A Pumpkin Can't Become a Horse-Drawn Carriage

I did not grow up in a house filled with Disney movies. I didn't grow up in a house with many movies at all. That is, unless you count the Richard Simmons's Sweatin' to the Oldies tapes my mom would break out every afternoon. Not one to be left out, I used the ketchup and mustard bottles from my play kitchen set to do the shoulder presses in Workout 2 (see 0:44) right along side her.

I know this post is supposed to be about our relationship to Disney and animated culture, but my relationship with those was fairly non-existent as a child. Sure I knew the names and general story lines - I think my grandma had VHS tapes of Snow White and  The Little Mermaid - and a picture was taken of me as Snow White one Halloween. But unlike Lila Johnson, my younger brother and I did not hunger for "our daily cartoon fix" (201). We were much more influenced by the traditional gender roles played out by our immediate family and the few sitcoms and shows we were allowed to watch.

Growing up, my brother's favorite show was Power Rangers and mine was Full House. We would compromise in our play; he'd be a ninja saving the world with his Gator Golf putter as a sword and I'd be a mom carrying a diaper bag pushing my doll in my carriage. One of the greatest days was when I got a car seat for my doll so I could ensure her safety as we traveled to the library. After all, most of my play time was spent imagining my future as a mom like my own - one who cooked dinner every night, read bedtime stories on the couch, made sure teeth were always brushed, and ensured clothes were always clean and coordinated. I didn't need Disney princess to tell me what I should aspire to because I was quite content with the way things seemed to be. My life was comfortable and I didn't understand why some of my friends were so obsessed with characters and situations that weren't even real. Come on, a pumpkin can't become a horse-drawn carriage!

I have to admit, though, I thought Mulan was cool. I could be a ninja like my brother. I also would have thought that Brave was cool because Merida is able to shoot her own arrows - and is good at it. However, that would have been the extent of my reading of both texts. As I said, I didn't quite understand some of my friend's obsession with all things Disney. I didn't watch enough of it and I didn't have the critical lenses to view the movies with a more analytical eye. As Linda Christensen writes, in her classroom, they "can view many [children's literature and movies] in a brief period of time, so students can begin to see patterns in media portrayals of particular groups and learn to decode the underlying assumptions these movies make" (190). But, because of my limited exposure and lack of perspective, I wouldn't have been able to name the advances in princess culture, with Merida and her fiery red hair representing her fiery personality. Or the lack of a "knight in shining armor" since the plot centered on a mother-daughter relationship rather than a just a girl needing a man to save her.

Now, since I have been trained as an English Ed major complete with my "intellectual armor" (190) -  and I teach a Media Busters unit to my sixth graders - I can notice the larger problem of Brave's representation of males as competitive and only able to fight. As Elinor said, suitors must "prove their worth in strength or arms in the games." I also recognize the incompetence of males to hold a serious conversation. When I watched Brave last night, I was annoyed at the way that Fergus knew that something wasn't quite right about the tradition of the suitors coming for his own daughter, yet he allowed the tradition to continue. In fact, he even helped his wife practice what she would say to Merida to convince her to marry. I also can now name Fergus's joke to Merida about the second suitor's "flowing locks" (complete with hand gesture and all) as homophobic.

Brave certainly reflects some of the steps forward in equality that have been made since the release of the earliest princess films. But this does not mean that we can stop at analyzing, because there is still a far way to go. I love Christensen questions, "But what am I teaching them if I end there?" (197). Rather, she asserts the importance of action. She is a model of social justice teaching who "instead of leaving students full of bile, standing around with their hands on their hips, shaking their heads about how bad the world is... provide[s] them the opportunity to make a difference" (200). If we can commit to this work together with examples like Christensen to guide us, I have hope that the world will be a better place.