“So I just spent some time coming up with reasons you should never be represented”

feministdisney:

magg0t-brain:

Okay, so I just spent some time reading the comments on an article about Disney princesses and I just want to rant about it for a little bit.

• People are saying we need a gay/lesbian/transexual princess/prince. I am all for gay rights, but the fact of the matter is that Disney’s job is to make family friendly that appeal to the masses. I learned in psychology lastsemester that something like 3% of people are gay. 3 fucking percent. Yes, gay people should be allowed to get married and have the same rights as every other American citizen, but making a children’s movie about it isn’t the way to get it. Exposing young children to that isn’t going to end homophobia. It isn’t going to teach the kids to be more accepting. It’s just going to confuse the hell out of them. I sure as hell know I was confused about gay people until I was around 12 or 13. Again, I am in no way a homophobic, and I fully support gay rights. I just don’t think that there needs to be Disney movies about gay people.

And did your psychology class tell you that a statistic should correlate 100% to what we always see on movie screens, on magazines, on television?  (it didn’t)  So- if there are more people of my skin color or my sexual orientation in this culture, even though that’s something I have no control of/didn’t “earn” somehow, I automatically deserve to see myself better represented everywhere, even though, as the statistic itself points out, I already see people like myself/interacting in relationships like I do, constantly, more than the marginalized groups do??  I really have no idea why “the population has x percentage of people” ever is thought to work as a good argument point.   Your subconscious views of self worth, and the way you learn to value and view other people, isn’t determined by a line on a graph.   It’s determined by the way we constantly see these groups represented and portrayed in the media.

“Exposing young children to that isn’t going to end homophobia. It isn’t going to teach the kids to be more accepting. It’s just going to confuse the hell out of them.”

It won’t end homophobia, just like better POC representation won’t end racism in and of itself.   The end doesn’t have to justify the means though- if better representation is the right thing to do, then you do it.   No if, ands, or buts.    It’s one arm of a larger body of must-dos in society in order to stop the queer-hate that is a part of socialization and public policy.    And of course it will make many kids more accepting if they encounter this concept early on and in a non-confrontational manner… the way they all learn about heterosexual relationships.   Which, granted, can also be a confusing concept for kids, but so far, most of us get by okay and not scarred for life because we were once confused 5 year olds who didn’t really understand love or sexuality because our brains were biologically underdeveloped still.   And did you ever consider the possibility that if you were still confused about queer identity until you were almost in high school, that maybe the reason for that is that you were under-exposed to the concept as a child?? 

And gay rights are more than about just marriage.  That is like something everyone should already be on board with 10 years ago, minimum.    You are not “all for gay rights” if you follow it with a “but, we should shield children from you and your devious sexuality because otherwise they will be confused and fucked up forever.”   It doesn’t fly.   If you can teach a kid to multiply fractions, I’m sure they can handle the “when 2 guys love each other they are gay, etc” conversation.   It’s probably the easier of the two to learn

*also that statistic of 3% is heavily debated and most likely false but okay.

• People are saying that Disney princess movies teach little girls that it is okay to sit around and wait for their prince to come save them. Seriously? I mean seriously? What little girl actually thinks that? It’s a movie for God’s sake. Kids, as impressionable as they may be, are able to tell the difference between movies and real life. And, if they can’t then I think that says something about the parents. One of my favorite movies is Anchorman, and you don’t see me walking around saying that it’s ANCHORMAN, not ANCHORLADY, and that reporters should be men. I’m sure that if a little girl’s favorite movie is The Little Mermaid she isn’t going to actually believe that she needs to give up her voice in order for a man to love her.

it’s about subconscious cues and the way we use movies, television, and other highly viewed cultural images as our sounding boards for what is/isn’t acceptable to do, think, say in society.    I’m glad to hear that kids can always tell the difference between movies and real life, because that means I imagined all the conversations I had with people about how Pocahontas is a pretty racist, stereotyping and appropriating film.   Obviously it did not mislead anyone because they all knew from the tender age of 6 that what they were viewing was bad and no one liked it or wanted to be a magical misrepresentation native like Pocahontas.  I’m sure all parents should be blamed for when their six year old doesn’t understand when a film is cultural appropriating/how to identify when this is happening, since that is a pretty average term for a six year old’s vocabulary and is a concept routinely discussed in kindergartens around the country.

• People are saying that there should be an obese princess. Yeah, everyone should be accepted and everyone is beautiful no matter what they look like, yadda yadda yadda. But frankly, being obese is unhealthy. I don’t think that any parent wants their child to grow up and have diabetes and be fighting off heart attacks. And if you’re so damn worried about your kids taking Disney movies too seriously, shouldn’t you not be teaching them gluttony and rather show them a Disney princess that has a healthy diet?

Because obviously all fat people are unhealthy, all skinny people are always healthy, healthy is more important than strong role models, and fat people are not real people but are actually just billboards for heart attacks.   But this is great.   So kids apparently know the difference between a movie and reality, but they will all decide to be fat after seeing a fat princess?   Don’t they know they are not the princess?   Or are you saying there might be some internal linkage between observing and what kids think of themselves/others?   And anyhow- people aren’t asking for ALL princesses/characters to be fat (or “obese” which is not a visual size, but a medical term, btw), which would be the only situation in which children would automatically want to look like their hero.  

Because that is exactly what happens when the ideal size in society is constantly shown to be “skinny” regardless of one’s personal health and circumstances.   No one is arguing for a reversed ideal size- they are asking for a diversity of sizes.    Also, none of the Disney movies show a Disney princess with a “healthy diet,” because they’re almost never shown eating meals or w/e so we can only guess.   If a princess is fat or chubby or w/e, doesn’t mean she’ll need to eat cheeseburgers 10 times during the movie.   That stereotype has been done, and even if she did, it’s okay, kids will hopefully remember there’s more to life than basing your self-worth on the physical beauty standards of other, judgy people. 

• Someone also said that there should be an autistic princess. Like homosexuality, autism and other learning disabilities are confusing for young children. Disney has to appeal to the masses, and if kids don’t understand a movie about an autistic child, then they aren’t going to make money off of it.That’s all I really have to say about that.

50 years ago there were probably a whole lot of people that said “they will never make a Native/Chinese/Black/etc main character, because that will never make money, and I think that’s all I have to say.”   You are saying a lot more here about what you would pay for- and why- then what other people might pay to see, in the future.   The future is always more progressive than the present or the past.  

The only argument that actually did make sense to me was that there should be a Hispanic princess. And that’s not just because I’m Hispanic, everyone that knows me knows that I identify with my Caucasian heritage. The only reason I do agree with this is because they do have a movie about every other race.  And, unlike homosexuality, there is more than 3% of the population that is Hispanic.

Yeah I’m all for a hispanic/Latina whatever princess too, it is important, but it really grates me that you threw everyone else under the bus because of some “I am a larger statistical percentage of the population so my representation issues matter and yours don’t” argument.    That is just stinky like old mildew.    The marginalized and statistically smaller groups in society are that much more need of good representation because, since the majority often misunderstands/misinterprets them, they are more likely to be victim of harmful stereotypes.   So if anything percentages work in the reverse way, where those groups the majority has the least amount of real contact with are in most need of representation for everyone to view.   So that we all come away with a better understanding of the real issues, struggles, and gains that these marginalized groups have been experiencing.

But honestly, if you don’t like Disney movies and the messages the relay, then simply do not let your child watch them. Don’t whine about it and try to tell a multimillion dollar corporation what they should be doing.

Simply don’t let your child participate in the billion dollar corporation whose merchendise is everywhere and you would have to keep your child locked up in a tower to prevent them from hearing about it/seeing it/experiencing it?

Yeah okay I’ll get right on that tonight