This post is more a less a reflection on the consistent and thorough rejection of all things “Princess” related regarding Disney Parks and Disney broadly speaking. It is largely justified, but I thought it would make for a good discussion as to why.
For me the objection isn’t so much that Disney wants to create new experiences based on movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, it’s that sometimes they’re designed to just support a product line that frankly has little to do with those movies, but instead supporting a highly gendered and poorly designed (from a visual standpoint) message that looks more like a knock-off brand’s imitation of those works. The Princesses in the product line have little to do with their movie counterparts. They’re re-designed in appearance, homogenized in personality and altogether altered to resemble Barbie more than their respective characters (see Cinderella in Sofia the First as an example), and it works at appealing to girls under 10, but it does little to make their source material appealing to anyone outside that group, and that’s a terrible shame given the original movies’ own merits and intentions. When the constant message surrounding those movies is what you see now at your local Toys R Us or Wal-Mart, it creates a perception that anything relating to these movies is unacceptable for anyone outside the limited demographic it’s designed to best capture. That’s terribly disappointing for me as someone who knows what these movies are actually like and who was responsible for making them.
I can certainly understand objections to more “princess stuff”. It can be thematically disruptive, creatively unexciting and downright ugly looking if it’s designed only to appeal to girls 3-10. Bibbiddi Bobbidi Boutique is a perfect example of this, and so is Princess Fairytale Hall to a large extent. Both are experiences that have limited appeal and are shamelessly designed to promote the vapid and materialistic values that modern “princess” culture in general, is (rightly) trashed for and not really what makes the characters and their stories enjoyable.
However, I would like to think that Disney fans who know (or are more likely to know) what these movies are really like, would not automatically dismiss an experience as “girly” just because its tied to one of ten titles in the Disney catalogue. When I look at the BatB area of New Fantasyland, I don’t see it as “girly”, just a section of the park with a BatB theme (yes even for EtwB, which I’d criticize as more “childish”, than “girly”). That’s just my opinion, but it comes from someone familiar with the source material who can interpret it as more “gender neutral” based on that. Similarly, if I find elements of the LM ride disappointing it’s because of the staging or quality of the scenes, not because the whole concept is tied to Ariel.
Now this post isn’t intended to bash those who enjoy things related to the Princesses, nor is it meant to encourage more awkward implementation of these characters and stories in a park like Animal Kingdom. All I’m saying (for those who want the short, short version) is that park experiences should not be criticized merely for being “Princess” related, but more for how they take that source material and implement and respresent it in a given setting.
For me the objection isn’t so much that Disney wants to create new experiences based on movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, it’s that sometimes they’re designed to just support a product line that frankly has little to do with those movies, but instead supporting a highly gendered and poorly designed (from a visual standpoint) message that looks more like a knock-off brand’s imitation of those works. The Princesses in the product line have little to do with their movie counterparts. They’re re-designed in appearance, homogenized in personality and altogether altered to resemble Barbie more than their respective characters (see Cinderella in Sofia the First as an example), and it works at appealing to girls under 10, but it does little to make their source material appealing to anyone outside that group, and that’s a terrible shame given the original movies’ own merits and intentions. When the constant message surrounding those movies is what you see now at your local Toys R Us or Wal-Mart, it creates a perception that anything relating to these movies is unacceptable for anyone outside the limited demographic it’s designed to best capture. That’s terribly disappointing for me as someone who knows what these movies are actually like and who was responsible for making them.
I can certainly understand objections to more “princess stuff”. It can be thematically disruptive, creatively unexciting and downright ugly looking if it’s designed only to appeal to girls 3-10. Bibbiddi Bobbidi Boutique is a perfect example of this, and so is Princess Fairytale Hall to a large extent. Both are experiences that have limited appeal and are shamelessly designed to promote the vapid and materialistic values that modern “princess” culture in general, is (rightly) trashed for and not really what makes the characters and their stories enjoyable.
However, I would like to think that Disney fans who know (or are more likely to know) what these movies are really like, would not automatically dismiss an experience as “girly” just because its tied to one of ten titles in the Disney catalogue. When I look at the BatB area of New Fantasyland, I don’t see it as “girly”, just a section of the park with a BatB theme (yes even for EtwB, which I’d criticize as more “childish”, than “girly”). That’s just my opinion, but it comes from someone familiar with the source material who can interpret it as more “gender neutral” based on that. Similarly, if I find elements of the LM ride disappointing it’s because of the staging or quality of the scenes, not because the whole concept is tied to Ariel.
Now this post isn’t intended to bash those who enjoy things related to the Princesses, nor is it meant to encourage more awkward implementation of these characters and stories in a park like Animal Kingdom. All I’m saying (for those who want the short, short version) is that park experiences should not be criticized merely for being “Princess” related, but more for how they take that source material and implement and respresent it in a given setting.
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