The Princess Complex Theory

A friend sent me this link the other day: There Is No Happily Ever After In Fallen Princesses and I found myself thinking about how true these juxtapositions were. The picture above is part of a series by photographer Dina Goldstein which was inspired by her observation of three-year-old girls, who were developing an interest in Disney's Fairy tales. She explains that:

"As a young girl, growing up abroad, I was not exposed to Fairy tales. These new discoveries lead to my fascination with the origins of Fairy tales. I explored the original brothers Grimm's stories and found that they have very dark and sometimes gruesome aspects, many of which were changed by Disney. I began to imagine Disney's perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues."

That being said I hardly think that the Disney Princesses could solely be blamed for women's skewed perception of romance, beauty and self-worth. In fact, there is also another side of the spectrum - the female with the "Princess Complex" which one blogger describes as "an attitude fed to females that bestows upon them illusions of superiority and selfishness". Having grown up abroad as well (and in a third world country nonetheless) I couldn't help but observe how there seems to be a pervading culture that encourages a "princess complex" among girls in America. I mean do you ever stop to wonder why we see endless merchandise with princess emblems like tiara's or, my favorite, "I'm a princess" logo in almost every mass retail store? Or how only in America will you hear parents refer to their daughters as "my little princess" and then proceed to bow to their every whim. Flash forward to when they turn 16 where they grow up to be horrible brats that have a false sense of entitlement and gross disrespect for their parents or the people around them. See video below....



So in retrospect a tale or two could never be sufficient enough to turn women into either twisted insecure shells of themselves or tyrannical snot-face brats. The reasons are way bigger than that! It would take a psycho-socio-economic analysis that would be way over my head at this time of the night =)