jollityfarm:

i think i told this story already but when i was little the only disney animated movie i’d seen was mulan (our baby-sitters had aladdin, but i didn’t care for it much).  in fact, it may have been the first animated movie i ever saw in theaters.  and it blew my little mind.

so the lessons the movie was supposed to impart were lost on me.  forget honoring your family and using your unique skills to help people.  if my little brain took anything from mulan, it was that marriage was an excuse for an elaborate makeover.  the dude’s presence was a kind of cumbersome item to check off in order for the marriage makeover to happen.  the fact mulan was miserable being crammed into a role she would rather not be in didn’t matter to me.  it looked fun and she got a talking eddie murphy dragon and some really nice makeup and flowing sleeves and i wanted that.  so i went to every house on our block, dressed in my approximation of what mulan wore, asking fully-grown men to marry me.  i was like? seven? at the time? i had no romantic interest in boys and, while mom and dad had been careful to tell me the details of sex in medically accurate, comprehensive terms, i thought a husband was an obnoxious but ultimately necessary prerequisite for marriage makeovers.  you couldn’t get a makeover unless you were going to get married. 

now, i was a bit of a ‘tomboy.’  my nickname on the soccer field was ‘shin-kicker’ and i had the kind of bowlcut that you see hate crime-doers sporting these days.  my favorite animal was a pig or a pterodactyl and my favorite color was lime green and i wanted to be an ‘underground cartoonist’ or an inventor when i grew up.  none of this factored in to my inner desire to dress like a fancy bride mulan.  idk, girls don’t NEED to be both interested in looking cool and doing cool stuff, but they can.  that’s a distinct possibility.  and i’m not everyone, but i can certainly say my power fantasies NEVER revolved around boys.

I’ve been wondering if at some point parents are going to notice the majority of little girls playing “lesbian wedding” with their dolls or for themselves, and then realize that the kids are doing so regardless of orientation because, hey, excuse for *two* makeovers and fancy dresses and no boring groom.