DisneyStore.com sometimes bothers me.
I wish they’d be just a tad more liberal instead of labeling things as “Girls” or “Boys” things they could just have them open to anyone. It isn’t necessary to say “Peter Pan Costume for Boys,” just say “Peter Pan Costume.” Or call the Toy Story dolls “Action Figures.” Jessie and Woody are pull string dolls. Will a boy suddenly have an allergic reaction if he touches a doll? “Rapunzel Costume for Girls,” sorry lil boys but if you want to be Rapunzel we want to make sure you know you’re not “supposed” to be Rapunzel and that you’re weird. If my daughter wants to be Captain America you want to make sure all the other girls know she wearing a “boys costume.”
And most of the time it seems that the people who work for Disney are pretty liberal. As far as I’ve seen there are a good number of gay people in Disney too. You’d think they’d toss something out there.
At least the kids on the front page are racially diverse.
OR.
Or.
They’re just children’s costumes.
And you can buy your kid whatever they want.
And this ad is just called marketing.
WOW, NOVEL CONCEPT, SLOW DOWN, I KNOW, I KNOW, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS WAS ALL A PLOY TO MAKE MONEY
oh wait, everyone.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t an ad to just stab at gender equality. not once did i read boys weren’t “supposed” to be Rapunzel. if your little boy wants to be rapunzel? let him be, shit.
quit caring so much about a god damn marketing ploy. quit making it about an issue that is most likely is not. understand that the world is slow to change. and also? stop. stop? stop.
fuckin halloween costumes, jfc
you’re right it’s not possible at all that marketing schemes influence consumer decisions
that has never happened in the history of marketing
so long as they’re not evil-y, intentionally scheming something it must be okay, because unintentionally reinforcing problematic gender binaryisms has never happened before. You’re right, so long as the point was just “to make money,” then we definitely should not even think to criticize the setup
if your kid is influenced by a ton of ads and people telling them that they shouldn’t be a boy wearing a princess dress obviously it is their fault because even though they grow up in a society that naturally influences how they see the world, as a 6 year old they have complete free will while evaluating these things and we should never critically examine the media that has influence over their young and impressionable minds
thank goodness for this sharp tumblr reader who was on the lookout for us unjustly picking on more multi-billion-dollar companies
snaps for feministdisney!
and seriously, my niece wants to be batman for halloween.
she wants to be spider-man (now that she knows about miles and she thinks he’s adorable)
and even though she’s pretty awesome about stuff like that, she still comes to me with this worried look on her face and asks me stuff like “auntie are you sure it’s okay for me to be batman/spider-man/any costume labeled for “boys” in big blue letters” because at six years old she already knows that people are going to make fun of her for being a little girl in a costume marketed to boys even though she knows a ton about superheroes already (more than some adults lbr)
ads like this make her uncomfortable and upset and seeing my niece uncomfortable about halloween costumes of all things makes me angry because she’s little. while i’m allowed to buy her whatever costumes she wants because my sister only cares about saving money, other parents live by the gender binary and their kids get shunted off into little holes and guidelines that are colored pink and blue
it’s limiting
it’s harmful (especially if the kid doesn’t want to be pink OR blue)
it’s old-fashioned
they’re just halloween costumes for little kids so why the hell are they stuck on such rigid gender divides?
(and what’s with these people who comment on posts like this with “stop caring about x issues” or “quit drawing everyone’s attention to how fucked up the gender binary is”? do they actually think that people are going to stop pointing out that shit when it’s affecting their lives because a jerky stranger on the internet said so?)