Princesses on Ice

*Tonight I did something I never thought I would do. I attended the great big kiddie cult Princess on Ice thing at the Oakland arena- immediately ghetto and ridiculous when they charge a huge amount of cash only for parking and make us do a 7 point U turn in order to get out of the parking queue. I took the girls to Will Call and switched them into surprise with Princess dress up garb.
These are all things that I have no reference for, nothing remotely close to this kind of thing. My childhood is peppered with the Concord Pavilion (Kingston Trio), George Benson in Tahoe and the Original WWF wrestling- Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant on the bill. We weren't a Princess friendly house. Unicorns, Pegasus, Barbie and purple were allowable.

She turns the car around in less than 12 moves and lets the girls and I out near a security outpost where we enter the grounds, careful weaving in and out of the weaving in and out jubilant Raider Nation wagons and tailgaters ecstatic about their home field advantage over the Eagles. I recognized the folks in that crowd- matched the vivid memories I have of the now memorable Philadelphia v. SF at Candlestick Park- LT. But the blend with the Princess gangs was priceless.

But the blending doesn't stop there. Most of the kids are from some sort of brown family- maybe because it's Oakland? California? Bay Area? doesn't matter but then fast forward through a performance where the majority of the cast is blonde, brunette and swarthy. With a couple of Asian exceptions and many players in masks and wigs- there were as far as I could tell no Latino/a or African-American people in the cast despite the opposite being true of the audience. Unbelievable.

The folks who are Disney Princess lovers, the folks who pay top dollar and then spend again at the get more stuff with Princesses on it for a lot of money Made in China kiosks. The obese American consumer sheep who are gobbling this stuff up.

And then I wonder, where do I draw the line? How do I keep my daughter safe without sterilizing her against this cult of personality that may or may not have indoctrinated and contaminated and reinforced with a thick seal my Happily Ever After Seeker programming. argh. darling Rach and I tried to have a feminist counterintelligence training conversation after the event- questioning the arrangements and real desires of all those paired off Princes and Princesses. Make sure the girls knew to consider that despite it's all happy bunches of roses now, maybe they change their minds or they change themselves or they don't change at all.
All of it blew my mind. I'm so glad I don't ever have to do that again. Lucky mama, Xoxa won't mind either.


(*I am going to try to write this whole post without actually acknowledging or including the corporate identifiers- let's see how it goes!)