The Children: Princess Party

I used to work as an event planner, planning children’s birthday parties. My least favourite of the birthday themes was always the Princess party, on the occasion that I had to dress up as a princess, the blonde wig and itchy costume were potentially a worse annoyance to me than the little girls clamouring around me in delight at the princess that came to the birthday party. At one particular event I was surrounded by a group of girls between the ages of five and six who all gushed something to the effect of ‘I can’t wait to grow up and meet prince charming and get married like (insert their favourite Disney Princess’ name here) and live happily ever after,’ one child went as far as asking me how my prince was. My jaw clenched as I looked around, imagining for a second that I could shake every last one of these little girls and tell them that this is all fake! Not only does prince charming not exist in real life, but most, if not all of the boys they will kiss in their lifetimes will turn out to be 'toads.' At this particular party, the entire house had been decked out in Disney Princess decorations, complete with all the most current images of the beautiful, skinny, and utterly unrealistic princesses that somehow, someday these girls wanted to become. Perhaps most importantly, I wondered what these children thought the happily ever after would be like, the idiomatic expression seems so useless, it’s the compulsory addition to ‘The End’ that completely denies reality. Nowhere in a Disney Princess film is there a disclaimer that says your soul mate may eventually annoy the hell out of you, you will most likely will get divorced and that all of these notions of beauty and happiness are ideals. For the most part, they are a dream that unlike Cinderella would have you believe, will more often than not, not come true. I suppose that disclaimer should be left up to the parents, but Disney’s carefully manicured notion of childhood innocence not far behind these unrealistic expectations of love and life has most parents buying into this fantasy world too.

(image courtesy of yuffieleonheart on deviantart.com)