It’s that time of year again where tons of kids will dot the streets with Spiderman, Batman, and this year’s Iron Man. Included in the lot will be the typical Cinderella, Snow White, and right now – the hot new costume/character is Tinkerbell. The hype for the Fairy phenomenon is enormous and just goes to show what a conglomerate like Disney can do with a little extra cash. They’ve taken a character from a novel created more than 50 years ago and saturated the market with her image making it popular among today’s little girls whose great-grandparents knew the character almost a century ago from reading a book! How fly is that! How powerful is the media?!
Alas this year, I found myself scouring the aisles for Cinderella – my daughter’s costume of choice this Halloween. As a mother of African descent I’m doing my damnedest to instill a certain level of appreciation for who she is as a young lady of color but it’s difficult when the pop images in the media are overwhelming and don’t look like her. I did find an African-American picture version of Cinderella from Jump at the Sun books: http://www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/jump/jumpatthesun_books.asp, and bought it to read to her before renting Disney’s version from the library. And even though she loves the book and Cinderella’s dress is a gorgeous pink (my daughter’s favorite color), it’s just not popular enough for her to want to be this particular Cinderella. She was very specific when she pointed out she wanted the blue dress. So then I found Rodgers and Hammerstein’s version starring Brandy and Whitney Houston. Here, Brandy wore the familiar pale blue dress which was perfect! But as I searched the stores I noticed all the “Cinderella” dresses had the Disney icon’s face pinned, dotted, or adorning some part of the dress which is unacceptable in my home. So I took to my other favorite place to shop when I don’t see what I want in the stores…EBAY! I put in a search for Cinderella dresses or gowns and came across a little girl’s pale blue, poofy dress worn as a child’s Cinderella ballet costume. It contained all the basic elements I needed to create the perfect one-of-a-kind Cinderella dress for my daughter without the Disney symbol strategically planted all over it. I plan to take the dress, go to a local fabric shop and buy an inexpensive array of embellishments to sprinkle and twinkle onto my daughter’s costume. There, now I’ve spent half the money and hers will be unlike anyone else’s! Fabulous, take that Disney!…now if I can just get my hands on a pair of “glass slippers”…sigh, the hunt continues.
Alas this year, I found myself scouring the aisles for Cinderella – my daughter’s costume of choice this Halloween. As a mother of African descent I’m doing my damnedest to instill a certain level of appreciation for who she is as a young lady of color but it’s difficult when the pop images in the media are overwhelming and don’t look like her. I did find an African-American picture version of Cinderella from Jump at the Sun books: http://www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/jump/jumpatthesun_books.asp, and bought it to read to her before renting Disney’s version from the library. And even though she loves the book and Cinderella’s dress is a gorgeous pink (my daughter’s favorite color), it’s just not popular enough for her to want to be this particular Cinderella. She was very specific when she pointed out she wanted the blue dress. So then I found Rodgers and Hammerstein’s version starring Brandy and Whitney Houston. Here, Brandy wore the familiar pale blue dress which was perfect! But as I searched the stores I noticed all the “Cinderella” dresses had the Disney icon’s face pinned, dotted, or adorning some part of the dress which is unacceptable in my home. So I took to my other favorite place to shop when I don’t see what I want in the stores…EBAY! I put in a search for Cinderella dresses or gowns and came across a little girl’s pale blue, poofy dress worn as a child’s Cinderella ballet costume. It contained all the basic elements I needed to create the perfect one-of-a-kind Cinderella dress for my daughter without the Disney symbol strategically planted all over it. I plan to take the dress, go to a local fabric shop and buy an inexpensive array of embellishments to sprinkle and twinkle onto my daughter’s costume. There, now I’ve spent half the money and hers will be unlike anyone else’s! Fabulous, take that Disney!…now if I can just get my hands on a pair of “glass slippers”…sigh, the hunt continues.
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