By Vanessa Tang
Little princesses dropped F-bombs about every 15 seconds to educate the public about sexism. These aren’t true royalty, but 6 to 13 year-olds wearing princess costumes. The t-shirt company, FCKH8, created the very controversial video about sexism and feminism. They have received about 1 million views on YouTube for their video, “Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism,” and the numbers are growing steadily. The girls discuss the topic, but use a few colorful words as an attention-grabbing tactic.
Many saw the video and gave positive comments and criticism. Viewers gave more negative feedback than positive about the video. Some commentators spoke about the offensiveness of the video rather than the message it conveys. The video’s producer, Luke Montgomery said, “The whole idea was using a bad word for a good cause to get people’s attention.” It was just something to get people to watch, not to focus on and ignore the rest of the video. Entertainment Tonight interviewed one of the little girls, Caige and her mother, Brooklyne about their thoughts on the video. Brooklyne stated that,”I feel that it is finally something that’s going to get people talking,” and even though the video has caused some people to question it, she supported FCKH8’s intentions.
Others have made remarks about issues with having the girls think about the problems of being a woman. Darlena Cunha, a writer for the Washington Post asked, “Is it fair to the girls in the video to ask them to ponder such a harsh reality at age 6 just to sell a few t-shirts?” But do the girls really understand what they’re speaking about? “There is absolutely the risk that very young girls and boys watching this may think just being able to use those curse words make them powerful,” explains Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, a psychologist. People worry if the girls really understand that saying explicit words isn’t more effective while others discuss the idea that the video producers could make the girls fear what would happen to them. “The video’s producers want a bunch of little girls to think one of them is going to be raped,” wrote Robby Soave, a staff editor for reason.com and a writer for The Detroit News. The girls are capable of understanding, but in reality they are just actresses that increase the popularity of the video.
The video has been successful, gaining popularity on social media, and FCKH8 shipped, “almost 200,000 equality tees, tanks and hoodies to supporters in over 100 countries,” after putting up the video. “Potty- Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism,” became viral and was shared countless times. Many columnists wrote about the topic and provided the company with more publicity. The cast was interviewed on entertainment shows like ET and the video mentioned many times on news websites like CNN. Even though the way they conveyed the message was questionable, the intentions to promote feminism came through.