New Fantasyland: Girlz Rule, Potter Envy, Smelly Burps

Disney's Fantasyland expansion has lately come under fire for favoring girls over boys. The original plan was to big build with princesses, fairies, and other feminine favorites.

All that changed - though Disney won't admit to it - with the wild success of Harry Potter at Universal. Most boys would rather fly with Potter than dance with Pocahontas. The nightmare vision of families passing up Disney for Universal because their male children now think it's 'cooler' seems not to have occurred to princess-obsessed executives, at least not until the past few weeks, and these very same executives also seem not to have realized they already own the perfect Potter counter: Marvel.

But that's another story.

Teri Sizemore, author of the wonderfully written blog, DisneyGene, has a different view of Fantasyland (and the Disney business model): she says that Fantasyland should cater to little girls because the boys can skip over to Tomorrowland and enjoy Stitch burping in their faces. Boys - especially when they near puberty - have plenty of fantasies of their own, she seems to say, and so why dilute the dreams of young girls everywhere to wander in a land totally given over to the delicate denizens of their fantasies.

An obvious solution is to bisect Fantasyland: girls on the left, boys on the right. It makes sense, but it doesn't feel right, does it?

Teri thinks the princesses are the 'backbone' of Fantasyland. I think fantasy is the backbone of Fantasyland, and fantasy should be blind to gender as it is to reality. When you ride Peter Pan's Flight, do you ponder whether it's a 'boy' ride or a 'girl' ride? Nah. I've seen plenty of boys there; and I've seen plenty of girls loving every reeking fume of Stitch's chili dog gas, too.

So what's the solution? There isn't one. Or rather: it's whatever Disney does. In the meantime, it's fascinating to read everyone's take on the issue, and Teri Sizemore's take is a great place to start.