Disney Debuts ‘First Boy Princess’ in ‘Star vs. the Forces of Evil’
I’m sorry, but what the heck has happened to cartoons? Not only are they hideously ugly to look at and filled with vulgar humor, but they all seem to be spewing some sort of leftist ideology. I mean, seriously, what’s wrong with slipping on banana peels and having anvils fall on your head? Is that not funny anymore? Why does everything have to have a sanctimonious message?
Take Star vs. The Forces of Evil, which airs on Disney XD, for example. The latest episode of this show is being lauded all over the internet for depicting Disney’s “first boy princess.”
HuffPost says it’s “a beautiful moment” that “could be incredibly influential for kids who are soaking up social cues about what it means to be a boy or a girl.” But really, as with so many of these misguided, preachy “feminist” statements, the whole thing doesn’t make sense even on its own terms. It’s just a mash-up of generic “feminist” phrases and ideas that make no internal sense whatsoever.
Now, I have no idea what this show is actually about. I found it hard to even watch the clip in order to write this article. There’s a chainsaw-wielding torso with one severed arm and no legs, a disembodied unicorn head, and a variety of animal-headed, gruff-voiced “princesses.” It’s truly disturbing. But, according to IMDb, the show is about “intergalactic warrior” Star Butterfly who battles villains throughout the universe. Whatever. Who cares?
In the episode, Marco Diaz (Star’s friend) dresses up as a princess in order to save a bunch of (really weird) princesses from an evil headmistress named Ms. Heinous. But, when he’s outed as a boy, the other princesses love him so much that they suddenly decide that boys can be princesses too.
The logic of the episode seems to be that “princess” is a set of attributes rather than an entity which is specifically feminine. As such, a boy could be a princess just as much as a girl could. But, as far as I can tell, the episode doesn’t actually express what those attributes are. It certainly doesn’t outline any “traditionally female” behaviors or inclinations that Marco still possesses even though it turns out he’s actually a boy. In fact, it’s his male clothing and even the crude revelation that he has chest hair, that reveal him as a boy.
Is Marco a princess because he has a secret desire to play with girl toys, or wear dresses, or express his emotions, or be taken care of by someone stronger than himself? Nothing in the episode suggests this. So, he’s not a feminine male who needs to be accepted for who he is. Are the other princesses more “traditionally male” and therefore we should rethink the girly-ness of princesses? Nothing in the episode suggests this either. He’s just a boy who dressed up as a girl to in order to forward the plot.
The thing is, male cartoon characters dress up as girls all the time. Bugs Bunny constantly dressed in drag — usually to outsmart whoever was trying to kill him. It was a gag that worked on a bunch of levels. It was funny to see Bugs dressed in women’s clothing (a boy dressed up as a girl makes us laugh because it’s absurd), it was funny to watch the bad guy falling all over himself because Bugs was so pretty, and it was funny to see Bugs hit the bad guy over the head when he leaned in for a kiss.
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/disney-cartoon-star-vs-forces-evil-debuts-first-boy-princess/