I am a H'wood screenwriter, (currently on strike and thus with plenty of time to write web commentary) and have written scripts for New Line, Paramount, Sony, etc. I know to the outsider it often seems as though the studios, in this case Disney, conspire to fill their films with all sorts of brain-washing activities designed to turn little girls into shopaholics or boys into violent warriors or whatever, but I tell you this: it's not the studios, it's the writers. It's me and my cohorts.

So why would the writers insert a shopping scene into this movie? Because it makes sense for the story. In Cinderella, when she needs to get ready for the ball, her fairy godmother appears and gives her a makeover. In Enchanted, our heroine is in the real world and needs to get ready for the ball. Is there a fairy godmother around? There is not. So how do people get ready for a ball in the real world? They shop and get a makeover. It makes sense for the story, not the other way around.

Otherwise, do you think some Disney executive was sitting around saying "We need to brainwash kids into becoming consumers. Let's but a "Pretty Woman" -type shopping scene in here at the bottom of the second act. That'll turn those little girls into voracious consumers specifically interested in purchasing Disney merchandise!" Of course they didn't. This is the real world, not some (paranoid) fantasy.

We saw Giselle sewing herself beautiful dresses all throughout the film. She was a princess with her own inner Fairy Godmother. How come all of a sudden her own dresses weren't good enough?

It would have been witty if she had gone to the garment district and bought fabric for her ball dress (instead of cutting up rugs and curtains), but obviously since we saw the names of the clothing stores she and Morgan went into, there was a certain amount of cynical product placement involved in the shopping scenes. And she snuck Morgan out of the apartment and used Robert's credit card without telling him. Very unprincess-like behavior. The whole shopping sequence was lame and marred an otherwise charming film.

I'm not a H'wood screenwriter, but just because the montage made sense for the story doesn't mean it also didn't appeal to the studio's agenda. We needn't hang on to images of sleazy execs dabbling in mind control to recognize the power of the message to kids and adults alike. And to see the appeal of a scene that might grease the nation's consumerism wheels a little. Sure writers are storytellers and artists. But the execs who employ them make choices based on the potential for profit.