Back to school

My daughter is currently very caught up in watching a TV series called "Winx club". From what I can gather, these girls (who look a lot like the Bratz dolls, who are referred to "slutz" dolls by Tim and I) attend some kind of special high school for fairies (which may be more mainstream these days, who knows) where they worry about being able to cast spells, dress fashionably and impress the dumb, token "jock" fairy (who is also a prince, so I am guessing that although he has the IQ of a sequined handbag, the girls think he is quite a catch). Yes, I know it is sad that I have say through a few episodes and absorbed this much, but it means a lot to Grace, so I have decided to turn my thoughts from "someone kill me now" to drawing parallels between what the Winx high school is like and my own days back in the dark ages of puberty.

Now, when I was at Ginninderra High, not too many real princes or princesses were around, but there were plenty who thought they were, or at least thought that the sun shone out of their arse, so that will do for covering the fairy side of things. I have also noticed that, just like high school, there are "good" fairies and "bad" fairies. Just like high school, the bad fairies dress like hookers, wear way too much eye makeup and generally make the "good" fairies life hard - stealing powers, crushing them with magic constriction spells etc. When you think about it, the girls who were the "princesses" at school were also the ones who made life hell for all of the "ordinary" girls by teasing them about their breast size (too big, too small blah blah blah), wore lots of eye makeup, thought that kissing boys was the ultimate to spend high school and wore the most fashionable style dress to the formal (aka prom). The good fairies just struggled on through, trying to cope with the burden of learning and raging hormones (and the bad fairies) and in the end, could not give a rats bum if they wore a dress or jeans to the formal, they were just happy to escape.

So, is this TV show just encouraging the age old stereotypes, which we will never escape, or is it preparing our young girls for the fact that in life, you will have to deal with good and evil fairies? Both concepts are pretty perplexing really and I have no idea. Still, I can comfort myself that at least in my day, the pressure was not on to sprout a pair of wings, turn my head into a talking pumpkin or defeat the powers of evil whilst maintaining good fashion sense and still attracting the prince - or maybe I just wasn't paying attention.I would like to class myself as a "middle of the road" fairy - capacity to do good or evil in more or less equal measures. And I don't talk with a really irritating American accent. That has to put me over with the good guys.