
and purses, hats and even pets for the well-heeled doll that has
everything.
Oh, yes – and all manner of Disney-related princess merchandise.
Until
fairly recently, Disney Princess merchandise was in short supply. It
wasn’t until Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney consumer products, went to
Disney on Ice and found himself surrounded by all things princess:
little girls dressed in princess outfits, complete with crowns and
wands – a sea of Pantone Pink.
The gauzy atmosphere of the
ice show was Mooney’s epiphany. Since then, more than 25,000 Disney
Princess products made it onto girls’ wish lists worldwide. Sales of
princess-related merchandise went from $300 million in 2001 to $3
billion in 2006.
Many of us grew up with Snow White and
Cinderella. We created road trips with Barbie and her dream car, with
or without Ken. How detrimental was this to our current life as adults?
Are princesses and their ilk so destructive to today’s girls that they
should be struck from playrooms?
In their book “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes,” Sharon Lamb,
Ed.D, and Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D, rake princess-hood over the coals.
“Disney is the first thing we think of when people tell us that parents
should simply throw away the TV.”
Lamb and Brown sort
“Disney Girls” into themes. A few examples are: “Disney Girls are women
with Barbie doll bodies”; “Disney Girls mother and do housework”; and
“Disney girls can’t resist a mirror.”
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