I re-blogged a picture of a little girl, dressed as Tiana, hugging the face actress who plays Tiana at one of the Disney Parks, and noted that everyone should have their princess. And a few people have now contacted me basically going “no, only straight white people can have princesses if you stick with the classics.”
Um.
No.
I am a folklorist, and it’s time for some Fun With Folklore.
First off, very few Princesses/fairy tale heroines who are going to become Princesses because that’s what you do are actually defined by specific physical attributes. You have Snow White, who yes, requires the “skin as white as snow” etc, but that’s to make her an alien beauty and justify the actions of her stepmother. She belongs to the Aarne-Thompson tale type 709, which is commonly referred to as “Snow White,” but which contains a hell of a lot more, including “Bella Venezia”, “Myrsina”, “Nourie Hadig” and “Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree.” All those links will take you to Wikipedia. Click them. Note that NOT ONE of those girls is defined by her appearance, beyond “incredibly beautiful.” “Nourie Hadig” is Armenian in origin; you can bet that girl was not white as snow. (Note that I do not actually care for the “Nourie Hadig” 709 variant, due to using a Roma girl as the main adversary, but that’s another story.) Any story you want to tell is going to have variants where the heroines are never described! You know why?
BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO WERE TELLING THESE STORIES UNDERSTOOD THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN TO SEE THEMSELVES IN THE MIRROR OF THE TALE.
There are fairy tales about people with disabilities, ranging from the physical (missing limbs, missing eyes, missing tongues) to the emotional (girls who cannot smile, boys who cannot feel fear). There are fairy tales that end in same-sex marriage. There’s even an excellent fairy tale about gender identity, “The Princess Who Became A Prince,” in which our hero has always felt he was a boy, but tried to be a dutiful daughter, until a dragon stole a neighbor princess and he had to ride to rescue the girl in order to save the kingdom. One misaimed curse later, and wham, our new-minted prince is finally outwardly as he had been all along on the inside.
THIS IS JUST AS OLD AND TRUE AND SCHOLASTIC AS CINDERELLA AND THE OTHERS.
The “big fairy tales” of today are the ones that someone seized on as marketable. We have the power, as drivers of media, to say that we want more diversity. We want Princesses of every race, creed, and religion, and we have the folklore and fairy tales to make them real. We want our transgender Princess (although wow would the marketing be problematic). Saying “the classics” are 100% about straight white people reduces the past to a place where only straight whiteness existed, and where no other children ever needed stories. And that’s not what the past was.
Once upon a time has never stopped being right now.
I wish more of the obscure tales got made into films… and that more folklore from non-european stories got told.
Where was the disney movie about the transgender prince that I needed when I was a kid
(via quixoticandabsurd)
Elizabeth Warren for Master of the Universe.
(via quixoticandabsurd)
“You mean the generation that paid three times as much for college to enter a job market with triple the unemployment isn’t interested in purchasing the assets of the generation who just blew an enormous housing bubble and kept it from popping through quantitative easing and out-and-out federal support? Curious.” — When comments are better than the article, Atlantic edition (“The Cheapest Generation: Why Millennials arent’ buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy”)
(Source: bostonreview, via quixoticandabsurd)
Pittsburgh Sunset
(via placesicouldlive)
fortune-n-glory said: Maybe it’s brutal… but in these situations that I run into with my seniors (and I’ve run into it in all of my four years), I feel very little sympathy.
My sympathy is similarly non-existent.
My frustration and perplexity, however, are very present.
ekaeden said: Has anyone sat with him and told him about his graduation status? Goodness geeze.. My school call parents when students are in danger of not graduating. ):
This kid has had adults on him constantly all year about his graduation status. In addition to my inclusion biology class, he is in a biology intervention program capped at ~8 students with another biology teacher. He receives alternative education support and has at least three of the adults in our alternative education program checking in with him almost daily and with me almost bi-weekly since September. He has a daily tutorial period in addition to the supported biology intervention.
Calling parents is just the very beginning of what my school does to support its students. I am very proud of my school’s elaborate and generally effective support structures for our diverse and needy student population. We have done our work with this student in just about every single possible way we can.
He hasn’t done his work, though.
This senior is in biology for the third time.
He failed first quarter, passed second quarter with a D, failed the midterm, and got a D third quarter. To pass for the year, he needs a D for the quarter and a C on the final exam. Or just a C for the quarter.
He has a 57% and his last week is next week.
If he doesn’t pass, he doesn’t graduate, and it’s not looking good.
[video]
I’m pretty over this school year. Monday is our state test, June 14th is our last day. I basically feel like I’m done—the kids have learned what they’re going to learn, it’s too late to really try any new routines or organizational systems, and we’re all coasting.
Part of what I find frustrating about this part of the school year is that I am energized for next year. This year is a done deal. Next year is new and exciting and full of possibilities. I want to spend my days poring over the AP curriculum, creating scaffolds for ecology, and tinkering with my GT assignments.
I don’t want to plan for tomorrow. I want to plan for September.
I feel like if I can just power through this week, really concentrate on grading and planning, then I can have all of my school planning time for the rest of the year to work on future stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, my kids are great, and I’ll miss them, but my brain is buzzing in all directions and I don’t have the time right now to capitalize on it.