Andi-O: RIGHT ON, MAN! Your post about Snow White et al and FTBYAM was exactly the stuff of a novel I've been working on (and my chromosomes are NOT xx). Marlo's project poisoned (like the apple in Snow White) my entire childhood with false -- utterly false! and damaging! -- ideas about what the realities of life as an independent "free" thinking female would be like in this culture. Atalanta? WRONG! William and his "doll"? WRONG! The "tender sweet young thing" who gets eaten by tigers for being a cutie-pie? WRONG SQUARED! It just doesn't work that way at all, so maybe the feminists needed a dose of reality with their treacle back in the seventies, but we certainly shouldn't (as you so aptly point out) discourage kids from looking coldly and objectively and if possible intelligently and in a well-informed manner at what they look at in film and the media today. I would have to mention Disney's Beauty and the Beast here, because I think kids would really benefit from a diverse reading of the text, including the original fairy tale version and Jean Cocteau's surrealist version in film. Also, Anne Sexton's "Transformations" for older girls, and Donald Barthelme's "Snow White" as soon as vocabularily and cultural-awareness-wise possible for young boys AND girls. Satire is the best way to wake people up -- not propaganda from the so-called "other side." Be a good dad and don't maintain the binary -- gender means a heck of a lot more than male vs. female! Keep the faith -- Amy Nelson Amy Nelson Department of English Rutgers University [log in to unmask]