What's so wrong with wishing upon a star?

While I bought into a lot of Douglas’ arguments, there were a few topics she discussed and examples she cited that left an overall bitter taste in my mouth. For example, in the chapter entitled "Fractured Fairy Tales", Douglas discusses The Wonderful World of Disney and Disney movies in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She rebukes the way the Disney Princesses were portrayed with tongue in cheek remarks: “In the ensuing battle between the innocent, deserving, self-sacrificing girl and the vain, black-hearted, covetous woman, the girl won in the end, rescued from female power run amok by some handsome prince she had met only once” (29). I take argument with these types of remarks for several reasons. First, while I do agree that the females in Disney movies don’t necessarily portray strong, intelligent women or how life for women really was in the 50s, I don’t see why this lie is a problem. What else is Douglas expecting…an animated movie telling 5 year-olds that life as a woman is hard and tiring and unrewarding? No! Children are supposed to believe in princesses, and prince charmings, and the ability for any dream to come true if they just “wish upon a star”. That is just the essence of childhood and the innocence of youth. As a child, I was always dressing up in a blue Cinderella dress and plastic high heels, pretending to be the prettiest girl at the ball. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure I turned out just fine and have adjusted to the real world of hardships and truths even with these delusions of grandeur as a young girl.

However, I do recognize that I have grown up in a society that has a lot more respect for gender equality than did the children of the 50s and 60s. This brings me to the second reason why I don’t quite agree with Douglas’…because I know for a fact my mother, a woman born in the mid 1950s, grew up watching The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday night with my uncle and grandparents as a weekly family event. And never once has she mentioned feeling betrayed at the unrealistic portrayal of women in the weekly show or animated movies (and my mother is somewhat of a feminist, at least by Douglas’ definition). Moreover, my mother has recounted multiple times the story of how, at the age of 18, she went to Disney World for the first time with her college roommate and they both stopped before the Magic Kingdom Castle and held each other and cried. Tears of joy were streaming down their faces because they couldn’t believe it was the castle from their childhood, the one they watched Tinkerbell fly around every Sunday night, live right before their eyes. If anything, this image brought back happy memories from her childhood. She did not once mention feeling upset, offended, or deceived as an adult due to watching Disney Princesses live happily ever after as a child. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.