Hijacking the Tooth Fairy

Posted on July 20, 2013 at 8:00 am

The tooth fairy is one of childhood’s most treasured myths, a lovely tribute to a bittersweet rite of passage that allows each family to create their own traditions. (Our tooth fairy left books.) There’s an awful movie with The Rock, a disappointing movie with Isla Fisher, and a pretty good assortment of books (my favorite is The Real Tooth Fairy), but until now no one has shamelessly exploited the legend of the tooth fairy for toys.

Susan Linn of the very worthy CCFC writes for the Huffington Post about a massive new marketing campaign for tooth fairy dolls. Watch this video — aimed at investors, not parents — with highlights of the marketing plan to get little girls hooked by “leveraging the brand” of a biological guarantee. It’s a “massive opportunity!”

Linn writes:

By harnessing the Tooth Fairy, The Royal Council of the Real Fairyland, LLC (also known as The Real Tooth Fairies, LLC), wants to “leverage and define this rite-of-passage moment” and literally profit from each tooth a child loses. The company is already selling VIP memberships, deluxe Real Tooth Fairy Collections, and more. Participation in Real Fairyland doesn’t come cheap. “Give your girl the gift of everything Tooth Fairy,” the website exhorts. A Real Tooth Fairies Birthday Party Collection costs $379.

…

Yanover pushes what the marketing industry calls an “immersive” Tooth Fairy experience, including a virtual world, toys, games, clothing, accessories — and a creepy “interactive” component where girls can “communicate” with their Tooth Fairies. Plans for licensing include, “toys, oral care, party & greeting card, & more.” According to the company, “This world was built for licensing; it’s a character that everybody already recognizes and is engaged with.”

The Real Tooth Fairies swaddles its product in virtue, claiming that its goal is to empower girls and promote kindness. But its target audience of girls as young as 5 are disempowered when a free-ranging, child-driven vision of Tooth-Fairyness is reduced to just six sexualized options, largely preoccupied with appearance, shopping, boyfriends –and leg hair! And it’s unkind to millions of girls, and the women they will become, that the “villain” in Real Fairyland, and the butt of its jokes, is a hairy-legged, buck-toothed, roly-poly, glasses-wearing fairy-wannabe. At present, the site’s target is mainly 5- to 10-year-old girls — but lest you’re wondering why boys have been left out of the marketing equation, they haven’t. Heavily-armed, superhero, Tooth-Fairy-counterparts are in development.

It is a shame that these people cannot support the imagination and empowerment of children rather than “leveraging” a character and, worst of all, turning her into just another perpetuation of the idea that appearance and buying things is all that matters. If you want to send a message that this is not appropriate, sign here.

Rise of the Guardians

Posted on November 20, 2012 at 9:48 pm

The daughter of writer/illustrator William Joyce (“Dinosaur Bob,” “Robots”) once asked him whether the Easter bunny knew Santa Claus and that inspired him to create a series of stories about the characters of fantasy and folklore who care for children. They come together in an Avengers or X-Men-style team known as The Guardians in this visually rich but cluttered film.

Those characters are a Slavic-accented, scimitar-wielding Santa (Alec Baldwin) with “naughty” and “nice” tattooed on his burly arms, an Easter bunny with an Aussie accent and a lot of attitude (Hugh Jackman), a silent sandman who communicates with dreamy designs made from glistening specks, and the feathered Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), who presides over a battalion of hummingbird-sized minions who collect baby teeth and leave coins while children sleep. When the happiness and comfort of the children of the world is threatened by the Boogeyman (Jude Law), they need more help and so they invite Jack Frost (Chris Pine) to join them, explaining that they are responsible for making sure the children of the earth have “wonder, hope, and dreams.”

Jack is a loner, haunted by not being able to remember anything before he woke one day in the ice, somehow knowing that his job was to bring the fun of winter to children. At first he has no interest in joining the others. But when he makes things worse, he has to help make them better.

It’s a sweet idea and there are witty and charming moments and some lovely visuals, especially the sandman, the elves, and the iridescent little tooth fairies. Like all great villains, Law has an English accent and sounds nicely sneery. But the storyline gets lost in a whirlwind of locations and plot twists. Each of the characters has its own mythology and home base and alliances. The goal of the Guardians is for children to have faith in them, so it makes no sense that they accomplish that only by showing themselves, which is proof, not faith. There is no suggestion that some of the world’s children may not have these characters as a part of their traditions or faiths. While the movie asks its characters and its audience to find their centers, the story itself is oddly hollow.

Parents should know that this fim has a scary villain, characters in peril, a sword-wielding Santa, a character who sacrifices himself to save a sibling, and issues of believing in fantasy characters.

Family discussion: How are the characters different from what you expected? What do they have in common? Which is your favorite and why?

If you like this, try: the book, Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce and the movie “Robots”

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