Fans seem to be starting younger and younger these days.
When I was a child Disney was around bringing joy to millions of children
through their retelling of fairy tales. The difference today is that there is
unlimited merchandise available for parents to buy and pressure put on them to
buy whenever and on demand.
“How Disney’s ‘Frozen’ ruined my life” by Kyle Smith and
published in the New York Times is not the first article I have read by parents
under pressure to constantly supply their children with merchandise from movies
like Frozen and make their daily lives a constant struggle.
What I don’t understand is why they feel constantly under
pressure to buy their children merchandise on a daily basis and what happened
to just saying no which is not a dirty word irrelevant of the consequences. Presents
are for special occasions like birthdays and Christmas. Plenty of parents told
the author in the comments section that it doesn’t make you a bad parent if you
say no to your children in these circumstances. Yes, two year olds do chuck
some awesome tantrums set off by the slightest things (it is called the
terrible twos for a reason) when they don’t get their own way, but that too shall pass.
There is a valuable lesson in saying no to your children in
that they will develop copying systems for dealing with situations when they
don’t get what they want. While young children don’t really understand the
value of parents who say no now and saving money for the future, they will thank
them later on in particular when they graduate from college.
How Disney’s ‘Frozen’ ruined his life by Kyle
Smith published in The New York Times on the 24 September 2014. (No copyright infringement intended)
Because I’m a
film critic, last fall Disney sent over an early DVD of “Frozen” — free. Thanks,
Disney! So far that freebie has cost me maybe $900.
I have two little
girls, ages 6 and 2, and each of them has seen “Frozen” at least four times as
many times as I ever saw “Star Wars.” The apartment is bursting with “Frozen”
storybooks, “Frozen” coloring books, “Frozen” dolls, “Frozen” stickers,
“Frozen” games, “Frozen” puzzles, “Frozen” costumes and “Frozen” nightgowns.
We have three of
those nighties — for two kids. How did that happen? Among the many, many
“Frozen” books in the house are two different “Frozen” Little Golden Books —
long version and short version. (As I write this, the shorter one is the No. 5
best-selling book on Amazon.) To paraphrase Roy Scheider confronting a
similarly all-consuming menace in “Jaws,” we’re going to need a bigger
apartment.
Sometimes when my
2-year-old wakes up, “Elsa?” is the first thing she says in the morning. It’s a
simple one-word request meaning, “Fire up the ‘Frozen’ DVD and nobody gets
hurt.”
And when it’s
time to go to bed, she refuses to stop caterwauling until her mom comes in and
sings “Let It Go.” (She sings along, sort of: “Awww gooooooooooo! Awwww
gooooooo!”)
For a mandatory
encore, my wife sings, “Do You Want To Build a Snowman?” (Our daughter doesn’t
know any of the words in the song, but never fails to hit her cue for imitating
the tick-tock sound Anna makes when she’s under the grandfather clock.)
The kid has a
vocabulary of maybe 20 words — and two of them are “Elsa” and “Anna.” (Last
night, she added a 21st: “Dizzy,” for Disney.)
Last Sunday, I
found my attention wandering away from a pretty exciting Giants football game
because I got a ping about a sweet deal at Target for an Anna-and-Elsa
comforter ($29.99!). Target’s website offers 196 “Frozen” items. We don’t have
all of them. Yet.
In theory, we buy
our kids all the crap they want to keep them happy — that is, sedated in a
Disney stupor — so we can relax and watch a Giants game. But “Frozen” has
turned my sweet daughters into mad merch-munching dragons who get all the
hungrier the more we feed them.
A few weeks ago
our family went to what we thought would be a nice dinner party on Shelter
Island. Our toddler spotted a small hole in the deck and wondered if her tiny,
freshly purchased 2-inch Elsa doll would fit through it.
It did!
As she wailed, I
spent the next hour trying to fish the thing out with a fondue fork covered
with sticky tape. I’ve had more fun raking leaves than I did at that party. And
when we went back to Target to get another tiny Elsa doll to replace the one
now permanently entombed under a beach-house deck? Sold out. Screaming ensued.
Both girls,
natch, want to be Elsa for Halloween. We already have the costumes. Which may
be worn out by then.
What is with the
Elsa obsession, anyway? Anna is way cuter, braver and more honorable (she runs
toward her responsibilities; Elsa runs away from them). She has a better sense
of humor and is much less of a beeyotch than Elsa — the Anna Wintour of the
fjords. Are my daughters destined to grow up into ice-hearted loners who think
a sparkly Windex-blue dress and a haughty air are appropriate responses to
having magical powers?
As we embark on
Year Two of the “Frozen” Era, Disney is no doubt gearing up to release a new
batch of Elsa merch in time for the holidays. And my bank account is dissolving
faster than Olaf on the Fourth of July.
Girls, sorry
about that college fund we keep meaning to start for you. And here’s my advice
for coping with the job market of the future without a college degree: Seek
help from those magical trolls in the forest.
