Stories that a culture tells itself reveal what it values, and nearly every culture throughout history has its own unique version of the Cinderella story. As a child, I was fascinated by the dress-making scene in the American version of this story, the ever-popular 1950 Disney animated film where mice and birds sew a dress for the rag-clad protagonist so that she might attend the ball and have a chance to marry the prince. This story version models an identity for women and girls where the beautiful and charming are always good, the less attractive are always bitter and envious, and where the right dress can magically change your identity, marital, and class status overnight.

It seems our image-driven rags-to-riches consumer culture is obsessed with fitting women and girls into this model. It is impossible not to see the fantastical fairytale princess all around us in advertisements, shopping malls, and department store windows in her ever-improved-for-quick-consumption apparel. Moreover and of great fascination to me, her predecessors can be spotted in their luscious gowns throughout Western European art history emerging into our current trope from far-away Renaissance lands, informing women’s identities long before Walt Disney put in his uniquely American two cents.

As I continue my investigation into identity from the subject position of a woman, mother and artist living in Disney-legacy America, I feel compelled to examine and raise questions about the fairytale princess – a gendered identity constructed from historical and current sociocultural influences. She is a stereotype of long term ideals and values which not only affects young girls but is adhered to and propagated by women of all ages.