Tuesday, February 01, 2005

cutesy-fest

noun. A metric buttload of barf-worthy cuteness.

Real citation: "I'd always been somewhat pleased that the cartoon character my daughter latched onto was the intelligent, intrepid Dora. For four seasons on Nickelodeon (and then its sister station Noggin, and then CBS), this school-age Latina role model eschewed nearly every girly-girl gender stereotype, the pink T-shirt that hangs loosely over her realistically rounded 8-year-old belly being the only token element of her nascent femininity. Dora's brain is touted as her main asset (she's bilingual; she solves jungle-based brainteasers), but she's also ruggedly athletic (she's the star of both her baseball and soccer teams; she never blinks before shimmying up a banyan tree or scaling a volcano). Dora's esteem-building, multiculti adventures are the polar opposite of the glitter-spewing, cutesy-fests -- think Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony -- that women of my own generation grew up with."
(Christopher Healy, "A nation of little princessess," Salon, http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/11/24/princesses/)

Made-up citation: "On my most adorable, cuddly, snuggly-wuggly, diminutive day, I'm not certain I have the qualifications to be part of a cutesy-fest."


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