Disney Messes With Merida

**OC Richard** · 1st June 13, 05:22 AM

I have a strange perspective on all of this because I work at Disneyland!

I'm fascinated by the hold that Disney Princesses have on young girls. They just opened a new area, beside the castle, purely for the girls to meet the Princesses and it's very popular.

Since I see thousands of 'guests' every day I can gauge the relative popularity of the various Disney characters, and it seems that Merida is the most popular with young girls since Ariel. Ariel was off the charts! I think it was her struggle against a strong, overbearing father figure that resonated so powerfully. Now Merida has the classic mother-daughter love-hate thing which obviously many girls can relate to.

With young boys it's Cars Cars Cars and more Cars. They wear Cars shoes and shirts and hats and they have toy Cars in their hands and the new Cars Land has been a huge success (a success which Disney's California Adventure Park sorely needed).

Anyhow the Princess thing is odd in how old it is! Nowadays we have movie stars with glamour and money and fancy houses, the Hollywood "beautiful people", but young girls are still attracted to something straight out of the Middle Ages when the local castle and the people who lived in it represented wealth, power, glamour, and fame. Why would notions over a thousand years old still have such power in the imaginations of children? (Listen to Nursery Rhymes, many of which are obviously many hundreds of years old, incorporating archaic English etc.)

What's ironic is that my own daughter never was interested in Princesses in the least. She's 18, has never owned a dress or skirt, has never worn makeup, has never worn jewellery. She's an Art Major like I was, and like our sort she goes around in plain paint-spattered clothes with her hair pulled back out of the way, with her Ipod full of The Beatles, The Andrew Sisters, sea shanties, jazz, Irish and Scottish folk, and so on.

**Bluescelt** · 1st June 13, 07:21 AM

artists aren't there to supply the masses so they tend to march to a different drummer. In your daughter's case it would be a different piper! I know Disney is trying to make it easy to replicate Merida's image but most of her charm is lost in that new image.

**unixken** · 1st June 13, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Bluescelt

artists aren't there to supply the masses so they tend to march to a different drummer. In your daughter's case it would be a different piper! I know Disney is trying to make it easy to replicate Merida's image but most of her charm is lost in that new image.

That's the thing with both two and three dimensional representations though... It takes no more engineering effort to mold a Merida doll in the original visage, as it would in the newer "glamour" look, other than to say that with the latter, they could re-use the same glamour body mold (and probably the same glamour head mold), and simply plop a new hair-do on it.

I don't think it's just a question of replication, though. I think they were deliberately trying to change "the look".

**TurboKittie** · 1st June 13, 01:23 PM

They changed Mulan, Tiana, Belle, Ariel, Pocahantas...

The changes to Tiana bother me almost as much as the proposed changes to Merida.

It's as though they want them to be all the same, with very minor details changed. Which is disheartening, because not all women are the same and should not be made to feel as though if they do not fit a certain mold, they are somehow less desirable. I know that's NOT a message I want my daughter to be getting.

**OC Richard** · 2nd June 13, 05:21 PM

Thanks for bringing up Tiana! She's also extremely popular right now with young girls. Though I also see Belle and Rapunzel every day, and older characters such as Snow White Aurora.

**Wil** · 3rd June 13, 07:42 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...e767_blog.html

Just saw this blrub this morning.

**TurboKittie** · 3rd June 13, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by OC Richard

Thanks for bringing up Tiana! She's also extremely popular right now with young girls. Though I also see Belle and Rapunzel every day, and older characters such as Snow White Aurora.

I am planning to take my daughter to the Disneyland Halloween party next October. Though she seems to identify with Ariel the most being that Katie not only has red hair but is also completely non-verbal (though for her it's not from a sea witch's spell but autism instead), I thought we should go with a Brave theme.

**Elizabeth** · 4th June 13, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by TurboKittie

I am planning to take my daughter to the Disneyland Halloween party next October. Though she seems to identify with Ariel the most being that Katie not only has red hair but is also completely non-verbal (though for her it's not from a sea witch's spell but autism instead), I thought we should go with a Brave theme.

I've been to the Halloween party several times, it is great fun! The Brave theme would be easier to implement and easier to wear that Ariel in my opinion. The long "medieval" dress as plain or fancy as she likes and if she will wear something in her hair a small crown or headband half under the hair and you are done! Disney can be a bit strict about weaponry so check with this years rules about the bow and arrows. I know when we went they allowed some "weapons" but not others.

**TurboKittie** · 4th June 13, 04:19 PM

Buying a Halloween costume in April, as opposed to October yields significant savings.

Got the dress seen here for $15 including shipping. Got a bear hood with "paws" and a tiara for myself to go as Momma bear. ;)

**OC Richard** · 8th June 13, 07:39 PM

My locations don't stay open for the Halloween party, so I'm always walking through the park on my way home just when the Halloween guests are streaming in. I feel something at those times I've never quite felt in the park before, a special electricity in the air... I don't know how to describe it, but I don't feel like going home! I must go home, but I think "wouldn't it be nice to be able to change into some costume and come into the park and play tonight?"

I've felt something close to that atmosphere three other times 1) the night of the last runnings of the Main Street Electrical Parade in Disneyland 2) July 17th 2005 and 3) February 29th last year (the crazy 24 hour thing, which one of our employees described as "New Years Eve on steroids").

None of these has quite matched the feel in the park of the start of one of the Halloween party evenings.