Not too long ago, I introduced my daughter to the Disney animated movie “Frozen”. In under 45minutes, she became enamoured with the two princesses- but it was not Elsa that she liked, it was Anna.
I suppose between the two girls, Anna is really the more endearing one. Yes, she was foolhardy by wanting to marry Hans in barely a day of meeting him, even trusting him to manage the castle while she was gone pursuing her sister – but that is the point. Brave Anna went galloping after her sister in a snowstorm, to clear up misunderstandings that Elsa is a monster, AND to save the kingdom from impending cold and doom.
So imagine my annoyance, when I found it inexplicably hard to find preschool-level books in my local library, in the bookstore, and even in Disney+, featuring the characters in Frozen.
As someone who favored Elsa (but only because she was the then-only and first Queen in the Disney Princess franchise, with powers, mind you), I say my daughter is a better judge of character than I am!
What I do find instead popping out everywhere though, is the little Mermaid Ariel. A story that, amongst all the Disney Princess franchise and fairytales, is the one I hated the most.
Before I watched TLM, I was already acquainted to the original version of the tale, whereby the mermaid actually died and dissolved into nothingness, as the prince chose to marry someone else. Although the prince in Disney’s version came around and chose Ariel in the end, the story still did not sit well with me, considering that Ariel staked not only her own voice, tail and life, but her family’s and the rest of the oceanic kingdom, for a guy she barely knew.
Even though there was a great battle etc of which Ariel and prince was supposed to redeem themselves, Ariel still did not learn her lesson, as she pined after the human prince long enough for her father to change her into a human again. She had quite forgotten that her father had died once, when she insisted in a pursuit for a man that was as easily hypnotised by another beautiful woman (Ursula’s alternate form).
I recall watching it as a primary school child and wondered what was the point of the movie. That a girl has to be beautiful, have a lovely voice and throw everything away, for “one’s true love”? That you may be beautiful, talented, popular, be of royalty and everything that most can only dream of, only for some guy whom you’d likely outlive, to choose to fall in love with you, then promptly dump you for another?
Like most of the Disney’s Princess Movie franchise, both movies were exploring about the concept of “true love”, but give me “Frozen” any day. An act of sacrifice, as Anna did by choosing to save her sister over her own life, is the ultimate act of love. The story of the mermaid however, was meant to be a story to caution young girls against “falling in love” foolishly. It was, I am very sure, and not meant to be celebrated, much less have the character idolised.
As a merchandise, “Frozen” is wildly popular, so if my local bookstore ran out of the franchise’s books, I guess there could be some acceptable excuses. But what about Disney+ Junior? Why is Ariel’s story chosen for Junior adaptation?Because she is a mermaid, and many kids seemed to love mermaids?
I have no idea, but fortunately for me, Bee doesn’t seem to like mermaids much. She doesn’t even like unicorns – no thanks to the “Bluey” episode of“Unicorse”. Hence I probably can delay discussing about the implications of the story- which are mostly, in my opinion, negative; and focus on stories that have much more positive morals to be learned. If anything, stories are the most powerful medium for learning, especially for a young mind. And since most of us modern parents cannot fully avoid screen time, we may as well do ourselves the favour by utilising it to our advantage.
Although Bee does not have a sister, she understands she is amongst the younger ones in her class. And amongst her cousins and our family friends, she is also one of the youngest. Stories like “Bluey” and “Frozen”, help teach how one should behave towards older children, and how she should behave to those younger than her.
I have read that children her age (below two) are not able to relate what they see on television to reality, as they cannot truly comprehend the stories. But Bee was different. At 14 months, she demonstrated that she understood the scene in “Sing! 2”, when the gorilla teen Johnny, was humiliated by his dance instructor, Klaus, when he was performing onstage.
I had only wanted to expose her to the different kinds of music in the movie, for I observed her love for music and felt that it had been great for her mental stimulation. During the scene, Johnny was being beaten down by Klaus, for he was jealous of Johnny’s seeming achievement, of being able to both dance and sing. Upon seeing Johnny beaten down to the ground, Bee expressed distress by jabbing at the screen and asking me for a hug for reassurance.
Initially thought that the images of fire blazing and the strong drumbeats that had scared her. So I explained to her what the scene meant, and that Johnny, although beaten down now, will get back onto his feet and win against his instructor.
When Johnny eventually did, Bee clapped her hands in joy, and laughed heartily, without any further prompting or explanation from me. She understood!
This is not a post, dear reader, to support the use of screen time. Rather, if you observe that your child is like mine, you may find incorporating stories, be it in form of books or in television, helpful in your child’s education. Realising my child may be wired to receive the benefit, I took the opportunity to share with her my perceived moral of the story: that even if you get beaten down, get up and keep going!
Harness the power of stories. Choose the right ones, so that our children may grow up to live great ones of their own.