The ad above was made by RPA to advertise the Honda Accord, with help from the imagination of a four-year-old named Ethan, who transforms the Honda into a rocket to save a princess from a dragon.
The first feminist treatise I ever heard was when my fourth-grade teacher started ranting at us about how maybe the Mushroom Princess in "Super Mario" doesn't want to be saved. I can't remember what brought this on. In my recollection, we all stared wide-eyed while she spat and sputtered about the lame fictional heroics of our favourite Italian plumbers. A girl sitting next to me leaned into my ear and whispered, "I don't think she knows about Bowser."
I am probably a little older now than my teacher was then, and I get what she was trying to convey. The message would perhaps have had the chance to stick if she didn't do other weird things, like try teaching us about mass and density with an example about when she can, and cannot, fit into her boyfriend's pants.
Too soon, Ms. R, too soon.
Anyway, all this is to say that very little has changed, apart from that more little girls are perhaps more willing to say "I don't want to be a princess" and "I don't need to be saved." But there are still little boys who want to save princesses from dragons, and there are still advertising agencies who still imagine the default princess as a curly-haired blonde in a pink prom dress.
Great job, everybody, great job.
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