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• Tuesday, March 28, 2006 09:29 PM

  Oh, what young harlot wouldn't love it?

  Little girls were always encouraged to grow up too quickly. In the Victorian era, parents were urged to treat their children as "miniature adults." Baby dolls that require feeding and diaper-changing, Easy Bake Ovens, Mystery Date, non-functional kitchens made by Fisher Price, Pretty Pretty Princess, Glamour Shots, Tinkerbell cosmetics--these are all bits and pieces of a bigger game of girlhood dress-up, where the child assumes not just the persona of a "princess," but of an independent adult. It might be partly born out of an antiquated parenting technique, preparing a young girl for marriage by age thirteen or whatever, but it’s also part of that childhood fantasy of adulthood, absolutely. Marketing products toward that desire is nothing new.

  Unfortunately, the childhood fantasy of adulthood is now farther removed from reality than ever. There are no more "princess" role models--Grace Kelly, Jackie O, well-read and articulate women who know how to deliver speeches in French while rocking a sweet Oleg Cassini ensemble--for girls to look up to. There are no more Harriet-the-Spies, unless you count the movie costarring Rosie O’Donnell. Live action Cinderella Stories now mean transforming an ugly, bookish girl into, not Audrey Hepburn, but into Sandra Bullock or some pop-star drone. And why not? The only rags-to-riches stories in the mainstream seem to involve ordinary Southern girls who finally prove themselves first to Disney (or Fox) and then to the world beyond. What little girl wouldn’t be misled into believing that the key to her own rags-to-riches tale is a hot bod and bedazzled spandex?

  —jennatar Read jennatar's other letters
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