P is for Princesses

Don’t ever go eat at King Stephan’s Royal Table at the Magic Kingdom.

The place is infested.

Infested with princesses. You name the princess. She’s there. In all her cute glitter and great hair.  If they weren’t so young, I’d think I was in an incredible drag show.

It’s awesome.

And it makes me crazy.

Not in a bad way, that is. As you’ve probably can surmise, I’m kinda into that Disney thing.

There’s that great scene in the Big Bang Theory, where Amy Farafowler gets a tiara from her boyfriend and batshit wacko.

It’s glorious.

Princesses are the bread and butter of the Disney Universe, moving onto the main screen in their very first picture, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And it only got went up from there. The first princesses were a select lot, beautiful women, who, through varying degrees of passive-ness obtained incredible results. Husbands. Riches. Happiness.

Times changed, and Disney rewrote the princesses. They now had more mastery of their fates and fought strongly for ideals they felt were worthwhile. They still obtained their goals, but now had a clearer warriors’ quest. Rarely did they result in violence. Occasionally they did fight, but not the violence so marred by male counterparts in similar pictures.

Again, good stuff. Now my older brother? He had only one kid, a great kid, my niece. He had to raise her as a single dad and, well, being we were mostly all boys, he didn’t have the stereotypical things that girls crave and need. Outside of, what, maybe hair skills? Being he had a ponytail and all that? He showed her how to change her oil, however, how to change her tires, and how to install a stereo.

But she still wanted to have Barbie dolls for Christsmaskkah. In pink.

So there we sat. On Christmaskkah Eve, building a dream house and slugging coffee to keep our wits about us.

The fact was, it seemed to me, that she choose to go in that direction. With all uncles and men about her, her brain selected that expression and we were making sure it was supported. She loved it, by the way. Played with it forever.

Now, also fancy myself a feminist, so imagine my resistance to that holiday list. A BARBIE HOUSE? Dang? What? Why not….

Bless you Target.

You removed the labels. Pink are pink toys. Blue are blue toys. Toys are toys.

Ahhhh, yes, that’s the way it should be. She wants that fucking Barbie? Go for it. Besides, the manx has everything, as the t-shirts tends to say.

But what about those princesses. Here, in this day and age, I can see a dear Tiana, from the Princess and the Frog and I get it. It’s from recent memory. But, late one night, after the fireworks had melted into the stars of the night, I sat next a sweet young lady, of African American descent, clad in a shock of bold colors that denoted she was being Snow White. The day had frazzled her, the night had not been much kinder.

“My lady,” I bowed, taking a cue from the magical cast members I had seen all over the Magic Kingdom, “thank you for this honor of being seated next to you. I rarely see royalty after midnight.”

She lowered her eyes and smirked, “thank you.”

Her mom tried to muster up a stronger sense of self, but, given the hour and the energy expenditure, I cannot help thinking that was as strong of an answer I was going to get. See, that princess? That passive character for the movie made her dreams come true. My youthful idealistic college yutz would have rallied for her, insisted that the world should give her a stronger woman icon than a young lady who was merely born so beautiful, older women hated her.

And she could talk to animals and dwarves.

But the fact is, my older, wizened self sees that dear Snow White is doing something for her. She had joy that day, trying on dreams and imagination for just a twee smidgen.  Perhaps, next week, she’ll want to watch Kevin Hart and explore the decency of a fart joke, but that is her prerogative, not mine, not society’s. Because, in the end, it’s the dreamers that change things. Not the hard liners.

And, no, I had no urge to ever dress like a princess, even though I was very much that blasted queen.