Once
upon a time, in the magical land of babysitting, there lived a wondrous
creature called The T.V. This colorful rectangle projected images of princesses
and pop stars at the real life princess (the eight year old I
babysit) and her servant (that would be me) who happened to have their perfect
little rumps on perfectly enormous couches. The rental video we rented stated
it would show us what would happen if Barbie the princess traded places with
her identical friend the pop star. “The Princess and the Pop Star” was what our
rental video was called, and as the servant, I was to be in control of the remote;
you know, changing the volume level, hitting the pause and resume buttons.
As
the servant I not only controlled the remote to the princess’s wishes, but I also
popped the popcorn to the perfection she requested. After double checking to
make sure the princess had everything she needed, I finally sat down to enjoy
the Barbie movie. After a short period of time, however, I became more engulfed
in the film than I had ever imagined possible. I would look at Barbie in all
her princess glory and compare my clothes to her super sparkly, intensely
glitter-ified, overly gauzy dresses- and the weird thing was: I was becoming
jealous of her dresses! I longed to wear something so beautiful, perhaps to
homecoming. Or maybe I could wear these lovely garments to just lie around in
my house- you know, just like Barbie did. Sadly, servants like me aren’t
princesses who have large blocks of gold lying around.
Another
quirk I, the servant, conveniently noticed was that Barbie had a nice,
expensive touch screen phone that she tweeted on. The producers of this movie
made Barbie tweet! For goodness sake,
are they trying to brainwash the sweet, innocent princesses I babysit?! The
real life princess just sat there as if Barbie whipping out her phone to
interact with social media was totally natural and okay! Just as I, the
servant, was starting to believe the movie was about to become less
brainwashing and more entertaining, Barbie whipped out an iPad and began to
play music on it. Oh boy.
And
yet, the real life princess just sat there watching her movie as if nothing
were wrong. But of course not! Why would anything be wrong? It’s not like the
real life princess has her very own iPhone or anything! It’s not like she was
using it as she was “watching” her movie- I mean really? You are eight years old, Princess. You don’t need an
iPhone- what are you planning on using it for? Updating your status: “OMG I
just had the BEST play date EVER with Jeremy!” Yeah. Sure.
Here’s
for all you princesses out there: what makes you think it’s socially acceptable
to use expensive electronic devices- are you influenced by your parents, your friends,
the media, or maybe the most surprising yet: Barbie? Think about that next time
you’re out in the real world, Princess, because our world is entirely different
from yours.
(515 words)
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