''Princess,'' as some Disney execs call it, is not only the fastest-growing brand the company has ever created they say it is on its way to becoming the largest girls' franchise on the planet. There are now more than 25,000 Disney Princess items. Sales at Disney Consumer Products, which started the craze six years ago by packaging nine of its female characters under one royal rubric, have shot up to $3 billion, globally, this year, from $300 million in 2001. To call princesses a ''trend'' among girls is like calling Harry Potter a book. ''What's wrong with princesses?''ĭiana may be dead and Masako disgraced, but here in America, we are in the midst of a royal moment. My daughter, who was reaching for a Cinderella sticker, looked back and forth between us. Does every little girl really have to be a princess?'' ''Come on!'' I continued, my voice rising. She stared at me as if I were an evil stepmother.
Maybe it was the dentist's Betty Boop inflection that got to me, but when she pointed to the exam chair and said, ''Would you like to sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth?'' I lost it. I'd smiled politely every time the supermarket-checkout clerk greeted her with ''Hi, Princess'' ignored the waitress at our local breakfast joint who called the funny-face pancakes she ordered her ''princess meal'' made no comment when the lady at Longs Drugs said, ''I bet I know your favorite color'' and handed her a pink balloon rather than letting her choose for herself. I finally came unhinged in the dentist's office - one of those ritzy pediatric practices tricked out with comic books, DVDs and arcade games - where I'd taken my 3-year-old daughter for her first exam.
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