What’s the matter with Disney?

If there’s one thing that gives a bad name to gender stereotyping it’s the Disney princess: a combination of hideous synthetic fabric and a noisomely winsome concept. And yet the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiques at Disney Parks are popular with families as a place where their offspring can get dressed and styled as their favourite Disney characters, i.e. princesses or, in the case of a smaller number, knights.

Now, the Streaming the Magic blog – which posts on Disney Parks – reports that:

Disney Parks’s website itself now refers to ‘Godmother’s Apprentices’. I’d say the whole exercise is an exercise in cold-blooded cynical commercialism, whether it’s provided by a Fairy Godmother’s Apprentice or Fairy Godmothers in Training. The princess stereotype is a caricature of the feminine which sits oddly with the company’s new attempt at inclusivity. It’s an exploitation of a children’s natural love of dressing up (which should cost next to nothing) and it’s a very weird image to project onto girls so young.