Fairy Tales, Princess, Race, Barbie, Monster...
In business news: Disney launches a line of bridal gowns inspired by fairy tale princesses.
Looking to capitalize on the Cinderella dreams of brides-to-be, Disney is
introducing a new line of bridal gowns inspired by the most popular heroines
from their animated films.
The gowns, created by California designer
Kirstie Kelly, are being touted as a modern take on six fictional princesses,
including Snow White, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid’s
Ariel - and, of course, Cinderella.
“The most popular request when
looking for a wedding gown is to ‘look like a princess,’” Kelly said in an
e-mail interview. “Most little girls dream of being a princess at some point in
their development, inspired by happily-ever-after stories. As adults, our
weddings are the princess reality coming to life.”
Read full
article…>>>
Fairy Tale Princess
Why do some people assume that women have been dreaming about their wedding days since they were little girls in pigtails? And why do they assume that every girl dreams of becoming a princess?
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I must have been a very weird kid indeed. My, I don’t recall fantasizing about my wedding day when I was a kid! (The words "wedding" and "marriage" give me the chills.) As for being a princess, well, I do remember reading those fairy tale storybooks and loving them. But I don't remember ever consciously hoping to wear tiaras and princess dresses. I concede though, I identified with the heroines in the stories; I saw myself in Cinderella, Snow White, etc. and tried to insert my own story in their fictional lives.
Mapping myself onto the lives of others: it has been my favourite past time ever since I learned how to read. I was/am an only child so I was usually on my own. The adults around me were away 80% of the time. My babysitter was a monster so I avoided contact with her as much as I could. The other kids in the neighbourhood were mean and grubby; I fitted right in with them. But unlike them, I had a curfew imposed by my paranoid babysitter. So while other kids played outside until late afternoon, I grudgingly had to stay home and channel my excess energy doing something else. That “something else” turned out to be reading. (We did not have a television, by the way. Not until I was about 10 years old, by which time my nerdiness was already well developed. Too late to be rescued by the idler pleasures of TV.)
Seeds of Racial Identity (Un)Awareness
Let me go back to the topic of Cinderella and Snow White and the like. My books were colourfully illustrated, so it was pretty obvious that the heroines had fair skin and Caucasian features. They also spoke English, a language which back then seemed foreign and exotic to me. (I learned to read and write in English years before learning how to speak it. I know it sounds weird, but that’s how it is: Filipino is my native tongue, but English is my native pen.) It’s funny how I didn’t see any incongruity between those Caucasian images and me. It’s not that I wasn’t aware that I had black hair, dark eyes, a short nose and brown skin. It’s not that Cinderella never made me feel ugly, even as she scrubbed the floor in her tattered clothes. But for some reason I never saw it problematic at all, them pretty ladies not looking at all like me. I guess that’s the power of imagination, huh? You can bypass any boundaries to make things fit inside your head. You learn to overlook the contradictions and incongruities of real life. You just envision something and make it real — inside your head. (And inside my head, I was a blonde, blue-eyed girl — my alter-ego.)
Barbie
The previous paragraph reminded me of something else: Barbie. When I was a kid I had like four different Barbie dolls. They were gifts from my absentee mother (who was then working as a nanny in seemingly far-away Hong Kong. I was in Manila, Philippines).
Those Barbie dolls. They’re blonde, blue-eyed, always smiling, always pretty. Again, they came alive in my imagination and allowed me the freedom to concoct elaborate stories remote from my real situation (that’s the point of play, right?). At times, I’d even have them pulling each other’s hair and scratching each other’s face, screaming profanities at each other (profanities that I was forbidden to utter in real life).
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I guess those were my very first experiments with catharsis and (mild) self-destruction. I had a dysfunctional home life and my childhood wasn’t all that satisfying; my Barbie moments were my first tangible experiments of what I could do with all that pent-up frustration. I thank Mattel, the makers of Barbie, for that. Bless you all for enriching the lives of little girls like me.
One more thing: I never really liked those dolls per se. The only reason I “liked” them was because they were my trophies. Having four Barbie dolls was a status symbol when I was a kid. It gave me power over some of the other girls (and girly boys) who wanted a piece of my Barbies. I let them play with my Barbie for a short duration of time; in exchange, they had to let me have a bite of their popsicle. And they better not tell the babysitter that I was indulging in sweets, or they wouldn't see my dolls again.
Real-Life Monster
The babysitter. It’s been nine years since I last saw her, and yet I’m still angry at her for the things she did to me. She was a child abuser (I’m not making this up. And no, I don’t want/need your pity). I’ve been trying all these years to bring myself to forgive her, but my memories are still vivid, my wounds still raw.
She’s a vile, sick person. I don’t think there’s anybody else in the world who knows her the way I do. I’ve seen her in moments of her insanity — not a pretty sight. Her eyes change, her voice changes, and she becomes uncontrollably angry. I really think she could have “accidentally” killed me had I not screamed loud enough to snap her out of her rage.
A part of me thinks she grew up unloved and herself angry as a kid. It’s also likely that she experienced a dreadful amount of suffering herself. I know for a fact that she grew up in poverty, which must have exerted tremendous pressure on her own family. I think everything horrid that she did to me, she herself experienced. She might have been simply repeating her own childhood experiences everytime she hit me.
Now that I’m older and am able to look back at those events, I realize she deserves pity more than anger from me. And I do pity her, but somehow I can’t get rid of the anger. At least not yet. There are so many things I want to say to her, but will probably never get the chance to do so. She could be dead by now, for all I know.
Fairy tales, princess, race, Barbie dolls, child abuse. Funny how reading a happily mundane news item can bring up deeper, darker memories.
Tags: :: allusions and metaphors ::critical reflections :: drama and confrontations :: growing pains :: mad spirits and eerie voices :: media and pop culture :: postcolonial woman
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