Disney will ditch “fairy godmothers” for more inclusive and gender-neutral titles at dress-up boutiques in its theme parks – and some fans are distinctly disenchanted.
The New York Post reported that the Mouse House will amend the “fairy godmother” title at its Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiques located in both Disney World and Disneyland. It quoted an update carried on Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort’s websites.
The boutiques give makeovers to kids aged 3 to 12 to transform them into princesses or knights. When the boutiques reopen on 25 August 2022, following pandemic-related closures, employees known formerly as “Fairy Godmothers in Training” will now be called “Fairy Godmother’s Apprentices.”
“This way, cast members that might not identify as female can still be part of the process to dress up & style the children without having to refer to themselves as a female Disney character,” according to the Disney blog “Streaming the Magic.”
Some Disney fans feel the trend towards “woke” culture is going too far.
“This is a mental illness…the magic is gone,” one disgruntled Twitter user wrote.
Last year, Disney quietly dropped the use of “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” from its theme parks – possibly in deference to people who claim to fall into none of those categories.
Notably, however, the new Disney name “Fairy Godmother’s Apprentices” retains the terms “mother” and “fairy”, both of which have a certain emotional charge among certain groups.
Friction over the term “mother” has also erupted in Australia. A female media personality who had a child was offended at being handed a hospital form that used the politically correct term “birthing parent” instead of mother. Government Services Minister Bill Shorten stepped in quickly, pledging to scrap the “gender inclusive” forms and reinstate the word mother.
“Mother” occurs in various forms in all languages and is one of the oldest terms in the human lexicon. Since time immemorial, the act of giving birth has been considered irrefutable proof that the person giving birth is female – becoming a mother once her child is born.
Recent objections to the word “mother” stem from a small group of people who give birth – but claim to be men. Their numbers are tiny (0.3% of adults in the US are said to identify as transgender) but the fuss is disproportionately large.
Just incidentally, almost all the words for “mother” in the Indo-European language family start with the letter m, examples being madre (Spanish and Italian), mère (French), mater (latin), Mutter (German), мать (Russian), matka (Polish), mak (Kurdish) and so on. The term is deep-rooted and ancient.
Written by Peter Needham
