Disneyland and Princess Culture

For Fall Break I went and visited friends who happen to live 5 minutes away from Disneyland in California. I had read the articles before going on break and when I went to Disneyland, I noticed all the little girls wearing princess outfits. This may have been due to Halloween coming soon. We went to both parks and most of the girls in both of them were wearing the outfits. I also noticed that the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique is located right next to the castle. 

Another thing I noticed from the articles was that pink sells. My friends and I walked through Aurora’s Castle. You walk through the castle, which tells the story of Sleeping Beauty. When you get to the end of the walking exhibit they have a book that says the end on one page and on the other is Princess Aurora dancing with Prince Phillip and her dress changes colors between pink and blue like in the movie. Well when we got there, there was a mom and two little girls probably about 7 and 5. The littlest girl told her mother not to take the picture until the dress was pink, which made my friends and I have to wait since this was at the bottom of a small set of stairs and blocking the exit door. This little girl reminded me of how the article “Is Pink Necessary” by Annie Murphy Paul, who said that if the toy industry, wants to be profitable they have to have Pink. Also this little girl demanded that her mother take the picture when the dress was pink and not just let her take the picture when the mother was ready to take it. This action the girl is demonstrating, is one of the three elements that define a princess according to the article by Joanne Laucius, she is in charge.

            The last thing I noticed was in Cars Land in Disney’s California Adventure. While we were killing time before heading to World of Color, we were looking through the shops in Cars Land. The shops seemed to be geared towards boys and men. This understandable with the way we stereotype gender and that cars are supposed to be more of a boy thing. Though when you walk through the park it seems that there is a pretty diverse crowd of people there. When it was just the two of us, my friend and I went and rode the race ride by ourselves, while her husband was still at work. Also when were in line for it there was a group of three older woman and a preteen girl in front of us. So though the merchandise of this specific area may seem to be geared towards boys, it seemed to be more diverse within the actual people visiting it.