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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Deja huh?

I remember in 1990 I became a bit popular in my little after school group babysitting thing (don't worry, it didn't last). Not because I had the latest perfect Lisa Frank accessory or was sporting temperature changing clothes.

No, it was all because I could easily imitate the Little Mermaids singing voice. I have a passable singing voice and can sing in a normal octave range (I'm an alto almost leaning to tenor) and have a pretty good grasp of pitch (being able to read music sure helps).

But my real talent comes in my weird audible fixation. My hearing is by far my best tuned sense. I learn based upon what I hear. If I'm told something I'm much more likely to remember it than if I ever saw it or wrote it down myself. I tend to recognize an actor not based upon what he looks like but his voice first.

Okay this is where I'd include some samples of me modulating and changing my voice but uh I'm no where near my mac and its awesome built in mic and iMovie. Maybe later if someone demands proof.

Anyway back to the point. Like just about every girl my age I too fell in love with Ariel with her wild redhead loving to sing silly song ways.

This is not the Ariel I fell in love with:

From Sociological Images, this is a mock up of a magazine cover girls can hang on their walls.

This is super sexed up Ariel being targeted at tweens but probably hitting only the much younger girls who need everything princessey because Disney says they do. When did she give up her dreams of being free to discover a different world with forks in order to pose for Maxim, sorry I mean "Princess Style?"

It isn't just Ariel getting the weird magazine treatment, but I never felt the same connection to Snow White or Sleeping Beauty as I did the quirky red head.

Disney has tried to ret-con her to fit the more strict standards for females. She can't be goofy, she has to be come hither and sexy at all times. She is only worth something to get other women to realize they aren't perfect enough and should always be working hard to get great legs at any cost.

I miss the ol' care free days of things like popples, cabbage patch dolls and Little Foot (by far my favorite toy was a stuffed brontosaurus). I grew up with little to no sexed up toys and look at what happened to me. I don't give a shit if every single male on the planet wants to sleep with me and actually use my brain.

I'm the worst thing imaginable to the Advertisers and Big Business!

But really, I can do a mean penguin voice if you want.

7 comments:

  1. And you wonder why girls feel the way they do about themselves these days. Our society promotes it!

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  2. I loved my cabbage patch dolls. Of all my dolls they resembled me-brown hair and pudgy! Much more realistic than Barbie, but Barbie had the better clothes.
    Some of my favorite toys weren't bought as toys. I loved the sponges my dad bought for his work. I would make little cities out of them. Or the empty pie tins my mom kept. I could "cook" with them, make pies, use them in the "store" where my dolls would shop. Sigh I want to go play now.

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  3. I remember when Belle's cleavage in Beauty and the beast was a big issue... now look! JEEZ! I watch a lot of disney channel - i do admit this, and my FH always says "disney is selling sex to kids"... sometimes, i almost have to wonder if its true! :(

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  4. Please please please let us be living in Poland when our girls become old enough to possibly be sucked in to all of this.

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  5. Oh gosh, Little Foot! I sobbed the first 83 times I saw that movie. At any rate, I agree...something about sexing up the Disney princesses is just. so. wrong.

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  6. Maybe that's what makes me such a freak. I didn't grow up with Disney. My parents never let me watch TV or movies except for shows on public TV and I'm OK with that.

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  7. I loved Little Foot! I think that I managed to squeak by in one of the last generations that wasn't overly sexed up. I missed Bratz dolls and the majority of the Britney Spears craze. Oh to bring back the innocence of back then!

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