This is a picture of my seven year old sister who is the epitome of a girly girl. She watches the same Disney movies for days and studies them for how to become the "perfect" princess. Wearing her favorite Disney costume from her huge array of dress-up clothes she stares mindlessly just soaking in images of what is portrayed to be a beautiful women. Aladdin's Jasmine, being my sisters favorite character is portrayed as a overly sexual seductress, my sister wears her costume bearing her midriff attempting to reenact a part too old for her, and fill in shoes too big for her innocent feet. My sister consumes her life with Disney characters, from her massive collage of Disney books or her radio that is covered in Disney princesses that opens into a mirror with an attached make-up kit. My sister is being taught that there is only one type of beautiful and that is an unrealistic skinny, highly seductive, flawless princess that in reality does not exist. If you ask my sister she will tell you that she has fat thighs, is out of shape, hates her freckles on her face and her skin is too light to be beautiful. What is it that Disney is actually teaching children by repeatedly cramming their heads with these unrealistic images of these characters?
1 comment:
This picture is very persuasive in showing how even at a young age girls are conditioned and pressured to be feminine, even though we associate being feminine with finding a man, and girls this age are not in that stage yet. Instead they are being prepped for it. This picture with the little girl dressed in a princess outfit which is surprisingly skimpy for a child, with the midriff bare, is an example of how children are conditioned by media. In the background a disney movie is playing while the young girl is sitting on a purplish pink carpet surrounded by a tea cup set and high heels. The fact that the young girl is not facing the camera, but facing the television screen which seems to be drawing her in, shows that the child is not confident in her ownself but rather receiving her confidence from portraying "pretty" disney princesses, the fact that she is even dressed like one shows how much young girls idolize this media role model idea of a princess. I think the reason why the photographer took the picture like this is to show that the young girl is not only fascinated by what she is seeing in a movie but also even mimicking it down to the clothes she is wearing. I also think this picture was taken further back and not as close up or directly behind the child because the photographer wanted to show the surroundings which were also stereotypical feminine items along with the idea that though other things are happening around the child, her main focus is the princess movie shes obsessed with showing that while other things are surrounding women, a woman's main focus is still fulfilling the un acheivable role of a "real" feminine woman.
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