Fairytales - innocent fun or stereotype enforcing?

[Mumofsonny]

In the light of celebrities bashing Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid, will you let your little ones watch Disney?

[AdamNichol]

Hmmm...do you want the misogynist Disney Princesses or the blatantly racist Dumbo?
On the Princesses theme - the trailer for Wreck it Ralf 2 is hilarious.
Though the episode of Gumball where the kids, mum, and dad all try to show they have the hardest life had me in satirical stitches with its send up of casual misogyny.

[Mummaluelae]

Meh. This is why I like the fact there is a kids TV show called 'nella the princess knight' my ds and ds love it!

[Mummaluelae]

And fairy tales? Disney? Its a bit of screen time for the kids. They don't notice anyway

[AdamNichol]

There is a risk of continued exposure to gender models reinforcement during childhood, especially where not challenged. Anyone remember that kids homework story about the 'ur' sound - little girl had to guess a ur word from a clue; clue was 'hospital lady' so she wrote surgeon.
So all that 'be a princess and wait to be rescued' stuff isn't good for girls IMO.
However, I'm not convinced that the opposing view is getting it right either. All that fuss over the glamourisation of Brave (I'll ignore what glamour actually means for a moment). What's the message to girls - you can be either pretty/sparkly or worthy/capable but not both?

[MumUnderTheMoon]

I love Disney have since I was I kid and I'm not waiting to be saved by a handsome prince. The movies that people are worrying about were products of their time movies that are made now will be too. And in 50/100 years time we won't have gotten it right either. Everyone needs to calm down if old fashioned cartoons are the worst thing in your life then I think life's not all that bad.

[janinlondon]

I let DD watch whatever she wanted to when she was growing up, though I did repeat, ad nauseum: there are no unicorns, there are no princes on white horses who will come to save you, you will not grow up to live in a castle. Three weeks ago she moved into a castle. I cannot tell you how much taunting and "what was that you were saying mother?" I have had to endure......