Disney managed something quite remarkable. Where we are more used to seeing idealized archetypes of
Disney managed something quite remarkable. Where we are more used to seeing idealized archetypes of masculinity and such role models taken up by boys, Disney on the other hand, presented an almost transcendent, magical femininity, that has managed to lure generations of girls under it’s spell. Girls who melt at the idea of getting to wear such dresses, of being the most beautiful girl in the land, of being a princess.But there is one thing that is never touched upon. Perhaps how any thoughts approaching such an idea are so taboo. How regardless we came to be disposed to see ourselves through masculine forms, and seeing the feminine as alien and unrelatable, we boys who watched these particular Disney cartoons, were nontheless compelled to think and feel much of the same sensations and longings as it did the girls. The there is a subversive quality to these cartoons that can make boys want to be princesses. That can make boys into fairies. Then perhaps there is also a possible related developmental phenomenon, of the boy who internalizes this femininity, and sees himself and the world through it, whereby it is the masculine which is the unrelatable other. An other which may come to be the exotic object of coming romantic and sexual desire…Take a moment to imagine being a young boy again, and that you had these images of Disney princesses on your bedroom walls. That you idolized them, and saw yourself though their ideals. What it really would have been like to have been a boy developing into a fairy. -- source link