Working in a toy store and some thoughts on Disney Princesses.

I got my first job when I was sixteen. I was at La Encantada with my mom when she started telling me to go in and get applications. She was encouraging me to apply at places like J. Crew and Talbots, where she could use my discount, and although I loved J. Crew, I wasn’t going to give my mother the satisfaction... and walked straight into the toy store. 

I asked the very slender girl with the pixie hair cut and sleepy eyes if I could please have an application. It turned out that she was the owner, and a recent college grad. She looked at me, a little bemusedly, and told me that she’d never actually hired anyone before, but she guessed she could use someone once or twice a week to help out. I asked for an application, and she didn’t have any. She took a brown, ripped piece of parcel paper and a crayon from one of the kid’s art sets and wrote these questions in whimsical writing. 

What is your favorite color, and why?

Please write the first seven lives of your favorite disney song. 

Why do you need a job? Are you a creep?

Please write a rhyming poem about Edward Norton, Shoelaces, and Mice. 

I sat down at the kids table, on a Hippety Hop, and filled it out. Looking back, I should have been really confused, but this was the first job application I had ever filled out, so I thought maybe this was just how it went.  I wrote that my favorite color was teal, I wrote the first lines of "Portobello Road," informed her that I was not a creep, and wrote a poem (I don't remember it verbatim, but it was a limerick). I gave it back to her, she read it, smiled and asked if I could come in tomorrow. As an after thought,  she asked for my last name, and my phone number, and called me later that night to ask if I would prefer an apron with balloon print, or frogs because she was sewing it right then. I told her balloons.

Working in that toy store was one of the best experiences. It was the only place I’ve worked where I was encouraged to blow bubbles, juggle, and wear fairy wings to work, all of which I took advantage of. I also loved seeing how little kids would just light up when I sprinkled fairy dust on them and told them to make a wish, even though it was just regular glitter. When the hours were slow, we would play with the toys, and test the games and read the books. We sold really wonderful, high quality toys instead of the cheap ones from Wal-Mart. 

I spent my Friday nights in high school doing read aloud storytelling for children, and practicing the little, ridiculous plays we would sometimes put on on Saturday mornings. I can, to this day, make a damn good paper snowflake, and know all the words to literally every single Disney song, even the really obscure ones from movies no one has seen since the 1970’s.

One of the things I learned though, was that Disney princesses send a really awful message to children, particularly girls. Of course, we have all been made aware of the anti-feminist qualities in them, and know that with few exceptions they don’t have an intelligent conversation with the man who they are going to spend the rest of their life with. However, what I was more interested in was their lack of friends, and the message it sends girls about friendship. Cinderella was only friends with animals, Belle had no friends until was was kidnapped then made friends with her usually inanimate captors (which could very arguably be Stockholm Syndrome), Pocahontas is friends with a raccoon and hummingbird, Jasmine had a tiger, Snow White had seven dwarves...how would the stories be different if any of those companions had been another human female friend? Furthermore, the women that are in the stories have mostly antagonistic qualities. Evil queens, witches, stepmothers and step sisters are in no short supply in these tales. I can’t help but wonder: what does that teach our children, however subtly, about the relationships women are supposed to have with each other. It's no wonder books like “Queen Bees and Wannabes” (more commonly known by it’s film adaptation “Mean Girls,”) are so popular and relevant in society. We teach our girls to compare, and feel antagonized by other females, instead of teaching them to celebrate each other and develop meaningful friendships.