At 12:54 AM 12/11/97 EST, you wrote:
>I imagine this is partly due to the public's fixation on Princess Di. (Come
>to think of it, maybe the "angel" part is due to that too.) But I also
>realized that Barbie will always be termed a princess, and never a queen.
She can't be a queen. Queens are married (in fables, anyhow... ) and old.
In order to be an accessible role model for the girls, the princess needs
to go through the same emotional situations that a girl might find herself
in (or wish herself in!). You won't find a queen pining away for a prince.
(er... you'd hope she's more mature than that)
The minute Barbie becomes a queen, she becomes adult. She has status rather
than potential. There's no mobility for her anymore... she's hit that glass
ceiling. And you and I know, you can't trust anyone over 30, right? ;-)
I hate Barbie's message too.
>When I look at the role of princesses in fairy tales, I see women who are
>virginal and powerless. Often their role in the story seems to be to get
into
>peril (often caused by a woman, jealous of the princess's youth or beauty)
and
>then be saved by Prince Charming.
Here's a quote from _Women Who Run With the Wolves_:
"_The Handless Maiden_ is about women's initiation into the underground
forest through the rite of endurance. The word "endurance" sounds as though
it means "to continue without cessation," and while this is an occasional
part of the tasks underlying the tale, the word "endurance" also means "to
harden, to make sturdy, to make robust, to strengthen," and this is the
principal thrust of the tale, and the generative feature of a woman's long
psychic life. We don't just go on to go on. Endurance means we are making
something."
Problem is, like any poorly written story, the main female character does
not use her own strength and wisdom to get herself out of trouble, but
instead waits for a deus ex machina in the shape of Ken Doll.
_Women and Wolves_ addresses that too:
"When women re-surface from their naivete, they draw with them and to
themselves something unexplored. In this case the now wiser woman draws an
internal masculine energy to her aid. In Jungian psychology, this element
has been named _animus_; a partly mortal, partly instinctual, partly
cultural element of a woman's psyche that shows up in fairy tales and in
dream symbols as her son, husband, stranger, and/or lover -- possibly
threatening depending on her psychic circumstances of the moment. This
psychic figure is particularly valuable because it is invested with
qualities which are traditionally bred out of women, aggression being one
of the more common."
>Or is this too sweeping a generalization? Are there fairy tales in which the
>queen is good or at least neutral?
If the mother/queen is present and good, then there's no story. The
mother's not going to stand around quietly while the daughter goes off on
adventures. If trouble shows up, the mother will take care of it and
protect the daughter. That doesn't give much of a story for the daughter to
create.
Sleeping Beauty. Her mother just hangs back with her dad while the fairies
take Aurora off into the forest for 16 years. (a note: Prince Phillip's
mom is dead)
I can't think of other Disney movies -- Cinderella is the only other
princess one that comes to mind. There was one day that I lined up my kids,
and lined up the movies (we have a strangely large collection) and we went
through and lined the movies up by dead parents (all but 2 or 3 had one or
both parents dead) and then lined them up by how many females were present
and in what roles. 3/4 of the movies only had one female, as a token love
interest. The ones that were left had females waiting to be rescued.
The only one with any redeeming characteristic was Beauty and the Beast.
She solves her own problems, she sets out against adversity, and she reads
books! :-)
jenn
(who is hoping that this isn't too long and ponderous in such a friendly,
light list)
--
{jenn mottram} [http://www.infinite-edge.com/~infedge]
{generally poetry} [ Infinite Edge Magazine]
{athena(at)geocities.com} [Pro SF, Fantasy, Horror]
{http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2464} [Try It.]
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