Princess crazy
April 2nd, 2008, 2:38 pm · 6 Comments · posted by Mark Uyemura
When you’re a parent, it’s impossible to avoid the Disney marketing machine. 
Starting around 24 months, Kate was mesmerized by Mickey Mouse and his posse, the Disney princesses. It was surprising how fast we were sucked in.
It started innocently enough, with Ariel, Cinderella and the rest at a Disneyland meet and greet. Ohhh … how cute is that picture of her hugging Snow White?
One thing led to another — quickly but stealthily. The movies. The costume dresses. The character breakfasts at California Adventure. Once relatives found out about the fetish, we were inundated. How about the soundtrack, books, stickers, plush toys, sleeping bag, jewelry, shoes, plates, cups and drawing board? We have it. And being 10 miles from the princess epicenter doesn’t help.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, my daughter loves these characters and they make her so happy. But am I setting her up for materialistic consumerism for the rest of her life? Does it matter?
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Mark — we couldn’t fight the princess craze either. It got so bad at our daughter’s preschool that the school library banned princess book borrowing for a month because they girls all competed for just those books.
We’ve got one princess dress, the dolls, the music, video games and, oh yes, her pink bicycle and helmet are adorned with princesses, too.
It’s not all commercial and devoid of meaning, though. We are using the “What is a Princess” book to help teach our daughter to read, and a Disney princess manners book to suggest that laughing uproariously after burping or farting isn’t ALWAYS the right thing to do.
And then there’s the music. Saccharine and sappy, she can’t get enough. She’s on “Enchanted Now,” and romps through the house recreating the musical act from the movie. Maybe I’m not always agreeing with the messages — Disney dads don’t exactly exemplify responsibility and understanding — but I can’t say she’s not inspired.
We have Disneyland annual passes, but my 3-year-old daughter can’t name a single princess. She does know Ariel, but calls her “Mermaid.”
They just don’t do it for her. Neither do Mickey or Minnie, for that matter. She’s more of a Pooh gal (he’s the only one she will go near) and her latest obsession is riding Big Thunder Mountain (yes, she’s 3).
Her obsession is Thomas and Friends. My house is crawling with the darn wooden trains. A train table is the focal point of my dining room. While I’m glad we managed to avoid the Princess marketing juggernaut, I am just as overwhelmed by that pesky little blue engine.
I guess with kids, it’s always something…
Yeah, we got suckered too. We watched princess movies out the wazoo; “The Sound of Stinking Music” and “The Little Barmaid” and God knows what. (“The Lover,” I’m presuming, wasn’t, per se, a princess flick.) Anway, it was horric. The good news? By 4 or so, he’d outgrown it.
I’m afraid my daughter will fall prey to Walt’s marketing blitz as well. Living so close to the Mouse’s epicenter isn’t always a good thing.
Add this to the above list: We just received the Disney Princess fishing poll.
[...] all years though, we did give our annual donation to the Disney corporation for Kate’s [...]