“I can say I’m Cinderella because she was around before Disney,” explained Russell, who has upgraded her outfits and now has five other performers working for her. “Rapunzel they don’t own, but ‘Tangled’ they do. Our Little Mermaid is not their Ariel. But we do look like them.”
April 27, 2013
"We don’t know where this came from, Disney is getting to her somehow.... We don’t even play with princesses..."
"...but all she wants to do is put on a dress and dance around the house, and now she really, really wants Cinderella at her birthday party," the parents say to the professional Cinderella, who dresses like the Disney Cinderella and sings "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" at parties. Won't Disney come after her after this big profile in The Washington Post?
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High School classmate is now a professional magician. He does a lot of birthday parties. We never went that route -- hiring someone for entertainment -- for our kids' birthday parties. (Shrug). I don't see the harm, really, except to the checkbook.
The guy who wrote the first comment over there sounds way too serious. I will bet that his daughter's wedding will cost more than $50K.
I assume the lone boy is the birthday girl's brother. Hopefully the cake was good (and hopefully his friends don't see the photos).
PS. Looks like Cinderella has been enjoying a bit too much birthday cake herself.
I bet Disney does come after her. They are very aggressive about protecting the brand. Check out embroidery/applique message boards. Lots of stories about Disney thugs confiscating clothing with DIY embroidered characters.
The singer in one of my bands has a business doing princess parties. Music and theater are expensive hobbies for her. Princess parties pay the rent.
I didn't know Cinderella had become a dowager princess.
It would take more time than anybody has around the daily news shops to think of the right thing to say about Disney.
He was an original. Not just an American original, but an original. Period. He was a happy accident, one of the happiest this century has experienced. And judging by the way it’s behaving, in spite of all Disney tried to tell it about laughter, love, children, puppies, and sunrises, the century hardly deserved him. He probably did more to heal - or at least soothe - troubled human spirits than all the psychiatrists in the world. There can’t be many adults in the allegedly civilized parts of the globe who did not inhabit Disney’s mind and imagination for at least for a few hours and feel better for the visitation.
It may be true, as somebody said, that while there is no highbrow in a lowbrow, there is some lowbrow in every highbrow. But what Disney seemed to know was that while there is very little grown-up in every child, there is a lot of child in every grown-up. To a child, this weary world is brand-new, gift wrapped. Disney tried to keep it that way for adults.
By the conventional wisdom, mighty mice, flying elephants, Snow White and Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy and Doc - all these were fantasy, escapism from reality. It’s a question of whether they are any less real, any more fantastic than intercontinental missiles, poisoned air, defoliated forests, and scrap iron on the moon. This is the age of fantasy, however you look at it, but Disney’s fantasy wasn’t lethal.
People are saying we will never see his like again.
Eric Sevareid of CBS Evening News (and an iconic liberal), eulogizing Walt Disney on Christmas Eve, 1966.
Eric Sevareid of CBS Evening News (and an iconic liberal), eulogizing Walt Disney on Christmas Eve, 1966.
Assuming you consider someone being preserved in liquid nitrogen to be "dead."
Peter
Disney has become legendary in the last few decades for going after people who don't consult with them (and probably pay a basket of money for using their characters).
Problem here is, Cinderella isn't Disney's creation (not unlike Zorro) and, with a few modifications, she may be able to get away with it.
Ann, you doing anything much this summer? I'm betting there's a lady that could use a little pro bono help.
Assuming you consider someone being preserved in liquid nitrogen to be "dead."
His cells have long since lysed and burst. Only the decomposition has been delayed. Not unlike Stalin's and Lenin's corpses.
On the other hand, I've long been amused with Disney animus as an indicator of boomer hipness. It is one of those traits that erstwhile hippies loathe to admit. And they trade insults about Walt like they did baseball cards in their youth.
I think of princesses being a bit younger and skinnier, but maybe kids want a little fairy godmother mixed up in their princesses. De gustibus.
Disney princesses drawn as sloths.
My fav is Slothahontas.
...And Ironrail....people in suspension are dead, they've merely been decelerated.
I'm forever grateful for the Disney nature films I saw as a kid. My only caveat would be the way they all started with the first scene "painted" in animation. In my innocence I was imprinted with the notion that painting was that easy, just carry a brush from left to right and right to left across a screen or canvas and *voila* a picture! But that was Disney, no grit, on purpose.
Ricpic: "Bear Country."
Still makes me laugh out loud.
Oh, God. First the Prince case and now this. Prof. Terry Fisher sure has some primo copyright-infringement material "ripped from the headlines" to throw on the final.
I have a one year old girl.
Princess culture ranks in the top few of my "first world problems." It's seriously out of hand, and they're horrible role models. I say this even though I have, in the past, enjoyed the Disney movies in their own right.
Probably despise this culture because of the divorces I've been around the last five or six years, they've all been on account of the woman thinking she's a princess and being wooed away by the allure of the shiny things. Never to a good end, ultimately.
William said...
I think of princesses being a bit younger and skinnier, but maybe kids want a little fairy godmother mixed up in their princesses. De gustibus.
Unless you're into real skinny, she doesn't look that hefty.
She does look like a big (framed) girl and the dress probably adds to the effect.
with a few modifications, she may be able to get away with it.
Like a small name change.
No, Cinderella predates Disney.
I was thinking a costume modification and dropping the song.
No, Cinderella predates Disney.
Sure — but this is a matter of law, not right.
Its true, Disney is really aggressive in protecting their copyrights. My brother used to make and sell concrete statuary and the Cinderella and the seven dwarfs statues caused him to receive a cease and desist letter from Disney.
Were they exact replicas of the Disney images? Like Cindy, Snow and the little perverts pre-date Walt.
campy said...
No, Cinderella predates Disney.
Sure — but this is a matter of law, not right.
I think even the article says she can use the name.
Considering how snippy the courts were about how many notes were the same between "Surfin' USA" and "Sweet Little Sixteen", I'm guessing using a pre-Disney image of Cindy (a ball gown is a ball gown, after all) would put her beyond the pale.
But I like your take on the difference between law and right.
Especially in light of last week in Baaston.
The time lapse of a desert flower opening is one of my enduring childhood memories. It was like magic to me. I still love time lapse photography.
Kids! Disregard their parents' sensibilities, they do. (NOTE: Boys WILL play with guns. Girls WILL like to be princesses. Life's a bummer.)
And, if they haven't got a gun, they'll fake one.
I paid entertainment for our kids' birthdays when they were young, but I arranged for the kids to be taken to a Triassic fossil site about 20 miles from our neighborhood. The paleontologists enjoyed our money and the kids' enthusiasm, and the kids came away with fossil shark teeth.
Of course I have sons, not daughters. But I think daughters who were young enough wouldn't mind getting dirt on their hands for a few fossil shark teeth.
Here's the Disney Cinderella. Compare that to the dress she is wearing to depict Cinderella? Is she trading on what Disney created, built up, and maintains or not?
Let me point out some elements in the 2 images.
1. Hair in a big high bun with a bump of bangs over the forehead.
2. Blue headband!
2. Dark choker ribbon around the neck!
3. Light blue dress with scooped neckline, short puff sleeves and a bulbous peplum.
4. Elbow length gloves.
If she were 15 years younger and 30 pounds lighter, she'd clearly be infringing. But she probably wears a bulbous peplum every day.
She looks more mugly other than Rindercella
My grandma had a bancy fall.
It put her in the hospital.
Did he shake a brip?
"Bulbous peplum." Most memorable phrase I've heard this year. Sounds rather lascivious.
@Chip: when you permute threefirst letters in a phrase it's called a "sporkerism"
"Bulbous peplum." Most memorable phrase I've heard this year. Sounds rather lascivious.
She couldn't bake her shooty for a tong lime.
IMO Disney and all have way too much power with regards to copyright law. That stupid mouse should have been in the public domain decades ago.
Make the gown ecru, the trim scarlet or crimson, "diamond" necklace instead of choker, but keep the gloves.
No lady would dream of balls without evening gloves.
Some years ago, I was in Houston, meeting with a group of lawyers on a case where I was serving as an expert witness. We all went out to lunch together, and the subject of kids' birthday parties came up. One lawyer talked about taking his son to a friend's birthday party a week or two earlier. The party theme was "Kim Possible" and, yes, the parents had hired a 'Kim Possible' person to attend. The lawyer said that the 20-something woman playing Kim was in fact quite attractive and was wearing Kim's signature bare midriff outfit. He said that he had to make an effort not to spend time watching her and noted that the other fathers in attendance seemed to be having the same struggle.
One of the many curious things my 4 year old granddaughter does and says is how she names the various princesses. Rapunzel is Tangled (and don't you forget it!) while Merida from Brave is Merida. And on it goes.
"No lady would dream of balls without evening gloves."
What about the ladies who sleep naked?
What about the ladies who sleep naked?
LadyGodiva rode sidesaddle bareback and didn't use a glove.
Yes I know there's a contradiction between sidesaddle and bareback but what else do you call that position?
reverse cowgirl?
reverse cowgirl?
Half-assed at best.
but fully satisfactory
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