The Concept of "Princess"

People in our class are clearly in a disagreement over the effects that our media have on us as a society. Some may argue that watching a Disney movie had no effect on how they viewed gender roles and submissiveness. But there should be no argument that those gender roles do in fact exist in our media and they therefore have somewhat of an effect on our culture. The fact that we can all laugh at videos that swap gender roles is a testament to the fact that those gender roles do exist, they are very clear and mutually understood, and they are constantly being reiterated in on our televisions, in our movies, in the products that we buy, and what is expected from us. The problem with these gender roles is that their stereotypical characteristics do not apply to every single person of that gender and they should not therefore be expected. A girl who doesn't like the things associated with the princess culture should not be considered "different" or a "tomboy" just because she doesn't comply with the mainstream concept of what a "girl" should be because that concept is completed crafted and molded by our media; it is not real. If my daughter's favorite color is pink and she wants to take dance classes and wear pretty dresses than that is fine and I would support her but I don't want to live in a world in which that is her only option or a world in which she thinks she is "supposed" to like those things simply because she was born female. 

Why not, instead, include gender representations into our media that don't necessarily reiterate the same stereotypical roles over and over again? The most memorable Superbowl commercial for me this year was the Toyota commercial where Kaley Cuoco played a genie. When the little girl makes the wish to be a princess (0:27), she is on horse back with armor and a sword, not in a pink dress being rescued by a knight. But this representation of a princess stuck out as different to me from what I have come to expect from our media. I expected the latter and that is a problem. There should be more well rounded representations of gender.