FROM READING TO REALITY: THE GIRL PUBLIC’S RESPONSE TO POST-MILLENNIAL GIRL FICTION

A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science

TRENT UNIVERSITY

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

© Copyright by Karen Cummings 2013

English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program

September 2013

ABSTRACT

From Reading to Reality: The Girl Public’s Response to Post-Millennial Girl Fiction

Karen Cummings

This thesis explores post-millennial girl fiction, or young adult works published for girls since the turn of the millennium. Writing for girls has been traditionally placed beneath ‘more serious’ literature, within a hierarchal model, while modern works enjoy an iconic status that is the product of cross-media popularity and a wide readership.

Criticism has focused on post-millennial girl fiction being unwholesome, poorly written or anti-feminist, examination of the texts reveals personas which girls may use to explore, rebel against and critically examine societal expectations and fears about girlhood. To explore the publishing phenomenon surrounding current girls’ fiction I use two sample series: Gossip Girl by Cecily Von Ziegesar and Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Chapter

One contrasts current girl’s fiction with texts written about girlhood, followed with an analysis of the good-girl and bad-girl archetypes which are developed within the two groups of texts. I then consider the stylistic and structural elements presented within the fiction and the impact such elements may have on the girl public. In the conclusion, I consider the wider societal impacts of post-millennial girl fiction through social media, extended readership, cross-media influence and the responses of girl readers.

Keywords: girlhood; girl crisis texts; post-millennial girl texts; Twilight series; Gossip

Girl series; performative; young adult fiction (YA fiction); Feminist Criticism; public theory

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

From Reading to Reality: The Girl Public’s Response to Post-Millennial Girl Fiction

Abstract ii Table of Contents iii

Introduction 1

I. The Relationship between the Girl Public and its Adult Observers

Defining Girlhood? Girl Crisis Texts 9 Suspending Judgement of the Girl Public 12 Performativity and ‘Fixing Girls’ 21 Experimenting with, Resisting and Redefining Girlhood within Girl Texts 31

II. Comfort in Archetypes: Exploring Sites of Reflection, Observation, Experimentation and Rebellion

Overlapping Girl Texts and Comparing Visions of Girlhood 40 Avoiding Simplified or Singular Readings 44 The Triple Bind Girl? 56 Girl Roles and Archetypes 64 Observing Adults, Sexuality and ‘Outsiders’ 69 III. A Steady Diet of Junk Books? Considering Structure and Style

Confessions and Condemnations 79 Narrative Style and Focalization 82 The Possibility of Bibliotherapy 92 Fairy Tales, Princess Culture and Touchstone Texts 94 Considering Structure and Form 102 Ephemeral Genres and Post-Millennial Girl Fiction 110 Conclusion 115 Creating Icons through Market Saturation 116 Reciprocal and Parallel Use of Social Media 119 Extended Audience 124

Appendices 128

Works Cited 139

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Introduction

From Reading to Reality: The Girl Public’s Response to Post-Millennial Girl Fiction

Adolescent girls’ literature has become a publishing phenomenon which elicits an almost hysterical response from its reading public. In the wake of the mania caused by

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, publishers sought other books which could generate a similar ‘hype’ and create a lucrative and committed reading public. Though Harry Potter was most frequently recognized as either a book which appealed to both genders or as an ideal book to help boys become readers, the texts which followed were written for slightly older, female readers. To understand the nature of the phenomenon of post- millennial girl fiction requires careful analysis of the text, context and audience. Angela

Hubler advocates approaching books as potential “maps of meaning” (93), demanding that analysis include a complex vision of gender, socialization and influence.

Consideration of three areas is necessary: the various publics who affect, read and critique texts, the texts themselves, and the societal framework in which the previous elements originate.

Since the turn of the millennium, adolescent girl books have achieved a wide and vocal readership which has been uncommon in the traditional young adult literary world.

These books have achieved status as popular culture icons, easily recognized by both their intended audience, as well as by an extended or stretched audience which includes adult readers and invested observers. It is worth considering why this status is so remarkable. As adolescent books tend to range freely in genre and structure, it is useful to consider what is often seen as one of the common and defining traits of all Y.A. books: 2 their function as problem narratives, in which the protagonist defines and then solves his or her problem. Once defined as ‘problem narratives,’ a popular theory can then be applied to Y.A. books, namely that they allow emerging adult readers an imagined practice realm where they can develop the skills and strategies they need to grow into adults. Though they do not conform to the traditional structure presented by problem narratives, post-millennial girl fiction can be loosely analyzed as problem narratives.

Like many problem narratives, post-millennial girl fiction includes personal and social issues which challenge and change key characters but their construction as serials demands an additional and more complex critical stance, because there is no resolution to the problem of the narrative and there is no finalization of the character’s development.

The concept of a problem narrative which allows an imagined practice realm is useful when considering what girl readers may ‘take away’ from a text, but thorough consideration of the girl public’s reading must also include the tension which exists between the public, its texts and the society which observes both.

A feminist reading of post-millennial adolescent girl literature, especially of books which fall into the subgenres of mean girl books (represented by the Gossip Girl series) or romantic fantasies (represented by the Twilight series), requires the reader to confront portrayals of young women who are vindictive, weak, or otherwise unappealing.

Readers’ views of the texts would seem to present a “contradictory understanding of the series as both fantastic and realistic” – a view which is confirmed by the fact that post- millennial girl fiction exists primarily as a part of the romance genre, “a genre which has been defined in terms of its fantastic and realistic elements” (Pattee 115). An intertextual reading yields various allusions to fairy tales and other cultural representations of the girl 3 as princess. A reading that contends with authorial style and structure reveals weak diction, syntax and limited technical sophistication, while a Marxist reading must contend with a periphery of consumption through media and merchandise that overshadows any possible reading of the books in a singular way. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, adolescent girls’ books seem to be at work defying traditional understandings of both literature and popular fiction.

Ultimately, any analysis of post-millennial adolescent girl literature must consider the complicated position of these books. While the texts themselves are important, they cannot be divided from the girl public which is their intended audience or from the

‘truths’ which are often accepted about girlhood and girl culture. Accepted thinking assumes that society considers girlhood to be fixated on friendships, romances and a borderland of interconnected social issues. In fact there is a public devoted to discussing issues of girlhood, contributed to by parents, educators, sociologists and cultural researchers. Concern for children “increases during times of cultural crisis” (Pifer 12); thus the relationship between girl fiction and what will be referred to as ‘girl crisis texts’ becomes productive to attaining an understanding of how girl texts are functioning within and rebelling against a dominant ideology about girlhood. It is interesting to note that girls are quite often aware of the research presented by girl crisis texts and its theoretical approaches to girlhood. This unusual relationship is a facet of the girl public’s response to their literature; this public responds to adult ideas and definitions but also restructures and redefines itself in response to and rebellion against the outside analysis of their literature and lives by adult publics. 4

This project makes use of a variety of theoretical works and stances in order to lend depth to the understanding of the current adolescent girl public and its books. Many researchers of child and youth culture, especially those who work with literature, invest a great deal of time in defining and limiting children’s literature and culture. This concern with definition does not extend to a separate realm of adolescent literature; in fact there seems to be little interest in defining adolescent literature as a separate entity. According to Perry Nodelman,

The ‘young adults’ in the phrase ‘literature for young adults’ are most usefully seen as

the adolescent readers that writers, responding to the assumptions of adult

purchasers, imagine and imply in their works. In both cases the intended

audiences of the texts are defined by their presumed inability to produce such

books or make such decisions about purchases of books for themselves. (5)

The distance created between the intended audience and the text through the act of purchasing is often attached to criticisms of children’s and adolescents’ literature. As the purchasers, adults seemingly become the controllers of the content, resulting in books representing an adult view of childhood and youth. This traditional argument must be discarded if the girl public is to be connected to its texts. Simply, girls do buy their own books, as well as influence the purchasing that occurs on their behalf; girls are often defining the recommendation and selection process for those books. This public is not passive in its consumption; instead it has significant agency and voice in shaping the interests of publishers and other reading publics. More useful than the passive model of child and youth reading is the division of books into gendered subgenres. Traditionally, 5 adolescent books are often ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys,’ yet the boundaries of masculine books are traditionally and habitually broken, while the appeal of the girl book rarely crosses gender guidelines. This division of the girl book from other adolescent literature is useful to an understanding of the publishing phenomenon, as it allows for an acknowledgement that there are techniques employed which appeal directly to ‘the girl,’ rather than a gender-neutral adolescent public.

In addition to traditional models of children’s literary analysis, I employ the theory developed by Gerard Genette concerning focalization and narrative (later considered more specifically in relation to the adolescent narrative by Cadden;

Damsteegt; McGee and Sklar). By considering the theory of focalization in the third chapter, I am able to explore the concept that the girl public is resisting any definition of girlhood; instead girl readers are considering their texts in ways that craft girlhood as an

“impossible space” (Griffin), best understood through careful and cyclical consideration of ephemeral cultural experiences (Cvetkovich; Williams) and an understanding of publics (Warner; Habermas). Another theoretical framework necessary to the development of a detailed understanding of this publishing trend includes Janice

Radway’s method of allowing readers to hold an understanding of their reading experience as distinct from the assumptions of other, non-reader publics. Also, an understanding of the structure and creative content of post-millennial girl texts, as well as the responses of girl readers, will provide a context through which to understand the relationship between public and text.

This project is limited to the two genres which defined the early post-millennial publishing movement, namely the romanticized fantasy and the ‘mean girl’ book. These 6 two distinct types of books can be understood through their most famous and successful examples: the Twilight series and the Gossip Girl series. Both of these series are published by Little Brown and Co., allowing a narrowing of focus to one publishing house, which has the proverbial finger on the pulse of girl culture. I will be limiting my analysis to the first four books in each series to allow a detailed close reading of characterization and authorial intentions. Such a limitation is necessary as the first four books of the Twilight series represent the core of Stephanie Meyer’s work; other texts such as her graphic novels, her complementary The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and the unpublished Midnight Sun, have been created to add facets to the central narrative presented by Twilight, Eclipse, New Moon and Breaking Dawn. Alternatively, Cecily

Von Ziegesar is credited with only a portion of the Gossip Girl series. Von Ziegesar participated in the initial conception of the series and was hired to write the texts from the plans created by the team at Alloy Entertainment. Limiting analysis to the first four books in this series, published within a two-year time period, makes it possible to divide the act of creation fueled by assumptions about girl culture, from creation inspired by the reactions of girl fans. This division is central to an argument about the potential of post- millennial girl texts to inspire reflection, consideration and manipulation of the image of girlhood which is provided to girls by adults and society.

These books tend to be seen as working against traditional feminist ideals of girlhood, while also revealing new definitions (some written by teenagers themselves through fanfiction and blogs or internet reviews) of what a post-feminist world may value. There can and should be a feminist reading which problematizes the portrayal of girlhood for these readers, but there also needs to be an acknowledgement that this is not 7 necessarily the conscious bias or interpretation of the girl reader. My exploration of this publishing phenomenon considers both kinds of readings of post-millennial girl texts in order to present an analysis of why these trends are as popular and powerful as they are.

In order to fully understand this publishing phenomenon, I engage with these texts as literary works (though not great works of literature); I will complete detailed readings of various narrative and figurative structures, as well as consider the presentation and potential impact of the archetypes presented within these works. In addition to the public and their response, I want to consider the web of observation and influence which surrounds this public, namely through the girl public’s consideration and even manipulation of this web. This structure includes the public of educators, parents and researchers who are concerned with the current status of girlhood, as well as the periphery of consumption which is unavoidably linked to both the girl public and its books.

In addition to participating in a blurring world of consumption, viewing and reading, girls are also actively using blogs, reviews and fanfiction sites in response to current adolescent books. Through these media, girl readers are able to immerse themselves in the cultural world of their books. An important tendency of this public is the suspension of disbelief which is exercised through this diverse range of publishing

‘acts,’ where girls are able to pretend and storytell connections to the heightened reality of the mean girl and romanticized fantasy worlds. Girls respond to modern books in ways that combine elements of obsession with detailed pretending, but I also consider the sense of empowerment and belonging which girls attain through their participation in social media affiliated with these publications. It is this response which can be 8 encapsulated by working with blogs and online forums. Throughout this project, quotations taken from fan and critic websites concerned with either the Gossip Girl series or the Twilight series will be represented as they appear in their original form, including spelling and grammatical errors. These quotations will not be corrected, nor will they be annotated by the phrase [sic], as it is significant that readers of this project have access to girl thinking in as non-judgemental a fashion as possible.

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I. The Relationship between the Girl Public and its Adult Observers

Within this first chapter, I consider the various publics concerned with the nature of modern girlhood and the current popularity of adolescent girl books. Both the girl public and the publics of educators and parents work with limited and often dichotomous definitions of girlhood created by a public of researchers. Those who observe and engage with teenage girls (the parent and educator publics) are confronted on a regular basis with the paradoxical nature of modern girlhood.

Defining Girlhood? Girl Crisis Texts

Girlhood must be defined in a way which can amalgamate the figure of an adolescent girl as a bright, driven and self-reflective young person with one who insists on regularly appearing in her classroom wearing a dress-code violating bustiere. Modern girlhood, especially when concerned with the lived experience of the girl public, is much more complex than simply the difference between sexy and smart. But this opposition is a useful site from which to begin an analysis of the language and actions the various publics construct for girls. To add further complexity in the adolescent experience of femininity, many second and third-wave feminists (often members of the researcher public) define elements of intelligence and sexuality in opposition to each other, while their adult reflection often offers a vision of girlhood as a place of manipulation and social programming. When reflecting on the dangers, both past and present, of a patriarchal model, a logical fallacy emerges within much of the researchers’ writing which situates girlhood as a site of victimization. Ultimately, the borders of each of these publics are blurred by the fact that one person can claim participation in all of the publics 10 over the course of their lived experience; thus the ‘spaces of sameness’ must be acknowledged as sites of contention. Consider the impact of the space of sameness created by personal perceptions of body image; if adult women continue to emotionally invest their thinking in ways which echo the sense of physical selfhood they created in adolescence, then their research will be framed by their experience as much as by their current observations. The tension between these publics of girls, parents, educators, theorists and researchers creates central questions which must be addressed in order to garner an understanding of the relationship between girlhood, the girl public and current adolescent girl books: How are ‘girls’ defined? And how are they defined by the various publics within their society? Is there relevance to gender power dynamics? What is the relationship between girl crisis texts (those texts crafted to expose and ostensibly to solve the ‘problem’ for and of girls) and post-millennial “girl lit”?

Girl crisis texts arise from a genuine desire of the parent and educator publics to

‘do’ something with their confusion about successful girlhood in the context of a response to the smart-sexy duality. Many individuals seek the solace of a bookstore, a common safety net within North American culture; books become an element which can contravene feelings of helplessness in the face of crisis or confusion. While texts like

Reviving Ophelia and Queenbees and Wannabees have attained iconic status within both popular culture and the academic realm, it is best to begin with a text that current members of the parent and educator publics are likely to find on the shelves of their bookstore: Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes by

Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown. On the surface, this book has everything a concerned, feminist parent-teacher could want: authors who are both professors and 11 community volunteers; recommendations from other authors; and a surreptitiously clever use of a barcode image on the front cover (see Appendix A). The dedication of the book, which reads “To our students, who inspire and teach us,” assures readers that they are reading the work of people who know the challenge of wanting to understand girls, and who have respect for the girls they are casting in the role of inspirational educator.

Within this text, the reader is given platitudes concerning everything from girls’ clothing to their reading habits, from their media consumption to their athletics. The book culminates with earnest suggestions about parents and educators playing “pink and not- pink clothing spotting games” (265) with girls, as well as prompts for readers to have conversations about stereotypes (266), Barbies (267), boys (270), shopping (270) and body image (271). While these suggestions are divided into groups for children, middle school girls and teens – the topics remain unchanged. The parent-educator readers have their solution - their thoughtful and dynamic, bustiere-wearing girl is another victim of consumer culture, a product crafted and confined by conglomerate media corporations.

As the library of girl crisis books grows, there are more and more ways to be righteously angry; in short, the readers of girl crisis books are driven to outrage at the potential of girlhood to strip girls of confidence, safety, health and power. This genre includes a wide variety of books which, as Currie, Kelly and Powerantz1 explain, define various cultural groups, each fraught with a different victimizing force, ranging from meanness to hyper sexuality, from the pursuit of perfection to the trouble-with-girl-world vindictiveness (27-47). Yet there remains a problem: if the parent-teacher publics and

1 Within their text, Girl Power: Girls Reinventing Girlhood, Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz strive to situate girlhood, without erroneously claiming to define or discover girlhood. This text examines the ways girls are ‘doing girlhood’ and thus reinventing societal definitions of girlhood. Central to their argument is the belief that ‘doing girlhood’ is not a completed or static event, but is a dynamic, ever-changing process which is separate from adult views of girlhood (x). 12 even the researcher public’s perception of girls focuses on this seemingly dichotomous presentation of the girl as both confident and intelligent, while also appearing to be sexualized, were accurate, would girls not possess the requisite skills and knowledge to avoid stereotypes and societal pressures? If the obviously predictable solutions offered by girl crisis books are logical and simplistic, why then do these texts continue to appear on bookstore shelves? And why do members of these adult publics find them at all reassuring, if they are produced in this ongoing and cyclical way?

Suspending Judgement of the Girl Public

The more I question my own place, balanced as both observer of the adult publics and participant observer of girl publics, the more I realize that these books are not truly offering a replacement to the victim-crisis model. These books are primed for immanent critique because, as Jiwani, Steenbergen and Mitchell articulate in the introduction of

Girlhood: Redefining the Limits, the observation and consideration of girlhood is marked by “overlapping definitions, coupled with often contradictory meanings” (ix-x). In order to understand the girl public, one must at least consider the extensive discourse which surrounds it, a puzzling discourse which both demands and refuses empowerment. More importantly, who defined and continues to define the discourse that attempts to establish and describe the girl public in a definitive manner? And how does the discourse construct rather than acknowledge membership? Janice Radway offers a model of critique which appears to provide the requisite distance between observer, text and public. In her research, presented in Reading the Romance, Radway suggests that romance readers “interpret stories as chronicles of female triumph” (54) and that this 13 interpretation must be given equal validity and significance, even in the face of literary or feminist readings which regard romances as contrived or trite. Radway’s ability to suspend, and often make irrelevant, the academic interpretation of the text is a liberating position, a position which allows a new vision of a genre which is effective in the creation of publics. In her efforts to “do justice to the complexities”(ix) of romance readers, Radway situates herself as a scholar, a position which is often in conflict with the public she is seeking to understand. The tension which Radway works to make explicit is useful to any study of a public which is inherently non-scholarly or outside of the accepted realm of study.

Analysis produced by reserved, distanced observation affords perspective regarding the parent and educator publics of the books. Yet, where Radway’s model cannot allow an understanding of girl crisis books is in the very definition of the public grouping. Radway’s Smithton group is defined by what they read and their responses to it; yet who are the readers or impacted audience of the books in the girl crisis genre?

This public is complicated, as the readers are not the only audience which the authors wish to motivate or compel into action. Girl crisis books are written for parents, counsellors, educators and other adults, yet the actions demanded must ultimately be enacted by girls themselves. Unlike romance novels where the disconnection is created by the distance between producer and consumer (publisher and reader), the girl crisis genre appears to be created, produced, read and enacted in a whirl of publics, or, alternatively, in the tension between public and counterpublics. In order to ratify this merged and disconnected public, I must consider and critique the books and the genre as 14 a cultural and literary theorist, with the goal of comprehending their meaning for all of their publics.

Before I proceed to a more detailed analysis of the public situation of girl crisis books, it is important to make the genre explicit. Within her article “Between ‘Girl

Power’ and ‘Reviving Ophelia,’” Marnina Gonick considers the “incredible proliferation of image, texts, and discourses around girls and girlhood in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries”(1) and creates a temporal boundary for girl crisis books. This timeline is useful because it clearly delineates girl crisis books from the earlier feminist texts which are so often referenced by the authors of girl crisis texts. While these discourses are linked, it is important to note that feminist texts see girlhood as a staging ground for women’s issues, while girl crisis books consider girlhood to be a distinct site of conflict. Girl crisis books respond to what Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz refer to as the

Western idealization of girlhood, where girlhood is viewed “as the repository of purity” which creates “a rhetoric of [girls’] ‘vulnerability’ and need for ‘protection’”(28). Within the genre of girl crisis books, the texts also share paratextual commonalities in covers and authorial presentation. The cover art that is generally chosen for girl crisis texts makes use of images that provoke strongly protective emotions (see Appendix B). Many of the books within the girl crisis genre present images of girls who are defined by two elements: their ‘whiteness’ and their clear affiliation with middle class life. Within cover images, the photographic representations of girls are not usually looking at the observer, or if their gaze is directed, then they are not presented as full images. Instead the girl becomes half of a face, a partial body, or a headless torso. These images intentionally problematize the image of girlhood and depict a pitiful victim in need of immediate adult 15 intervention (provided the adult has read the book which outlines the specific crisis this particular representational girl is facing). When considering the connotations of each book’s subtitle, the reader is confronted with similar anxiety-causing words: “hidden”

(Simmons), “confidence gap”(Orenstein), “saving”(Hinshaw and Pipher) and “what we can do about it”(Durham). Additionally, if there is any hesitation on the part of the consumer-adult to accept and fear the crisis culture which demands possession of the books within this genre, the authors themselves are marketed. The qualifications of the writers are declared, advertising them as academics (Ph.D or Ed.D), as Rhodes Scholars, as being “in Association with the American Association of University

Women”(Orenstein), or as “an advisor to Liz Claiborne’s Women’s Work program”(Wiseman).

The girl crisis genre is not a unified discourse, or even, as Marnina Gonick suggests, “a binary”(3) discourse which depicts girls as strong and girls as weak. Instead, this genre cycles, creating multiple discourses which define and charge girls with first one issue and then the next, all situated by the “tenet that adolescent femininity teaches girls to accept subordinate status” (Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz 6). By considering and comparing Rachel Simmons’ and Peggy Orenstein’s texts, an evolution of concern is defined. In 2002, Simmons published Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls in response to societal concerns about what is now referred to as ‘Mean Girl’ culture where “girls fight with body language and relationships instead of fists and knives” (Simmons, Odd 3). As Simmons situates her argument within the larger hierarchy of feminist social critique, she argues that “there is a movement within feminism that believes the female orientation to relationship and connection – to 16 nurturing and caregiving – gives women a uniquely wise approach to their world.

Popularity [or the competition to achieve dominant female status], however, turns this phenomenon on its head” (171). Simmons is identifying and problematizing a girl culture in Odd Girl Out, which later gains societal notoriety through the influence of Rosalind

Wiseman’s book Queen Bees and Wannabes. Seven years later, in The Curse of the

Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence, Simmons publishes on how being good prevents girls from expressing their emotions. Simmons peppers her argument with tales from her Girls Leadership Institute, using personal narratives to convincingly construct her plea for girls to be defined as more than simply good. She begins by recounting Maya’s story of being “faced with a Faustian choice: take her emotions seriously and reject her parents or choose her parents and lose herself” (26). It would seem that the positions Simmons takes first in Odd Girl Out and then in The Curse of the Good Girl conflict with each another, as she outlines the acts of aggression, fear- mongering and torture which girls enact before evolving into an argument about girls not acting for their own interests. Yet these arguments overlap in a significant way: “When girls sequester their real thoughts and feelings, relationships become mysteries […] in the absence of knowing, girls often begin assuming”(Simmons, The Curse 161). Simmons crafts a space for girls where they are both problematically rebelling against and confined by the same charge of subordination. Similarly, Peggy Orenstein’s books – SchoolGirls:

Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap, published in 1994, and Cinderella

Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Line of Girlie-Girl Culture, published in

2011 – situate girlhood as a place where confidence is stripped first by the demand for

“relentless selflessness” in “ the ‘perfect girl’[who] is painfully reminiscent of the 17

Victorian ‘angel in the house’”(Orenstein, Schoolgirl 37) and then damaged by media and societal obsessions with princess props. Again, the reader must confront the similarity of these issues. Orenstein is depicting girls as incapable of crafting personal and strong selves. Both Simmons and Orenstein make apparent the ultimate challenge of the girl crisis genre: that even seemingly contradictory analyses of girl culture are situated firmly upon the same inception point; all of the different crisis models of girlhood decant to the same societal issue of the image of ‘girl’ being one of objectification and weakness.

One of the greatest challenges in reading the girl crisis genre is to situate the texts within the larger genre of feminist philosophy and politics. Although linked, these two discourses are very different in their approaches to changing social politics to ‘improve’ the situation for girls and women. Superficially, texts which argue for a prominent place of strength for girls seem to unite with feminist theory – yet the lack of political action inspired by the urgings of these writers does provide a contradiction. Girl crisis books rely on a superficially created, as well as canonically recognized, hierarchy of feminist texts. Mary Pipher argues that “Girls become ‘female impersonators’ who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces – vibrant, confident girls [children] become shy, doubting young women.” When Pipher argues that girls stop thinking ‘Who am I? What do I want?’ and start thinking ‘What must I do to please others?’”(22), she is also crafting an allusion to Betty Friedan. It was with the question “Who am I?” that Friedan ostensibly began second wave feminism; within The Feminist Mystique, Friedan argued that women’s only answers to the ‘Who am I?’ question involved a sense of self defined by a relationship, as, for example ‘Tom’s wife’ or ‘Suzie and Tim’s mother’(63). By 18 juxtaposing her argument about the harm welcomed by pleasant girls with the power of

Friedan’s original question, Pipher is claiming a potential for revolutionary change (as was inspired by Friedan) which is not fulfilled by her book, Reviving Ophelia. Arguably there is a substantial difference between texts written by the likes of Friedan, or Simone de Beauvoir, or Naomi Wolf, or Carol Gilligan, and the texts which inhabit the similar, but far less ideological, realm of girl crisis books. It is, I argue, the role of the adult that provides the pivotal demarcation between feminist theory and girl crisis texts. While the parent-educator serves an imperative role within the girl crisis texts, feminist texts tend to take a contrasting stance and are focused not on the adult as a saviour figure, but as an additional barrier for girls: “the fundamental reason for […] defeatism is that the adolescent girl does not think herself responsible for her future; she sees no use in demanding much of herself since her lot in the end will not depend on her own efforts”

(de Beauvoir 325). While deBeauvoir abandons the girl to her defeat, girl crisis texts attempt to ‘rescue’ the girl or push her into adult-devised actions. Alternatively, texts like Gilligan’s In a Different Voice unite girls and women in their common exclusion from early, male-defined psychological theory, and propose the importance of listening to female voices to determine an alternative, relational, more feminine understanding of ethics and morality. Here again, the feminist text promotes a stance allowing girls voice and self-determination, while the contrasting girl crisis texts evade independence in favour of adult guidance and solution.

Current research, such as Susan J. Douglas’ Enlightened Sexism, goes so far as to hypothesize that a post-feminist era exists, defined by newly-permissible sexism: 19

The turn of the millennium, then, was a watershed era for enlightened sexism […]

T.V. shows, films, and books offered a compelling fusion of female

accomplishment, girliness, and antifeminism. Indeed the spectre of feminism’s

past was raised to show that it was a musty petrified ideology that didn’t represent

women’s innermost desires, but rather made women shrill, silly, and intolerant,

and it repelled men. (124)

Douglas posits that there are two dichotomous roles for women, as presented within media. The first is the strong and talented woman, who is taking on the world and using her power, intelligence and beauty to achieve her goals. The danger of this image, according to Douglas, is that it lulls both men and women into the belief that the work and words of feminism are unnecessary. The second image is the ‘ironic’ presentation of women as men-chasing and beauty-obsessed. Douglas argues that modern media, especially reality television, presents ironic and shallow representations of women which are made ‘safe’ through their tongue-in-cheek critique of such women. Like the danger of the over-accomplished woman, the ironic shallow princess tells audiences that if we can mock and laugh at such a figure then we know women are stronger than the farce, again assuring society that feminism’s work is completed.

Here it is important to note that one of the defining qualities of Douglas’ text is that it does not offer ways for women to gain agency or autonomy, other than through anger against the oppression of media patriarchy.

This difference between revolutionary feminist texts and girl crisis texts is solidified by the self-referential and self-aggrandizing nature of the girl crisis texts. Both

Mary Pipher and Rosalind Wiseman validate Rachel Simmons’ The Curse of the Good 20

Girl, while Simmons herself encourages the purchase of Lamb and Brown’s Packaging

Girlhood. This, like the paratextual elements discussed above, seeks to legitimize texts through the construction of an imaginary daughteronomy2 which links and mimics an academic approval process. Resistance against such a structure is an important element for the scholarly critique of this genre.

Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, famously pointed out that women are made and not born, before she delved into the contradiction created for woman when she realizes that so often what it means to be a woman has been authored by men. The girl crisis genre is made problematic as it is defined by “a social and cultural fascination with girls” (Gonick 4); these books are written as observations of girlhood, marked by

‘personal anecdotes’ by ‘real girls’ as recounted by the adults who research them. What it means to be a girl has been authored by adults. Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy

Richards problematize this connection by labelling girl crisis books as part of “a veritable cottage industry” (179), which is constructed out of the emotionally fraught concept of girls’ failing self-esteem. The ‘otherness’ which is used to define girls and their challenges prevents a connection between the text and the girl public. The intended audience of these books has to be a distinct public, made up of parents, counsellors and educators. Logically, members of this public will invest in their understanding of girlhood some pattern based on their own self-reflection regarding past experiences; this creates a false definition of modern girls as ‘other’ due in part to generationally different reactions to gender definition. While adult readers will be troubled by girl responses,

2 Sandra Gilbert’s term, daughteronomy, refers to texts which are created in a hierarchy, in which each new generation of female created texts is seen as being linked with a mother text. Central to this concept is the idea that each text gains legitimacy through its relationship with other texts. 21 they are creating this trouble out of their own experience of subjectivity. For example, pre-millennial girls reacted to limiting gender definitions by crafting a connection to Riot

Grrls or other counterculture movements, rather than by looking to the heroes and movements experienced by their mothers, aunts, teachers and counsellors. By using a personal-historical framework, the adult public (researcher, parent and educator) alienates and obscures the realities experienced by the current girl public. The generational divide, as well as the lack of time for reflection on girlhood experiences, creates a perspective for current girls that is markedly different.

Performativity and ‘Fixing Girls’

While each writer of the girl crisis genre is arguably concerned with reversing girlhood subjectivity, the ‘call to arms’ is issued to a public which can only inactively discuss the social elements which craft that subjectivity. The issue of a disconnected or ineffective public is considered by Jiwani, Steenbergen and Mitchell in their observation that “in conceptualizing this terrain [of observed girlhood], it becomes clear that mediating the various realms of inquiry and their thematic points of concern – at the level of lived realities as well as institutional forces – are factors that both enable and constrain constructions of ‘girl’ and girlhood” (xii-xiii). The adult publics, constrained by their positions as outsiders to the current girlhood experiences and thus the girl crisis genre, are effectively crafting a public to nurture and sustain rather than resolve a societal imbalance.

At this point, questions regarding whether the challenges of girlhood, as outlined by the girl crisis genre, even exist must be considered. Certainly, there is a sense that the 22 female battle against subjectivity is an ongoing historical phenomenon; perhaps as Wolf suggests “every generation since about 1830 has had to fight its version of the beauty myth” (11). Yet the actions of the girl crisis model are complicated and even vilified when considered in connection with Judith Butler’s concept of the performative. Within her article “Burning Acts, Injurious Speech,” Butler poses a question which is key to this particular genre analysis: “If performativity requires a power to effect or enact what one names, then who will be the ‘one’ with such a power, and how will such a power be thought?” (49). By naming girls as victims of society, the authors of girl crisis books craft girls in this way – in short, there is a divide between action and identification which must be acknowledged. Butler herself cautions other feminists against forming new elements of “hierarchy and exclusion” through “certain expressions of gender” (Gender

Trouble viii). This concept is developed further within Bodies that Matter¸ where Butler clarifies that gender is not “a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time – an identity instituted through stylized repetition of acts” (415). By creating a traumatic interaction between society and girlhood, authors such as Orenstein, Pipher and others are in fact expressing gender in ways that confine, rather than liberate, girls from the effects of media, societal and parental expectation. Girls are “produced and restrained by the structures of power through which emancipation is sought” (Butler, Gender Trouble 4).

As girl crisis authors conclude their texts, they often write statements designed to help empower girls and contravene subjectivity. These sections of the texts are often referred to in dramatic and revolutionary ways; examples include: “Confronting

Spectacle: Strategies for Resistance” (Durham 217) and “Rebel, Resist, Refuse: Sample 23

Conversations with Our Daughters” (Lamb and Brown 263). Within the genre of girl crisis books, solutions require dialogue and action on the part of the victim-girls. So the authors who form the girl as victim are inevitably (and unsurprisingly) unsure about de- forming this image. Most writers suggest conversations which are sensible but limited in terms of their potential to resolve issues, conversations which reference media awareness, creativity, engagement and action yet stop short of outlining the changes which these conversations should or could produce. Butler says “the distinction between expression and performativeness is crucial” (Gender Trouble 192) and thus when solutions are expressed but their action is convoluted, the girl is created as victim by the words of girl crisis authors, but left without the parallel creation act in the construction of a viable alternative for girlhood. Friedan urged women to embrace themselves outside of their relationships, Wolf challenged women to defeat the Iron Maiden of the Beauty myth through telling new beauty stories, and consequently second and third wave feminism could be crafted. The same potential for girlhood is not made clear and thus cannot be performed. Ultimately, the dialogue about girlhood is unacknowledged as a source of both production and restriction for the girls it strives to protect.

Arguably, the adult publics of girl crisis texts could generate an extra-textual response to the challenges of girlhood, overriding the anti-performative conclusions of the texts. There is a call for personal connection and reflection by the teacher-educator publics which Butler’s concept links to the “cultural performance” (Gender Trouble xxxi) of gender. Interestingly, all of the girl crisis books referenced within this chapter make this connection even more precise by constructing a direct narrative link between the crisis element (in other words aggressiveness, sexuality, or niceness) and the author’s 24 lived experience. This link generates two performed adult-female figures: the strengthened survivor and the reflective victim. This creation feels productive; it seems as though it offers girls a model or template in the very person who is concerned for them, yet this model is still confined by the fact that it is done ‘for’ girls rather than ‘by’ girls. This distinction, made most significantly by Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz, is central to the development of girls’ agency. Butler’s arguments, which do demand a destabilizing of the female subject (Gender Trouble 7), do not propose solutions to conflicts created by the performative nature of language. In this case the public’s involvement is performed and the performance is not conducted in either a productive way or truly subjective way. Confined by their performed place as victims, girls are not permitted to respond independently, while the members of the adult publics are confined by their efforts to be involved in a solution which is not theirs to possess.

One of the central elements of girl crisis texts is a conclusion offering a dialogue between adult and girl which will allow the girl-victim of media and societal manipulation to realize her condition. It is this element which provides the most direct connection to post-millennial girl literature. Girls are in perpetual dialogue regarding their status as victims, or as Douglas posits, girls must accept the “regimes about the marking and performance of femininity” (75). How do such dialogues and accepted definitions influence girls’ interests, as well as their readings of popular texts? If current girls, like the Riot Grrls of the 1990s, must create their personal definitions and reactions, it becomes significant to consider the potential of current ‘girl lit’ to challenge the confines created by the girl crisis genre. 25

Within The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Jurgen Habermas outlines the potential for texts to create a dialogue concerning public issues; Habermas sees this dialogue as rich in its potential to shift political determination from the court into the hands of private people (31-37). More specifically, Habermas claims that individuals “disregard status” in exchange for equality when involved in the text-inspired dialogue (36). Girl crisis texts certainly inspire dialogue amongst their adult publics (a combination of the researcher public and the parent and educator publics), yet Habermas’ theory of the public does not allow for the creation of a public not engaged in a rational dialogue and would relegate the tension between girl and adult publics to the status of an

“eroded” (140) response which does not fulfill his idealistic vision. It is in this gap that the work of Nancy Fraser becomes useful to an understanding of the public created by girl crisis texts. Within her article “Rethinking the Public Sphere,” Fraser explains that the model of a single public sphere does not allow for a clear understanding of the subordinate or subjective members of society. Fraser proposes a model which allows for a multiplicity of publics, which she calls “subaltern counterpublics” (123). While

Fraser’s model allows for the existence of two or more publics, the sense of tension between the girl public and the adult women’s public is left unaddressed.

Michael Warner establishes the model of a public and an alternative and contradictory counterpublic; he contends that the counterpublic “maintains at some level

[…] an awareness of its subordinate status” (56). Arguably the girl public of the girl crisis genre, through the suggested dialogue, would be made aware of the opinions such texts hold of them, so this definition of the counterpublic can deepen an understanding of the girl public in relation to these texts. In fact, Warner’s position that counterpublics 26 allow for private issues to be a part of public discourse is quite useful to a more complex and cogent analysis of girl crisis books. Understanding that the private thoughts of girls are in fact “publicly constructed” allows the realization of counterpublics as entities that are “testing our understanding of how private life can be made publicly relevant” (62).

While his public and private dichotomy is useful, Warner’s concept of the public does not work consistently as a method for identifying and ratifying the publics affiliated with the girl crisis texts. Warner’s requirement that the public be crafted “voluntarily” (88) contradicts the situation of girls and girlhood created by such texts. In order to define both the adult’s group and the girl’s group in relationship with the texts, a broader definition of public and public construction is required.

A public, in the sense that it is defined and outlined by Habermas, Fraser and

Warner, is not a cogent way of considering the audience and subject of girl crisis texts.

Adult readers understand and emotionally react to the content of these texts, yet it is the girls – who are not often consumers of these texts – who must take action but are limited by the demands of dialogue and victimization. Thus the traditional pattern of text- discourse-action is not, and cannot, be followed. Even the definitions of subaltern or counterpublics are problematized, as the motivation for the adult reader audience is situated and limited within their relationships with the girl subjects. These groups cannot be made distinct, nor can they be amalgamated. Instead the girl public is left requiring a definition which excludes the public model.

If scholars are to define a new vision for publics created by emotionally fraught texts, the process must begin by considering the elements or experiences which unite and inspire these human groupings. Within his article “Structures of Feelings,” Raymond 27

Williams considers the relationship between art and lived experience. Williams challenges his readers to “find other terms for the undeniable experience of the present: not only the temporal present, the realization of this and this instant, but the specificity of the present being” (128). Girl crisis books, by nature of their fixed inception point but changing concerns and crises, suit a conscious model that is unfixed, that is “not science

[…but] a kind of feeling and thinking which is indeed social and material” (131). By defining a socio-relational public through the acceptance of changing and evolving feelings and thoughts, a model which allows for the examination of what is both problematic and provocative about girl crisis books, as well as adolescent girl literature, can be achieved. Public theory demands movement beyond a dichotomous representation of girlhood. Christine Griffin’s work with gender and identity echoes Williams’ demand for an unfixed model; she argues against the use of dominant stereotypes which girls can comply with or rebel against, and instead argues that “it is more fruitful to view femininity as an impossible space for girls or young women to occupy successfully”

(Griffin et al. 7). Indeed, if girlhood is this “impossible space” then the process of contextualizing the experience and definitions of the girl loses its focus on limiting and confining the girl or adult public, and repositions a discourse made richer for its lack of duality.

In order to craft this socio-relational public, it must be acknowledged that we are

“defining a social experience which is still in process […] not yet recognized as social but taken to be […] idiosyncratic and even isolating” (132). Williams’ insistence on thoughts continuously returning to evidence allows the audience of girl crisis texts to be seen as an evolving realm of multiple emotional discourses. An analysis of the social-relational 28 publics affiliated with the girl crisis genre reveals that the text itself is not a singular, defining feature required to produce an understanding of girlhood. In Ann Cvetkovich’s book, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Culture, for example, scepticism regarding a “magic-bullet theory”(2) for solving female issues with subjectivity and trauma is encouraged. Cvetkovich challenges the modern obsession with ‘speaking-as-purging,’ and instead encourages her readers to be “vigilant about the hazards of converting a social problem into a [treatable or fixable] medical one” (45).

Within girl crisis texts, this medicalization is precisely the issue which prevents a radicalizing conclusion. Girls are “conceptualized […as being] produced within shifting sociohistorical, material, and discursive contexts” (Gonick 3). Within this conceptualization the girl becomes a figure who must be consistently remapped and revisited; the girl productively resists definition. As each writer within the girl crisis genre attempts to establish the connection between the medicalized figure and the behaviours of the modern girl, a further realm of unnerving behaviours is discovered.

The only way to construct a girl public is to acknowledge its ephemeral nature and focus on contextualizing in a way which reveals the complexity of girls’ actions, reactions and traumatic challenges.

Cvetkovich encourages an acceptance of trauma’s “pain as psychic, not just physical” (2-3). Cvetkovich extends this definition by claiming that “the combined power of song, visuals and live performances” serves as a better canvas to define a societal group or public than one which involves “medical diagnoses or victims” (1).

Finally, Cvetkovich justifies her acceptance of trauma as an “affective experience […] that characterizes the lived experience of capitalism” (17). This model of ephemeral 29 emotion as “cultural artifact” (Cvetkovich 9) allows girl behaviour to change and evolve rapidly. Instead of crafting a model of girlhood which is marked by panic and crisis, these cultural artifacts can become a place to “examine the convergence of affect and sexuality” (Cvetkovich 48) without objectifying and judging girls through the construction of a singular definition. The socio-relational girl public can then define itself not by extreme and emotional texts, but by their inter-personal relationships, feelings, goals and desires. By limiting the adult reader to the role of observer rather than diagnostician, it becomes possible that the girl public can exist as a separate entity, overlapping and evolving independently as well as under the influence of adults who care to participate without control.

It is important to return once more to my earlier questions. First, why do girl crisis books evolve and replace one another with limited effect? Without a model of revolutionary thought these texts do not possess the performative power to invoke or inspire change. This is particularly true of the most recent books published within this genre, such as The Triple Bind by Stephen Hinshaw or The Curse of the Good Girl by

Rachel Simmons, which are concerned with the culture of perfection demanded of teen girls. These texts depict girls whose purpose in life is to meet and surpass the expectations of all of their friends, mentors and parents. These texts succeed in defining the girl who pursues perfection as a cold, fragile and emotionally tortured being; yet the solutions offered by these texts are not to discourage a societal model which expects girls to live as polymaths, but instead the conclusion promotes helping girls to choose excellence based on their own desires. This serves to create another level of concern, which assumes that girls can expect to be perfect and happy both outwardly and 30 psychologically with a perfection that is not truly self-defined. In order to escape the cyclical model of the girl crisis genre, these texts must be discarded as being too restrictive, too static to allow any sort of perspective on girlhood. On the other hand, current fiction written for girls allows them to consider various paths (often the same paths which are described by the girl crisis genre) which could be pursued. The distance between character and reader becomes a potent space which can both develop agency for girls and provide a realm to contextualize one particular socio-historic moment of girlhood and girl response.

The simple and logical solutions which are presented inconclusively by the girl crisis genre are troubling. Cvetkovich and Williams’ models of ephemeral cultural experiences advocate for simple dialogues to generate awareness between adults and girls. Such conversations will ultimately prove useful to framing girlhood in ways which are independent of subjectification3 and objectification4. Perhaps this is a case in which what is terrible about the girl crisis book is actually what makes it successful. By considering dialogue to be an ongoing action, rather than a conclusion, the stupefying anger caused by the presentation of girls in unnecessary and limiting victim regalia is removed. How one sees and defines girls, girlhood and the/a girl public cannot be a finished action, nor can it be an action which limits girls from their own self-devised definitions. In returning to the anecdotal girl, clothed in her sexualized bustiere, it is possible to consider how a lack of definition might be productive rather than subjective.

By casting this girl firmly in the role of the victim, the girl crisis genre and the worried

3 Subjectification refers to the process of defining the girl with external expectations, which she comes to perceive as being internally created. 4 Objectification refers to the treatment of girls and girlhood as a thing, defined in ways which preclude individual thought and personal definition. 31 adults in her life expect themselves to teach her all about the dangers of media. This is a comfortable stance. From this stance adults hold the solution: they will lead her to enlightenment and less revealing clothing. A fleeting and contextualized consideration of girlhood allows this process to be seen as a movement from one form of victimization to another. These media and fashion lessons would relegate this young person to a limited stereotype, defined by clothing which might have very little to do with her personality.

Adult women, especially women who are part of feminized, emotive professional groups, enjoy the outraged feminist stance. It is easy to reduce fears about societal pressure to their most simplified point. Yet this also simplifies the understanding of the human-girl and allows the girl crisis genre cycle to continue. Ultimately if one considers that the bustiere is one element of a multi-faceted girl, which must be contextualized– keeping in mind that this clothing may or may not define other elements of her life – the adult reader crafts a non-victimized and ultimately ephemeral sense of girlhood, which allows the girl herself to consider who and how she will be.

Experimenting with, Resisting and Redefining Girlhood within Girl Texts

The restricted views of girlhood presented by the girl crisis genre conflict with an interpretive reading of mean girl books and romantic fantasies as a locus of potential and agency. In the end, the reader cannot find strength within a female protagonist if she believes that girls have been completely disempowered. The gaze of the girl crisis genre must be considered when explaining the popularity of current ‘girl lit.’ Caroline C. Hunt explains that the traditional young adult text is primarily concerned with either “gaining and accepting adult status” or “realizing and accepting one’s real self” (109) – yet the role 32 of identity within post-millennial girl books is quite different. Pomerantz explains that for modern girls, the two poles of a ‘girl’ dichotomy are particularly problematic. Most often girls are portrayed as either objectified, those who are observed and supported by adult publics, or subjectified, girls who are limited by the construct of media-defined girl power or the persona of the ‘sassy’ girl (150). Like Griffin, Pomerantz sees this social position as creating an ‘impossible space’ for girls. By situating this ‘impossible space’ in relationship with the reading of modern girl lit, one can garner an understanding of how reading can be, and in fact is, situated in comparison to both the subjectifying and objectifying gaze.

The paradoxical potential of girlhood – where girls are feared and worried over because of their sexuality and aggressiveness, as well as their victimhood and timidity – creates a persona which is composed of seemingly incompatible character traits. The expectations and fears regarding the sexy, ‘girl power’ figure are often closely echoed by demands to be a sweet vessel for society’s desires regarding feminine innocence and purity. In fact, these oppositional personas cannot often be untangled within the girl crisis model, yet consideration of two girl fiction series, Gossip Girl and Twilight, allows a girl identity which is transient rather than binary. Currie, Kelly and Pomerantz explain that “girls’ identities are shaped as they try out different ways of being girls […] they are

‘doing’ girlhood.”(xv). In order to understand both Gossip Girl and Twilight books as sites of action, as suggested above, the connections between the limited roles of the girl crisis genre, and the reimagining of these roles as presented within modern girls’ books must be analyzed. Young adult books generally reflect the culture from which they emerge, “but also [reflect] authorial and social views on adolescence and the adolescent 33 experience” (Pattee 154). In the case of post-millennial adolescent girl texts, the social views being represented within the text are the victim personas formed by the girl crisis genre and its discourse.

Jonathan Rose argues that popular texts function in two distinct ways. Popular texts are offered as entertainment, meant to amuse and allow for reader escapist experiences; as well, popular texts serve to “reinforce rather than subvert the existing social and political structures” (429). For girls, this balancing act is particularly significant as they define and redefine their sense of self. As Currie, Kelly and

Pomerantz explain, selfhood “refers to a culturally and historically specific form of social identity; it captures the meaning that our social presence has for us and for others” (2).

Much of the anxiety of the girl crisis genre depicts girl identity as indivisible from social victimhood. In order for girls to move past a reductive victim model they must exhibit critical literacy – they need to recognize the constructed nature of the social world, recognize the movements and ideas which create girlhood within the subjective and objective framework, and finally recognize ways to experiment with, connect to and rebel against these constructions. Through post-millennial girl books, girls find one (of many) platforms to explore social roles or ‘do’ various girlhoods.

A full understanding of how current girl literature is responding to both the girl public and the adult publics of the girl crisis genre must begin with an examination of the texts themselves. “If, as publishers have established, the young adult or adolescent market is a viable one, the historical success of certain genres and narratives will inform and encourage the creation of later, similarly themed novels” (Pattee 159). My decision to consider the Twilight and Gossip Girl series has been explained previously in the 34 introduction, but it is relevant now to consider how despite their commonalities as originators of popular culture phenomena and their connection to a single publisher

(Little Brown), these texts’ “textual [conceptualizations]” (Pattee 154) are quite different.

While the Gossip Girl series is a set of produced texts, one which is conceptualized and chosen for publication prior to its creation, the Twilight series was the creation of a single author, who sought publication after writing the first novel in the series. The difference between a produced text and a created text is significant to its situation as an apex of publics invested in girlhood. As a produced text, Gossip Girl was created by 17th Street

Productions in cooperation with Alloy Entertainment. This packaging conglomerate invests a great deal of time in tracking media and consumer items which are of interest to teenagers (Alloy Media + Marketing), and particularly teenage girls. Through their research on and with adolescents, concepts for television, film and publishing are crafted and then sold to creators such as publishers. It is interesting to consider the creation of produced books for girls in tandem with the consummate fear of girl crisis researchers for

‘exploitive media.’ Ultimately, there is acceptance that television and film are targeting girls, but books are rarely located as media villains even through publishers have a

“vested interest […] in attracting this free-spending demographic” (Pattee 158). Yet for the girl public, the book exists as an entity that is unlike television and film; books are generally consumed actively by a reader who is imagining connections between the text and her own life. Instead of fearing media manipulation, it is important for girl readers to be allowed and encouraged to be critically literate and active in their own construction of definitions. 35

In contrast, the Twilight series was created by Stephenie Meyer before its publication by Little Brown and Company. Created texts are often less formally aware of their position within the various publics concerned with girls. Unlike the Gossip Girl series, which has a clear ‘mean girl’ hierarchy of competition and connects both formally and monetarily to societal fears and limitations for girls, the Twilight series possesses these personas in combination with one another. While Bella is a ‘good girl,’ she is also sexualized; Jessica and Rosalie exhibit both empathetic and ‘queen bee’ tendencies. Both the produced and created versions of these girl crisis personas are significant to girl readers, despite their distinct constructions. Ultimately, post-millennial girl books become sites of exploration for girls; they become a way to consider, experience, and reflect upon the personas which adults fear.

As post-millennial girl books become places to consider the adult publics’ concerns with girlhood, the adult public also considers how reading texts such as the

Gossip Girl series and the Twilight series might further victimize girlhood. This closed loop also needs to be considered in attempts to move from limiting girl personas to the more open dialogue or contextualization of girlhood possibilities. Adults generally create a hierarchy of texts for child and young adult readers, preferring canonical or award- winning works and viewing such works as morally important to development and maturation. “[Teachers] are not pleased to see their students purchasing formula plot novels and mass-produced series books” (Cherland 278) and judge such texts to be fraught with potentially damaging considerations of gender, society and self-hood. While it is problematic that Cherland presumes to speak for all educators, it is important to note the similarities between her perception of ‘lesser books’ and Naomi Wolf’s concerns 36 about Gossip Girl: “The mockery the books direct toward their subjects is not the subversion of adult convention traditionally found in young adult novels. Instead they scorn anyone who is pathetic enough not to fit in” (“Wild Things”). Adults who are a part of the girl crisis publics often echo these worries and thus further situate girlhood as a kind of victimhood. Ironically Wolf points to the problematic “value system” where

“stressed out adult values are presumed to be meaningful to teenagers”(Wild Things). By not articulating a difference between the adult view of such texts and the girl’s view,

Wolf is referencing the adult stressors of money and sex, without acknowledging that she is promoting girls’ absorption of the adult stressors of the girl crisis genre. Wolf’s chief concern in her “Wild Things” article is that the Gossip Girl series and other series produced by Alloy and 17th Street Productions “reproduce the dilemma [girls] experience all the time: they are expected to compete with pornography but can still be labeled sluts”

(n.p.). This language is similar in connotation and denotation to the language presented in girl crisis texts. Wolf clearly cares for girls and wishes to encourage their development of strength and self-worth, yet it is important to be cognizant of the fact that both Cherland and Wolf are using language to “constitute, rather than merely reflect, reality”

(Pomerantz 149).

In order to avoid removing self-definition as a right of girlhood, it must be acknowledged that girls often see their socially relevant personas in generationally specific ways. Through the New York Times website, Wolf entertained questions regarding her position about “bad-girl books,” yet only referenced one question (of ten) written by an adolescent girl. The question – “I think adults are a little too obsessed with what we – meaning teens – read. Most teens, like most adults read books that are 37 interesting, well-written, and on their reading level. Don’t you think that since authors are all adults, anything they write about is a reflection on them/you, not us?” – reveals a girl who is critically literate, aware of the assumptions made by “bad-girl books” but also considering the bias and assumptions presented within Wolf’s article. More problematically, Wolf avoids this critical stance and does not perceive it as accomplishing or representing the girl strength she seeks; instead she responds with a defense of her perception of girls not feeling “like they are in charge of their roles” and victimized by pressure “to live up to roles already put in place by the pop culture around them” (Wild Things n.p.). Arguably, Wolf’s stance is seeking to replace pop culture roles with researcher culture roles, instead of freely chosen and girl-defined roles. Another of

Wolf’s responses further depicts her hesitancy regarding critical girl literacy: “Girls are very resilient and we have already heard from many girls who read these books with a lot of critical alertness. That said, I do think the meanness is glamorized” (Wild Things n.p.).

This reversal depicts Wolf’s desire to control, rather than observe, girls and girlhood.

Wolf is not alone in her hesitancy regarding girls who are self-sufficiently and critically literate about their social construction. Pattee theorizes that the Gossip Girl series demands that readers “internalize […] the myriad gazes of which one might be subject and [select] and [believe] in the one that seems the most flattering” (167). Anna

Silver complicates the relationship between the girl and adult publics in her critique of the Twilight series, allowing that there are legitimate reasons for “the feminist concern about gender roles that the novel raises” (125), while also allowing for a narrative where girls gain some semblance of agency. 38

While [Bella] is not the heroine that I would choose as a model for my female

students – marriage and motherhood at age nineteen and the curtailing of her

education are irresponsible advice for today’s girls–the book demands a detailed

analysis of how Meyer depicts motherhood as a means of personal fulfillment

and, more generally, underscores the series’ persistent theme that identity comes

from affiliation rather than individual accomplishment. (130)

Silver extends her position of necessary ambivalence by demanding that “readers not create an imaginary, wholly passive reader” (137). By acknowledging even a limited sense of agency for the character, researchers allow for a girl reader who engages with and enjoys the texts and characters without being crafted as an unwitting victim. Louisa

Stein extends girl agency by situating the Gossip Girl series as constructing a

“matriarchy” ( 117) where a “combination of technology and female social networking

[…] can (supposedly) unseat the teen royalty with word and image, staging coups that both overturn and reify the structures of […] power” (121). When critics acknowledge that post-millennial girl texts can be sites of agency or sites of persona exploration, girls are afforded the opportunity to read without being limited and pitied.

By considering adolescent girls and the books which have been designed, written, published and marketed for them as potential sites of reflection, experimentation and rebellion, research allows, rather than destroys, various ways of girls considering their own construction. Reading both the Twilight and Gossip Girl series affords girls a chance to consider the validity and appeal of various girl personas. These personas do not have to be self-defining, nor do they compel girls to narrow or violent actions. By encouraging girls to consider their selfhood broadly, critical researchers are “increasing 39 the number of ways girls can “be” […] eschewing singular definitions in favor of generativity” (Pomerantz 155). As adult publics allow for a messy, multi-faceted definition of girlhood based on dialogue and consideration of societal and temporal contexts, the definition of ‘girl’ can be about being and becoming, thinking and doing, living and questioning rather than objectifying and subjectifying.

40

II. Comfort in Archetypes: Exploring Sites of Reflection, Observation,

Experimentation and Rebellion

The previous chapter laid out the importance of adult publics allowing a complex, non-judgemental view of girls’ engagement with cultural products, including books. By examining the personas created by the fear of girl crisis texts, a clear delineation between sexy and smart, bad and good, mean and kind is established. While these dichotomies are problematic in their over-simplification, they are, as stated in Chapter One, a useful space from which to begin analysis. Central to the discomfort with girlhood is a belief that girls are prevented by social pressures and media influence from forming a personalized sense of self. In place of this internal confidence and definition, girls are relegated to shadow selves constructed from a blending of stereotypes, objectification and subjectification; the key problem with these shadows are that they are not fully possessed by girls and thus they become uncontrollable and confining.

Overlapping ‘Girl’ Texts and Comparing Visions of Girlhood

Most interestingly, a parallel examination of girl crisis texts and post-millennial girl texts reveals patterns of similarity. As girl crisis texts cycle between objectified views of girls and subjectified views of girls, similar figures appear within popular teen girl fiction. For example, Cecily Von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series, defined by its detailed examination of QueenB (fictional mean girl Blair Waldorf) debuted in April of

2002, the same year Rosalind Wiseman published Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping

Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence.

While this alignment could be dismissed as a coincidence, it becomes significant through 41 contextualization. Both Wiseman and Alloy Entertainment, Von Ziegesar’s employer, invested a great deal of time working with girls prior to the creation of their texts, through both online forums (Alloy) and in-school programs (Wiseman). Through this experience, it can be assumed that both creators witnessed girls referring to their social leaders as

‘queens’. This echoing between girl crisis texts and post-millennial girl fiction indicates that girls want to understand not only the world which they occupy, but also seek a rich understanding of the roles crafted on their behalf by adults.

Like girlhood and the girl public, girl fiction falls victim to the same adult process of using a personal-historical framework to impose judgement. By expecting girl fiction to remain constant, adult publics of educators, reviewers and parents often assess girl fiction using philosophies and techniques which echo the creation of girl crisis texts.

This tension is often seen in reviews of the Twilight series which frequently reference and occasionally fixate on Stephenie Meyer’s religion. “What subversive creature could dream up a universe in which vampires and werewolves put marriage ahead of carnage on their to-do lists? The answer […] is a writer of steamy occult romantic thrillers who happens to be a wholesome Mormon mother” (Schillinger). This particular review alludes to the dangers of being a ‘good girl’ by assuming that the only reason a teen writer would craft a romance novel which is devoid of physical representations of sex is to promote a religious agenda. Critics of Meyer’s romantic fantasy saga often continue to create an

“impossible space” (Griffin et al. 7) for girl readers by publically naming their discomforts. First, “Edward is [described as an…] abuser” or “stalker” who reduces

Bella’s independence and attempts to control her actions, thoughts and movements in the name of protection – an anxiety that is also connected to a more holistic worry about “ 42 books [being] sexist because the men have dominant roles over the women in regards to

5 careers and romantic relationships.” Secondly, Bella is measured as a “Mary Sue or a character who lacks noteworthy flaws”; and finally there is anxiety about Meyer’s creation of “castrated vampires” who sparkle (Williams 1-6). The Twilight saga generates impassioned responses to such an extent that bloggers and reviewers seek to quantify the hatred. The quotations above were collected by Jennifer Williams, a blogger who crafted a survey which she posted to online communities and websites whose stated purpose was either to promote hatred or love of Meyer’s fictional universe. While Williams strives to limit her article to direct observation of the texts and their reviews, commenters make an immediate connection to broader worries about girlhood: “To under estimate the impact of it's themes might cause long term damage to a generation of girls” and “Our society does not need yet another element of the mass media telling girls that being ill-used by a male is OK as long as he TRULY LUVs them and they don't have Teh Sex before they sign that legal contract” (quoted in Williams). Williams seeks to represent and begin to quantify readers’ fears and celebrations of the Twilight texts, and despite her level of informality and lack of academic process, she captures a snapshot of the social media phenomenon which defines society’s perception of incredibly popular girl texts.

The bad girl stereotype suffers the same treatment in the hands of reviewers.

Wolf epitomizes the cautionary tone most reviewers adopt when suggesting that novels like Gossip Girl do nothing more than problematically “reproduce the dilemma [girls] experience all the time” (1). Central to concerns about mean girl texts are that they

5 Mary Sue is a phrase generally accepted by creators of fanfiction to refer to characters who are unintentionally crafted with so many positive and appealing attributes that they become false or one- dimensional. This phrase was established by fanfiction writers, who used the name for such characters in parodies. 43 romanticize vicious social interaction and promote both excessive consumerism and sexual exploration that is “blasé and entirely commodified” (Wolf 1). Even reviews which celebrate the books, viewing them as texts that provide a balance “between irresistible trash and the smarter stuff” (Nussbaum 2), highlight that the “Gossip Girl mystique” is characterized by references to “money, bitchiness, cliques, couture” and most importantly a “tart […] appealing brand of cynicism,” and that Von Ziegesar “loves her meanest characters most of all” (Nussbaum 3). Connected with fears about girls’ sexuality are complementary fears about consumption. Reviewers often present the judgment that “readers most vulnerable to the books’ ‘glamorous associations’ between consumer and sexual behavior […] are those who are most innocent” (Pierce 76). Like clothing, friendships and romance, girl reading is also presented as fraught with terrible danger by the denizens of the girl crisis public.

The intermingling of girlhood and girl reading is even found within academic analysis of girl fiction. Within her article, Silver attempts to balance her analysis of Bella and Edward’s romance with the other (and she argues, richer) themes of the novels.

Despite Silver’s refusal to fall into the pattern established by girl crisis texts, the article

“Twilight is Not Good for Maidens” is framed with ‘feminist worries.’ Silver introduces her arguments by explaining that the “tremendous success of the novels has surprised some critics, especially those feminist media and literary critics who argue that the series perpetuates outdated and troubling gender norms” (122). Encouragingly, Silver escapes subjectifying girlhood, instead concluding her article by casting the adult gaze as passive and the girl response as active: “Ultimately, any feminist critic hopes that female readers are canny enough to allow themselves to swoon into Meyer’s fantasy of everlasting 44 passion and devotion and, at the same time, become heroes in their own lives” (137). This judgmental discomfort that adults can feel on behalf of girl readers is also attached to the

Gossip Girl series. The American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services

Association (YALSA) received a wide variety of critical responses to its suggested book lists for Gossip Girl readers. Even in its defenses of such a list, YALSA oscillates between the rational explanation that “to hold teens to a standard that adults don’t adhere to is unreasonable” (Nelson 12) and the idea the “YALSA’s list of read-alikes […] includes many award winners [that] serve as perfect stepping stones to more ‘highbrow literature’ […] a task that needs incremental steps […] provided by YALSA’s list”

(Holley 7). Even in their plea to allow that girls are and should be reading for entertainment and pleasure without fear of judgment, the American Library Association cannot resist casting themselves as savior adults who will bring girls to a level of intellect which would disempower ‘trashy’ books. The adult public’s gaze on girls’ reading habits can be dangerously complicit in creating one more fearful social influence that girls need to be rescued from.

Avoiding Simplified or Singular Readings

By acknowledging the dangers inherent in an adult view of post-millennial girl fiction it becomes imperative to create a method of analysis which considers representations of girlhood broadly – a method which seeks to resist casting the girl reader as a victim of a text filled with “singular definitions” (Pomerantz 155). It is necessary and relevant to explore the good girl and bad girl representations more deeply; these personas can be frequently identified within girl texts (especially the Twilight series 45 and the Gossip Girl series), but analysis must display the complexity of the seemingly flat characters. Using the public and private dichotomy established by Warner in Publics and Counterpublics, these traits can be seen to carve a space between these typically opposing realms. In this space girls can explore, examine, observe and resist limiting stereotypes. By viewing these personas as archetypes or patterns within a unique genre, a reading can exist which honours the complexity, duality and neutrality which girls use to interact with familiar girlhood traits. Archetypes, which must be seen as distinct from the stereotypes of girlhood that are presented by girl crisis texts, allow both reader and creator to recognize familiar or patterned ideas and characters without being reductive or simplistic. While a stereotype may draw upon archetypal patterns, it is markedly different as the purpose of a stereotype is to generalize and obscure individuality. More simply, a stereotype exists as the most abridged version, while an archetype necessarily allows for combination, expansion and complication. This method of reading allows the adult reader to attain the lofty goal outlined in the previous chapter: a reading which clearly communicates that the girl public exists as separate and wholly uncontrolled by the adult observing publics.

Articulating the method of adult reading which avoids disenfranchising the girl public must begin with the acknowledgement that it is impossible for an adult reader to truly possess the girl gaze. In place of knowing precisely and perfectly what girls think, the adult publics must be content with making connections between plot or character development and the statements girls make about their reading. Within these connections it is possible to craft an adult gaze which is sensitive and firmly resists judgement. One of the dominant assumptions about adolescent and children’s literature is that readers are 46

“served by novels that offer them not only positive role models but also a structured

‘map’ of social reality, one which reveals the historical development, and interrelationship, of the institutions of gender, race, and class” (Hubler 85). This thinking is predicated on another assumption that “models of reading response imply models of response to lived experience” (Myers 120). These traditional critical stances must be held in tension with an adult gaze focused on resisting judgement. It is not necessary to remove education as a potential goal of girlhood reading; it is also unnecessary to abandon the concept that texts produce ‘practice realms’ for young readers. In order to allow learning and reading to co-exist with my method of analysis, I must clarify that my goal is not to qualify or quantify girls’ moral engagement with stereotypes as a requisite practice for ‘effective’ girl readers. Teenage girls learn in ways which are not always defined by moral imperative, yet these ways are no less powerful to their lived experience.

Within her study of images of girls presented by the magazine industry and the dialogue such images generate between creator and receiver, Melissa Milkie contextualizes the repetition of ‘problematic’ images of girlhood as a site of tension, despite vocal rebellion from the girl readership:

Feminist scholars have long articulated an important way that the disadvantage of

women and minorities is created and perpetuated – through ‘symbolic

annihilation’ in media – ignoring or portraying them in narrow, demeaning,

trivializing, or distorted ways. […] This annihilation casts the group as irrelevant

or inferior and provides a difficult fit between who they believe they are and who

they are portrayed as being. (840) 47

Milkie, and those researchers who hold similar views, make the assumption that the creator is the definer of femininity for the reader. Yet, as cultural creation shifts in the post-millennial world, this assumption becomes problematic. The creator is no longer the only definer, especially in a social media rich world where the consumer and the reader often become re-visioning creators in their own right. Milkie’s focus on “the power of individual resistance” (842) and the subsequent reactions on the part of the institutions which create cultural products is founded on a system which only values resistance. This is dangerous when considering girl culture because resistance is only one way of reading.

By devaluing non-resistant reading, the adult publics of parents, educators and researchers risk forcing girls to engage with texts in a way which is both limited and potentially less connected to their lived experience. Instead of quantifying and qualifying girls’ capacity for resistance, I propose a model which allows for resistance because this is a stance which often appears within girls’ writing, indicating that it is enjoyable and mentally stimulating for girls, but also a model which allows girls to dwell in the realms of character traits – because it is through both consideration and critique that girls can personally engage with archetypes. It is important, as Perry Nodelman suggests, to view children’s literature as something more than “a response to repression” lest we subjugate this wide genre to dependence “on the existence of a powerful and autocratic masculinist hegemony” (33). Within post-millennial girl fiction, these archetypes function as societal judgements if the only method of interacting with them is through critique; by adding analysis which accepts archetypes as patterns of thought which may or may not be a part of the lived reality of the girl reader, it is possible to achieve a far deeper understanding of the appeal of books to girl readers. 48

One of the dominant methods of analyzing popular fiction is based on comparing values presented in the text with an idealized vision of humanity and society. Within the adult reading methodology proposed by this project, it is important to allow post- millennial girl texts a comparison which is more connected to the constantly ephemeral world that girls inhabit. Scott McCracken, in Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction, emphasizes the importance of viewing books though various lenses. McCracken outlines three key perspectives in the experience of reading popular fiction: the world, the reader and the text, or alternatively the social context of the text, the reader’s reaction to the text and the literary elements, plot and characters which are found within the text (2-3). McCracken elaborates further by stressing that it is the relationship between these perspectives which generates a rich and authentic understanding of popular fiction. In order to allow a balanced understanding of the relationship between perspectives, McCracken draws on the work of Adorno and Horkeimer (37), more specifically using Adorno’s concept of the negative dialectic. Within the constructs of this project, the negative dialectic demands that adult readers both consider the text and engage in metacognitive observation of their reading simultaneously. Adult readers of girl fiction must actively strive for this negative dialectic, carefully managing their sense of the text, with their knowledge of society and its views of girlhood as well as their understanding of how girls make connections to similar text elements. In achieving this dual reading, it becomes possible to consider how girls “appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture” (Radway 222) while still

“[doing] justice to the complexities” (Radway ix) of their reading.

Using Warner’s division of public and private, one can more carefully consider

the complex position of the female characters presented within both the Twilight and 49

Gossip Girl series. While Warner is careful to clarify that “public and private sometimes

compete, sometimes complement each other, and sometimes are merely parts of a larger

series of classifications that includes, say, the local, domestic, personal, political,

economic, or intimate” (28), the division of public and private into idiosyncratic spheres

creates a space between the two spheres which a female character, and more particularly

the adolescent female character, can inhabit.

The public and private sphere can be expanded and contracted in many ways

which are both interesting and purposeful. Situating the realm of observation is important

in examining effectively the traits presented by good girl and bad girl figures If, as

Warner stipulates, the public is defined as “open to everyone, political, official, common,

impersonal, in physical view of others, outside the home [and] acknowledged and

explicit” while the private is situated as a ‘space’ which is “restricted to some, closed

even to those who could pay, nonofficial, special, personal, domestic, [and] known to

initiates” (29) (see Appendix C for a visual interpretation of Warner’s ideas), then the

dominant traits of the good girl and bad girl frequently move between the two spheres.

These girl characters inhabit a space of private turmoil and self-reflection which is often

made public through the movements and requirements of the plot and the society in

which they are crafted.

Careful examination of both the good girl and the bad girl archetypes reveals the complexity of traits that are being used to define these characters. Searching for

‘complexity of characterization’ may seem like a ridiculous goal in connection with books which are often derided for their predictable plotting and character development, but using Warner’s division of public and private spheres reveals that all traits transverse 50 the spheres, allowing the traits to “generate new possibilities for girls, rather than shutting possibilities down” (Pomerantz 155). Close analysis of both the Gossip Girl series and the Twilight series reveals that the good girl, typified by Twilight’s Bella Swan, is initially characterized as a private or domestic character, while the Gossip Girl bad girls,

Serena and Blair, are rendered as public or observed characters.

In their analysis of Victorian and Edwardian women’s writing, Sandra Gilbert and

Susan Gubar explore the tradition of positively viewing and idolizing private female characters, while chastising female characters who overtly embrace their presence within society. Gilbert and Gubar create a space for valuing both representations of femininity, explaining that “for every glowing portrait of submissive women enshrined in domesticity, there exists an equally important negative image that embodies the sacrilegious fiendishness of […] the ‘Female Will’” (28). The critical stance of The

Madwoman in the Attic helps to provide an understanding of the good and bad girl types presented by post-millennial girl fiction. These powerful archetypes of the damsel and the siren transfer easily into the traditional format of an adolescent book, and thus it can be argued that adolescent girls are given protagonists who portray either one stagnant persona or the other. Yet, it is important that adult readers honour the potential for sophistication which girls might perceive within these characters. In the Twilight series,

Bella Swan seeks to please her parents, her friends and ultimately her lover. She defines herself as the good girl and works tirelessly to ensure that this character is not tarnished by a single, self-indulgent thought. One might claim that her journey is one marked by heartbreak, tears and eventual triumph, much of which is created by others while Bella watches. Alternatively, girl readers may seek out Blair and Serena of the Gossip Girl 51 series to find young women who define themselves, who seek to set their own goals and fight for the things they define as important. Yet these readers will also find young women who are willing to betray, cheat, punish and manipulate with very little guilt.

While it is tempting to wish or demand that girl readers engage with both texts’ version of girlhood, the only point of potential balance of the good girl-bad girl dichotomy exists within the reader herself. Allowing for a potentially sophisticated and complicated vision of these characters ensures that adult readers are “careful not to idealize certain expressions of gender that, in turn, produce new forms of hierarchy and exclusion”

(Butler Gender Trouble viii). While value judgements are implied within the titles

‘good’ and ‘bad’ girl, neither figure is crafted in a way which prevents the girl reader from exploring, observing and resisting any and all traits which form the characters.

The figure of the bad girl was certainly one which promoted obsessive apprehension in girl crisis texts, published most immediately after the transition into the new millennium. The political machinations of girl world were endlessly worried about, endlessly discussed and endlessly reported upon. Douglas describes the beliefs which are central to bad girl fears: “despite everything, what courses through our culture is the belief – and fear – that once women have power, they turn into […] evil, tyrannical, hated, unloved [beings]” (22). The bad girl exists as an initially public figure, one who is defined by a few elements: her social and political power, as well as her ability to use her physical appearance to communicate her sexual persona. As previously stated, Blair

Waldorf is so aligned with her social authority that she is often referred to as QueenB throughout the Gossip Girl series. Von Ziegesar is careful to complicate this portrayal early within the titular first book of the series: “it soon became apparent how much 52 easier it was to shine without Serena around. Suddenly Blair was the prettiest, the smartest, the hippest, most happening girl in the room” (21-22). For Blair’s character, being the queen was about admiration and affirmation which she was unable to generate from within herself. Von Ziegesar does not hesitate to show the ruthless nature demanded by this role. Blair is often embroiled in plots to destroy, control and win favour: “Blair Waldorf making an effort to do something nice to someone else? Talk about a makeover!” (Because 46). Relationships are looked upon as tools to solidify the widely known and official status within her social world: “‘Sure, you can make yourself an invitation. Make one for one of your friends, too,’ Blair said, handing the guest list over to Jenny. How generous”(Von Ziegesar, Gossip 94). Within this scene Blair asks

Jenny, who is in awe of Blair’s social status, to complete hours of careful work addressing invitations for a party in calligraphy – Jenny’s reward for servitude is inclusion within the social activities.

The social queen figure is easy to vilify as she encapsulates many adult fears, namely the creation of “false appearances to hide their vile natures” (Gilbert and Gubar

30). But being the queen within post-millennial girl fiction is not without its challenges.

As this trait migrates into the private sphere, Von Ziegsar aligns power with the private, quiet fear in which Blair dwells when she is alone. Descriptions such as “Blair kneeled over the toilet and stuck her middle finger as far down her throat as it would go…She’d done this before, many times” (Von Ziegesar, Gossip 34) and “Kitty Minky closed her eyes and settled into the warm folds of her sweater, purring contentedly. Blair wished she could find someone to make her feel that content” (Von Ziegesar, You Know 110) show that the cost of political and social control is an inability to seek or require support. 53

The second key trait of the bad girl within the public realm is the conscious manipulation of her physical appearance to project sexualized traits: “She was wearing her new black ballet flats. Very bow-tie proper preppy, which she could get away with because she could change her mind in an instant and put on her trashy, pointed, knee-high boots and that sexy metallic skirt her mother hated. Poof – rock star sex kitten. Meow”

(Von Ziegesar, Gossip 5). The concept of representing a persona through the exterior is a trait which stretches to include many female characters within the constructs of teen fiction and beyond. The potential within girl lit is that characters fluctuate, changing their physical persona to suit their goals – not all of which must be seen as negative.

Serena Van Der Woodsen, Blair’s foil and frequent friend, is crafted with duality at her centre. She is central to the opening of the series, as it is her return which ignites the plot:

“If we aren’t careful, S is going to win over our teachers, wear that dress we couldn’t fit into, eat the last olive, have sex in our parents’ beds, spill Campari on our rugs, steal our brothers’ and our boyfriends’ hearts, and basically ruin our lives and piss us all off in a major way” (Von Ziegesar, Gossip 4). Characterized as the siren, Serena’s image is not simplified. Instead Von Ziegesar changes her image to suit her emotions or adventures.

Serena becomes a virginal princess when she is in love – “She’d change into a long, white silk nightgown and sit in front of a gilt-framed mirror, brushing her long, golden hair like a princess in a fairy tale” (Gossip 21-22); she is a sexpert6 when she needs to escape unwelcome male attention – “Chuck took a step back and cleared his throat, his face flushed. She’d caught him off guard, a rare feat” (Gossip 19); and even appears as a sexualized model when she takes on the role of Little Red Riding Hood in a fashion

6 Sexpert is a term used by Susan J. Douglas within Enlightened Sexism to refer to the media portrayal of girls and women being empowered for their sexual knowledge and prowess (outlined in Chapter 6: Sex R’ Us, pp.154-187). 54 show, clothed in a short skirt, pigtails, thigh-high red boots and a t-shirt declaring her love (Because 116-117). Similar to the clothing of the anecdotal girl presented in

Chapter One, character clothing is connected with persona play for both the character and the reader, allowing girls to imagine roles and to wear the costumes to play these roles.

However, role play is only a secondary purpose for girl readers. The chameleon- like nature of physical representations allows characters and thus girl readers to protect their private self-definition or chosen persona. It is in this protection that the bad girl trait of being physically self-characterized crosses from the public to the private sphere. Such a transition allows female characters, and thus girls, to manipulate the persona that is

“open to everyone” and “in physical view” to something which is “personal” and “known only to initiates” (Warner 29). The bad girl traits’ passage from public to private is defined by its ability to stabilize and explore the emotions of girlhood in a way which protects the bad girl figure from a subjectifying or objectifying gaze.

As the traits of social control and physical representation protect, there is an additional trait presented by the characterization and actions of the bad girl which operates within the space between the public and private realms. In order to achieve validation for either her power or physicality, the bad girl must embrace the intricate façade of the mean girl – a trait which is at once privately understood and publicly demanded. This pretence demands many facets, including emotional reserve, a disregard for accomplishments, self-agency within girl world and mystique. Unlike the quiet need which so often humanizes mean girls, the personality traits of the mean girl façade are

“teaching us to recognize in newer and deeper ways how privacy is publicly constructed”

(Warner 62) – in short, these personality traits are not constructed to serve the emotional 55 needs of the mean girl, but instead they are publically observed representations of her power and her suitability for her role.

When asked to describe her experience of losing her closest friend, Blair responds: “ ‘ I mean, last year was really…different.’ She’d been about to say ‘hard,’ but

‘hard’ made her sound like a victim. Like she’d barely survived without Serena around.

‘Different’ was better” (Gossip 35). Here Blair’s emotions are viewed as inextricable from her self-representation and power; this negative dialectic ensures that emotions, so often thought to be the controlling element within girlhood, cannot be felt without careful construction and control. In fact, Blair’s dominant view of herself is informed by impersonal expectations.

Like Blair, Serena expects to fulfill a series of steps in a prescribed journey towards adulthood: “Serena gnawed on her thumbnail. She hadn’t thought about this.

That colleges would actually need her to be anything more than she already was. And she definitely wanted to go to college. A good one” (Gossip 84). While the life expectations of the bad girl are constructed to follow similar patterns, Blair is shown engaging with these expectations within the public realm:

Blair was chair of the Social Services Board and ran the French Club; she tutored

third graders in reading; she worked in a soup kitchen one night a week, had SAT

prep on Tuesdays, and on Thursday afternoons she took a fashion design course

with Oscar de la Renta. On weekends she played tennis so she could keep up her

national ranking. Besides all that, she was on the planning committee of every

social function anyone would be bothered to go to, and the fall/winter calendar

was busy, busy, busy. (Gossip 57) 56

Ironically, within the plotline of the Gossip Girl series it is Serena’s non-strategic approach to post-secondary education which ensures her entrance into an Ivy League school, while Blair, whose preparations are deliberate, but detached from passion or moral imperative, fails to achieve the path for which she felt destined.

The Triple Bind Girl?

The mean girl is supposed to be defined by her control, wrought through cruelty and manipulation; but Von Ziegesar is influenced by a different facet of the girl crisis dialogue when crafting her bad girls. Blair and Serena’s emotional control and detachment from their accomplishments and plans are linked to Stephen Hinshaw’s concept of the Triple Bind girl. Following Hinshaw’s fears, this iteration of the girl crisis worries about the stress endured by girls focused on achieving “all the traditional ‘girl’ stuff” like relationships and controlling their sexual feelings, while also being “good at most of the traditional ‘guy’ stuff” such as seeking out an elite college placement, followed by a successful career, as well as playing sports and engaging in brief sexual escapades that are unencumbered by intimacy or affection” (Hinshaw xii). Finally the

Triple Bind is created because, according to Hinshaw, the girl must also embrace “a narrow, unrealistic set of standards” regarding beauty and femininity (xii) where both success and personality are external features which are publically fueled and publically judged. Douglas claims that all girls are socialized by their cultural experiences to accept the “regimes about the marking and performance of femininity” (Douglas 75). By combining Hinshaw’s and Douglas’ theories, a dangerous prophecy of the mean girl emerges. Yet within post-millennial girl fiction, and especially within the context of both

Twilight and Gossip Girl, female protagonists are afforded opportunities to live outside of 57 these regimes, which allow girl readers to consider the ramifications of and possibly critique such confinement. Bella’s goodness does not exclude her sexuality and Blair’s meanness exists alongside the pressure to achieve goals which are not necessarily her own.

Butler extends her concept of performativity to create a distinction between perlocutionary performances or actions, which are performed by virtue of words, and illocutionary performances, those that are performed as a consequence of words (Butler

“Burning Acts” 44). This distinction is particularly relevant in an assembly of the connection between the bad girl archetype and the Triple Bind girl, as both Serena and

Blair are engaged in illocutionary acts. The impact of these traits is limited by their placement between the public and private spheres; simply because these representations of girlhood are demanded by voices external to the girl herself, their power cannot be complete.

Like Blair and Serena, Bella’s characterization also serves as an exploration of the

Triple Bind girl for the girl reader. In their discussion of Jane Eyre, Gilbert and Gubar discuss the duality of characters like Jane and Bertha, who are twinned in their actions – both characters are depicted pacing, both are held captive, both are monstrous in their captivity, both supernaturally named by Mr. Rochester – though they are ultimately crafted as the dichotomous angel and other (361-363). For current teen girl fiction this sameness in opposition is contained within the maternal vampire Bella and the Queen

Bee Blair. Their qualities, which could be limited to holistically good or holistically bad, instead oscillate, allowing for a more complex view of girlhood and the potential of feminine roles. Meyer has been criticized heavily for constructing Bella as a weak-willed 58 figure who allows her actions to be controlled first by her parents’ needs and then by her lover’s. By resisting judgement, the adult reader is afforded space to consider how and when Bella exerts her desires. From this position if becomes possible to consider how

Bella might serve girl readers – she provides an imagined version of compliant girlhood that maintains the girl’s ability to choose and determine when she will act compliantly.

Perhaps Bella’s most dominant trait is her self-sacrificing control over her emotions and her life. As Bella moves from her familiar home in Arizona to live with her father in Forks, she is clear that she does not wish to move but instead realizes that it affords her mother an opportunity for deeper happiness. Unlike familiar stereotypes of girlhood which are often fussily filled with dramatic selfishness, Bella hides her worries about the move: “It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape”

(Meyer, Twilight 9). Meyer’s representation of the Triple Bind figure explores the pressure to satisfy others’ needs, yet it also explores Bella’s control over both her emotions and her life. Bella has chosen her discomfort and feels reassured of her goodness by this action – for her this is an act of reasonable generosity. Here it may be tempting to consider Bella’s actions as merely the internalization of societal expectations; yet another possibility exists for girl readers –that Bella’s sense of self and autonomy is affirmed by her confidence and comfort within her familial and romantic relationships.

An interpretation of Bella’s character need not be reduced to one or the other by adult readers; instead there is potential for girls in considering and determining their definition of Bella. Frequently, Meyer’s portrayal of Bella’s sadness after Edward’s rejection and disappearance is condemned as being too terrible a model to allow girls to experience, yet 59

Bella’s consistent focus on others allows her a small space of rationality. “I wasn’t suicidal. Even in the beginning, when death unquestionably would have been a relief, I didn’t consider it. I owed too much to Charlie. I felt too responsible for Renee. I had to think of them. […] I was still breathing” (Meyer, New Moon 110). Here the thought for others balances her melodramatic grief, creating a vision of girlishness which is obligated by familial, as well as romantic relationships.

Interestingly, a survey of fanfiction.net reveals that Edward’s abandonment of

Bella is a plot point which is rich for girls writing back. Led by the question: “i really love the versions of when Edward left Bella in new moon and then something different happens to the book. so have decided to create this for all of those story's that i think are really great!”7, this collection of fan-created stories focuses on Bella’s ability to recover and the likelihood that her life will be an adventure without Edward. This is interesting because most negative reviewers of Bella depict this version of the girl as “a hopelessly negative caricature” (Rice), yet girl readers create a much more complicated vision of the character’s actions, ultimately balancing weakness with strength. Reviews of fan-created websites and fan fiction reveal that fans often defend their understanding of Bella’s persona by offering emotional insights. For example, when the question “In new moon why is bella so dumb for? why did she just welcome edward back?” (ati.p) was posed on answers.yahoo.com, both the negative and defensive responses reveal thought patterns which are common to both the anti-Twilight and pro-Twilight stances. Frequently, those who critique Stephenie Meyer’s construction of Bella make general statements, which connect multiple plot points to larger social philosophies.

7 I am not including a more detailed citation for this quotation because the writer’s username indicates that she is under the age of eighteen at the time she crafted her comment. 60

Bella is a whiny, anti feminist, dependant, stupid, boring cow that is basically a te

mplate for hormonal teenage girls to insert themselves into. Stephanie Meyer

cannot grasp the concept of brains and bravery, so instead she writes a load of

crap that basically undermimes everything women have strived for, and replaces it

with "have babies or you'll never be happy, girls, forget about school and

ambitions!

Reservations about girls taking on a Bella-persona and being weak are also a common feature of such critiques. Comparatively, responses by Twi-hards8 tend to reflect emotions experienced by the reader on a personal level: “she's very confused she thought

Edward left her because he didn't want her. she always saw herself as ordinary and always wondered y he was with her.” There are parallels between this fan’s response and Bella’s self-reflection: “Making decisions was the painful part for me, the part I agonized over. But once the decision was made, I simply followed through – usually with relief that the choice was made” (Meyer, Twilight 140). There are elements of personal knowledge and an acceptance of the girl as a self-controlled person within both of these statements. While Hinshaw’s Triple Bind girl can only be saved by adult intervention, the personas created by Von Ziegesar and Meyer include a great deal of self-reflection. It is in echoing, contemplating and rejecting this self-reflective language that girl readers can engage in their own thinking about the pressures which society places on them.

Like Von Ziegesar’s character production, Meyer’s transverses the divide between the public and private spheres. Bella’s Triple Bind traits, such as her self-

8 Twilight fans are often referred to as either ‘twi-hards’, ‘twilighters’ or ‘fanpires’ on social media platforms. 61 sacrifice, her responsibility and her detached, academic success are crafted within herself, yet are impersonal and influenced, as well as witnessed, by those around her. By placing

Bella in an alternate space between public and private it becomes possible to see how girl readers can use her characterization to connect their lived experiences with societal views of girlhood. Secondary to her selflessness is Bella’s depiction within traditional female spaces, engaged in traditional female work. Bella’s connection to the Victorian angel of the home does not simply exist within the literary pattern of character duality identified by Gilbert and Gubar. Through her domesticity, quiet independence and innocent image

Bella’s characterization is firmly aligned with the angel archetype.

Within the domestic realm, the reader learns a great deal about the intricate character Meyer constructs for Bella. Early in the Twilight series, Meyer focuses on describing Bella’s care for her father and her comfort doing tasks that have historically been seen as feminine. After a complicated school day, early in the first book, Meyer has

Bella seek relief in domesticity: “When I got home, I decided to make chicken enchiladas for dinner. It was a long process, and it would keep me busy” (78). This domesticity develops throughout the series, first in Bella’s nurturing impulses towards Jacob –

“Jacob’s suffering had always triggered my protective side […] To wrap around his big, warm waist in a silent promise of acceptance and comfort” (Meyer, Eclipse 83) – and then as a matriarch: “The tapestry of family and friends that wove together around me was a beautiful, glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors” (Meyer,

Breaking Dawn 525). The angel of the home figure is traditionally defined in this evolving way, as the female character gains power through a combination of domestic 62 care and love. Ultimately this figure is empowered by her ability to serve as a negotiator, who gently guides within the private realm.

Bella’s angel traits are further extended through her depiction as an innocent.

Meyer fashions Bella’s physicality with an eye for neutrality. Instead of being defined by her physical presence, as the bad girl is, the good girl figure’s physical description is illusory: “Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete” (10). Imagining Bella becomes a process of creation which girl readers can personalize, though they are always confined by imagery which highlights Bella’s child-like purity: “Edward had scooped me up in his arms, as easily as if I weighed ten pounds instead of a hundred and ten” (Meyer, Twilight 97). In fact, the image of Bella being carried is constructed frequently; it is tempting to align Bella with the Victorian bride who was defined by being carried across the domestic threshold by a more powerful husband. However, Meyer creates Bella as a critical observer of her innocence, when in great danger at the end of the first book Alice thinks to ask Bella’s permission before she picks her up: “ ‘May I?’ [Alice] asked. ‘You’re the first one to ask permission’ ” (404).

Bella is not blissfully reveling in the romance of being carried; she considers the action within the context of how she defines herself and how others might see her. Again,

Meyer straddles the public and private spheres, allowing girls to engage with representations of their vulnerability and passivity.

Another key facet of Meyer’s construction of Bella as the child-like angel is the contrast which is created when Bella simply states her needs and demands. Like the

Victorian angels, who were able to exert pressure over the men in their lives “though 63 their moral influence, which often worked from within romantic love relationships and other familial relationships” (Willey 20), Bella’s stipulations are presented clearly and serve to alter the future direction of her plotline. Most frequently, Bella’s demands can be generalized to her desire to be valued as an equal, epitomized by her requests to be made into a vampire. Within the second book, girl fans often draw attention to Bella’s reaction to Edward’s renewed pledge of love: “‘You could mean it…now. But what about tomorrow, when you think about all the reasons you left in the first place? Or next month, when Jasper takes a snap at me?’” (513). Bella is protective of herself and despite

Edward’s promises to shelter her, she ultimately overrules his desires by approaching his family-coven to ensure the solution she knows is necessary. Meyer’s manipulation of the angel persona allows girl readers to participate in a traditional feminine role which is multi-dimensional.

The concurrence of the public and private realms for both good girl and bad girl figures creates a space between the two which is rich in potential for girl readers. Bella, if cast as a flat representation of the good girl, would be limited to the private realm, forced by the quietude of her traits to exist without communal support. Through both her characterization and ultimately the demands of the romantic fantasy genre, Bella emerges as a public heroine. At the conclusion of the Twilight series, Bella stands as the matriarchal protector of her family, publically defying the political elite of her world.

Within their parallel state, Blair and Serena’s representation as bad girls originates publically, defined by their status and their social control. Throughout Von Ziegesar’s plot, these characters are deepened by their inner reflections. This culminates with Blair being described as the bad girl who is so privately constructed that she becomes 64 ultimately unknowable: “If anyone had passed by on the road, they’d have seen a mysterious girl in a blue hooded coat, looking defiantly sure of herself even though the plot had changed and the script had to be entirely rewritten” (Von Ziegesar, Because

228). The resulting overlap between the public and private traits of characters within post-millennial girl fiction allows a space for girl readers to “eschew binary oppositions and narrow definitions in favour of generativity and the proliferation of difference and complexity” (Pomerantz 150). It is the transition point, or intersection between public and private, that is the location most fraught with potential for agency and self-reflection on the part of girl readers.

Girl Roles and Archetypes

Archetypes are powerful tools in the minds of girl readers; as Marshall McLuhan explains, “[archetypes] are living entities” (20). Within his work, From Cliché to

Archetype, McLuhan outlines the drive of creators to revolutionize and then subsequently abandon archetypes, favouring innovation which often begins by revisioning outdated clichés. McLuhan explains that the power of cliché and archetype is extended beyond the realms of pattern – as outlined by Northrop Frye and Jungian criticism – because this cycle of revolution and innovation is grounded in the very history of language, and, as such, defies a static or predictable model. Central to the girl readers’ use of archetypes within her reading responses is the idea that “the archetype is extremely cohesive; other archetypes’ residues adhere to it. When we consciously set out to retrieve one archetype, we unconsciously retrieve others; and this retrieval recurs in infinite regress” (McLuhan

19). The intended audience of post-millennial girl fiction was privy to the explosion of 65 the Disney princess characters during their childhood. The Disney princess figure is far more reductive than the good and bad girl archetypes previously explored; instead good and bad Disney figures are diametrically opposed. “These evil females are often alienated from their communities […] evil women are motivated by the desires to have what isn’t theirs – purity, beauty, acceptance, love” (Horne 244). As young children, girl readers were taught to both enjoy this division of female traits, but also to question it.

Under the auspices of early girl crisis texts, such as Reviving Ophelia, girls were taught that Disney had taken “the archetypes represented in fairytales and gone Hollywood” and that “Disney had forgotten these stories’ roots and purpose [lay] in preparing adolescents for adulthood” (Friedmeyer n.p.). As a result of these early experiences, girls are remarkably aware of the power of archetypes to communicate values.

As the adult world, especially that of educators and educational researchers, is struggling to define the learning and thinking that is needed for success in the modern world,9 there is a natural inclination on the part of girl readers to mistrust singular solutions and ‘right’ versions. They have gained this mistrust under the weight of worries associated with girl culture. As outlined in the article “Too Good to be True: The

Fall of Ideal Youth” girls are taught many critical literacies and thinking patterns in the hopes that they will “improve upon adulthood by combining childhood innocence and pliability [with] adult capabilities” (Lesley 37). While considering representations of girlhood within both traditional and contemporary girl literature, Naomi Lesley outlines a key shift in the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. Youth are idealized for their innocence, though they are expected to contend with challenges that have been

9 For further information consult research about “Twenty-first century skills” (ASCD formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) and “Visible Thinking” (John Hattie) 66 abandoned by adults. The multiplicity of the archetypes presented by post-millennial girl fiction – even when they are presented in uncomfortable ways – contradicts “the political problem that feminism encounters in the assumption that the term women [or girls] denotes a common identity” (Butler, Gender Trouble 4). Thus the central question becomes a consideration of what these roles or archetypes allow for girl readers.

McLuhan observes that one of the key features of human interaction with archetypes is that people growing up in the late twentieth century did not want goals so much as they wanted roles (9-10). As society moves further into the twenty-first century, the need for roles becomes directly linked to how girl readers gain and maintain a sense of themselves. This is the case because archetyped roles afford girls an opportunity to evolve and critique stereotypes which populate girl crisis texts and dominate their society

– “the flat cliché is an enormously richer and deeper form than anything that can be achieved by pictorial realism” (McLuhan 71) because it can be repurposed. In order to gain a full understanding of the potential generated by both Meyer and Von Ziegesar’s use of archetypes, one must consider how the female figure operates within the fraught domains identified by girl crisis thought. These fraught domains involve the relationships that the girl figure holds with those around her. Separate consideration of

‘girl world,’ or the social sphere of feminine friendships, reveals an environment which is informed, judged and often connected to the ‘family world.’ Girls must also interact with

‘boy world’ or the sphere of romance and sexuality, while also considering the girl figure who operates outside of the parameters defined by society. All of these roles can be guided either by archetypes – the clichéd patterns that McLuhan identifies as rich in their potential for revision – or by stereotypes which are by nature limited and small. 67

Within the worlds of both Twilight and Gossip Girl there are girls who form the group which surrounds either the good girl or the bad girl. It is through these supporting girl figures that the readers are able to hold each archetype in tension and comparison.

There has been a great deal of adult analysis of girl world, so logically girl readers are served by exploring a practice realm where they can consider their own emotions, as well as the stereotypes which are being placed upon them. While the Gossip Girl archetypes are embedded within the machinations of girl world, as outlined within their public to private transition, it is interesting to note that similar adherence to social order and complicated etiquette is outlined for Bella. Within the first book, Bella is shown figuring out the expectations which other girls silently communicate: “[Jessica] sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when he’d turned her down” (Meyer 22) and “It was relaxing to sit with Angela; she was a restful kind of person to be around – she didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with chatter. She left me free to think undisturbed while we ate” (118). As the novel progresses, Bella is shown magnanimously offering shopping advice to schoolmates (154) and worrying about her attire as she prepares to meet

Edward’s sisters (318). The girl reader may recognize the pattern of social norms which she sees in her own experience within these generic girl world events. Bella’s approach to girl relationships is deepened by her interactions with Edward’s sister Rosalie.

Rosalie’s blond beauty and haughty nature mark her as the stereotyped mean girl, so

Bella is shocked to note Rosalie’s jealousy: “‘Rosalie is jealous of me?’ I asked incredulously. I tried to imagine a universe in which someone as breathtaking as Rosalie would have any possible reason to feel jealous of someone like me” (Meyer, Twilight

327). Through the series Rosalie’s character is revealed slowly, allowing her to first be 68 understood by and finally befriended by Bella, permitting the reader to experience a new depth of the mean girl archetype

Rather than simply reconstructing the girl world which is so often presented to girl readers, both Von Ziegesar and Meyer construct relationships which are unbound by the churning of politics and power. These relationships, for the good girl and the bad girl, become a sort of sisterhood which is defined by its simplicity and its emotional fulfillment. Within these plot moments, the protagonist girl is given the ability to release her crafted persona and trust in the motivation of her supporter. Perhaps most significant is the fact that this narrative is allowed for both the good girl and the bad girl, regardless of her position as either ruler or navigator of girl world:

And I remembered Alice sitting with me on the dark leather backseat. Somehow,

during the long night, my head had ended up against her granite neck. My

closeness didn’t seem to bother her at all, and her cool hard skin was oddly

comforting to me. The front of her thin cotton shirt was cold, damp with the tears

that streamed from my eyes until, red and sore, they ran dry. (Meyer, Twilight

406) and

Blair closed her eyes and let her shoulders drop. For once, she wasn’t thinking

about her Yale interview, or losing her virginity to Nate, or her messed up family.

She wasn’t the star of any movie. She was just breathing, enjoying the gentle tug

and pull of the brush on her hair. “It doesn’t hurt,” she told her old friend. “It

feels good.”(Von Ziegesar, You Know 222) 69

By crafting these moments that are distinct from the expected pattern of girl world, girl readers are given another evolution of girl world. Instead of recreating another version where the “polarities condemn or condone, pathologize or normalize, ignore or glamourize, girls” (Pomerantz 149), girl readers are presented with quiet moments which are not dichotomized or problematized – they simply exist without judgement.

Observing Adults, Sexuality and ‘Outsiders’

A final consideration of the girl world domain is the role of adults in the perpetuation and prevention of social hierarchies. As previously stated, post-millennial girl fiction allows girl readers a space to imagine, interpret and resist the roles cast for them by observing adults – thus it is important to consider the placement and effect of adults within these texts. Here it is useful to consult Joe Sutcliff Sanders’ work concerning the representation of the female orphan within mid-nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century women’s writing for children, presented within Disciplining

Girls: Understanding the Origins of the Classic Orphan Girl Story. As with the traditional figure of the female orphan,10 the girl figure presented within both the Gossip

Girl series and the Twilight series is defined by an irregular relationship with mentoring and parenting adults, especially concerning discipline. According to Sanders, the anxiety about disciplining girls takes two forms: what can be done with girls? And how can girls be ruled? (128).

10 The traditional female orphan is perhaps known best through figures such as Anne Shirley, Pollyanna Whittier, Sara Crewe and Mary Lennox and is influenced by Jane Eyre. 70

Von Ziegesar creates a space within the social order of Gossip Girl to analyze the stance of adult characters regarding the competitive and often manipulative plot events.

Mrs. M, who is the headmistress of the elite private school which serves as the book’s setting, is constructed as a member of the girl crisis public – someone who is aware of the dangers of girlhood – yet her actions are shown to be ineffective. “Mrs. M also didn’t tolerate meanness. Constance was supposed to be a school free of cliques and prejudice of any sort…But those punishments were a rare necessity. Mrs. M was blissfully ignorant of what really went on in the school” (Von Ziegesar, Gossip 40). Von Ziegesar continues to question the power of the caring, but bumbling adult by depicting the re- purposing by girls of a supposedly beneficial girl world activity: “[Jenny] couldn’t wait to find out who her senior peer group leaders were going to be. Supposedly the competition had been fierce, since being a leader was a relatively painless way of showing colleges that you were still involved in school activities even though your applications were already in” (Von Ziegesar, Because I’m 5). Here girl readers are given an example of how ideas that become carefully structured and controlled by adults, rather than organically achieved, are often manipulated or false. Girls are shown by Von Ziegesar’s plot to be both benefitting and suffering as a result of adult interaction in girl world – though not in the ways intended by adults.

Even indirect influence upon girl world, through parenting, is problematized by both Meyer and Von Ziegesar. Discipline and power are complicated by gender; Sanders explains that the anxiety adults feel towards disciplining girls is intensified by concerns for gendered power – especially “about how the gender of the dispenser and recipient of discipline interferes with discipline” (4). The father-daughter relationship is presented as 71 particularly complicated within post-millennial girl fiction. For example, Rufus, who is the most actively involved of the parental figures presented within the Gossip Girl series, is introduced as supporting overly adult behaviour: “Rufus kept the beer flowing out of a keg in the bathtub, getting many of the [grade 8 aged] kids drunk for the first time”(Von

Ziegesar, Gossip 49). This is contrasted later when Rufus worries about his daughter, claiming “I may be lenient, but I can’t have her running around like some sort of floozy”(Von Ziegesar, All I 135). Frustration and fear about a daughter’s physicality and sexuality cross into the good girl’s family relationships as well: “We lapsed back into silence as we finished eating. He cleared the table while I started on the dishes. He went back to the TV, and after I finished washing the dishes by hand – no dishwasher – I went upstairs unwillingly to work on my math homework. I could feel a tradition in the making.” (Meyer, Twilight 37). Fathers are incredibly limited by their gender within the confines of Meyer and Von Zeigesar’s worlds. They literally and metaphorically go

“back to the TV” while their daughters finish “washing the dishes by hand” (Meyer,

Twilight 37), creating a passive villain who is easy and necessary for the daughter to dupe. Parenting “practice responds to the historical reality of a biological child in a particular social world” (Ruddick 97). Within social worlds of Twilight and Gossip Girl, the father is fashioned as both unaware and incapable of supporting his daughters’ navigation of girl world.

The role of mother-daughter interaction is muddied by the tendency of both

Meyers and Von Ziegesar to represent their protagonists as pseudo-mothers or full mothers in the case of Bella in Breaking Dawn. Thus, both writers have to construct motherhood within a positive light, allowing for a representation which complies with 72 modern maternal theory. “A mother engages in a discipline. That is, she asks certain questions rather than others; she established criteria for the truth, adequacy and relevance of proposed answers; and she cares about the findings she makes and can act on”

(Ruddick 96). Ruddick’s vision of motherhood is certainly the mothering which Bella and Serena are engaged in performing. By contrast, their mothers are designed in opposition, seeming to rebel against the concept that “women’s place in the social relations of reproduction is therefore circumscribed by her childbearing function”

(O’Brien 49) by discarding maternal responsibility altogether. In the face of the misogyny which defined early maternal history, both Renee and Rufus’ wife become caricatures of irresponsibility and flightiness: “Their mother had run off to Prague with some count or prince or something, and she was basically a kept woman […] She wrote them letters a few times a year, and sent them the odd present” (Von Ziegesar, Gossip

73). Renee is so incapable of parenting Bella that the parental-power construct is reversed. This is shown early in Twilight when Bella responds to her mother’s panicked email: “Mom, Calm down. I’m writing right now. Don’t do anything rash. Bella”

(Meyer 34). While adult critics recoil from the neglectful parenting relationships presented within post-millennial girl fiction, these relationships become purposeful for girl readers. When girl characters are relegated to virtual ‘orphanhood,’ they become defined by their independence in girl world; and it is independence which is a key feature in establishing a fictional world as a suitable practice realm.

Girlhood sexuality is never far from the media spotlight; society has an almost frenetic fear of girls, their purity and their corruptibility. By “viewing these novels as candy-coated narratives that understand gender in ways that are complexly subversive as 73 well as complicit” (Sanders 8), the adult reader can understand that Meyers and Von

Ziegesar are in fact rebirthing the social cliché of sexualized girlhood into a new archetype. Both the good girl and the bad girl figures interact with their own sexuality in complementary, but divided ways. Rather than characterizing Bella and Blair as sexual gatekeepers, who contend with intense societal pressure, Von Ziegesar and Meyers depict their characters as physically desirous: “When he put the sweater on, it looked so good on him that Blair wanted to scream and rip all her clothes off” (Von Ziegesar, Gossip 9) and “I noticed that he wore no jacket himself, just a light gray knit V-neck shirt with long sleeves. Again, the fabric clung to his perfectly muscled chest. It was a colossal tribute to his face that it kept my eyes away from his body” (Meyer, Twilight 197). In addition to acknowledging teen girl desire – and an apparent love of sweaters – both the good girl and the bad girl interact with their sexuality by aligning and misaligning sex with a rich sense of their own nature and sense of self.

Meyer’s representation of Bella’s sexuality is especially well commented on, with critics either faulting Meyer’s abstinence agenda for the fact Bella’s first sexual experience occurs during her honeymoon or problematizing Bella’s sexual desire as lacking in purity. Yet, girl readers are afforded potential insight into Bella’s view of her sexuality “And I wasn’t freaking out because I thought we were making a mistake. Not at all. I was freaking out because I had no idea how to do this, and I was afraid to walk out of this room and face the unknown. Especially in French lingerie. I knew I wasn’t ready for that yet” (Meyer, Breaking Dawn 83). The good girl is certain and afraid only of inexperience; by contrast the bad girl worries about creating a conflict between her actions and the image she has constructed to represent her ideal self. “Blair was pretty 74 sure the nice girls Audrey played didn’t lose their virginities in hotel rooms with married older men, no matter how deep the snow got. Why not end the film here, while it was still good?” (Von Ziegesar, Because I’m 159). In each case, girl readers are bearing witness to figures who think and who choose regarding their sexuality.

The archetype of the sexual girl is not flatly constructed or wholly positive. The girl reader must also contend with images that are more in keeping with societal fears.

Blair speaks of sex incessantly; she comes to view her virginity as emblematic of the failures in other areas of her life: “Maybe it was the heat. Or maybe it was the fact that her life was such a complete mess that she wanted to do something drastic to change it.

Whatever the reason, Blair knew she was following Miles back to his villa with a purpose: to have sex” (Von Ziegesar, All I 150). Within this plot event, Blair ultimately chooses to leave her partner, troubled by her regrets. Here, in a similar fashion to the incredibly problematic image of Bella awakening covered in bruises after her first sexual encounter with Edward, the girl reader is provided with a sex act which is complicated by negativity. There is an opportunity for the girl reader to evaluate Blair’s decisions. The potential for a life-fiction comparison is commonly attached to characters’ sexuality, and thus a portrayal of sexuality which is pleasant, worrisome, problematic and even dangerous more accurately reflects the world with which girls are familiar.

The latest iterations of the girl crisis cycle focus on the difficulty post-millennial girls face in a world where even the rebellious female figures have been commercialized and commodified. The argument of people like Rachel Simmons, Susan Douglas and

Stephen Hinshaw is that girls of previous decades could find safe, female spaces in counter-culture, but that the current pressure of marketers ensures that counter-cultures 75 are now quickly consumed and stereotyped. Within the constructs of both romantic fantasy and mean girl novels, there is a space given for characters who live and matter outside of the texts’ societally designated worlds. These ‘other’ characters have “the potential to jeopardize conventional distinctions” (Hollinger 201) and create yet another potential persona for both the girl character and the girl reader. The monstrous ‘other’ appears as a rebel within the Twilight series. Yet, adult readers may not recognize this figure, as the rebel is no longer romantically defying societal pressures; instead the rebel monster fights against its own nature. In the introduction to Blood Read: The Vampire as

Metaphor in Contemporary Culture, Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger explain that the figure of the vampire, and, it can be argued, all representations of the monstrous other, “can tell us about sexuality, of course, and about power; it can also inscribe more specific contemporary concerns, such as relations of power and alienation, attitudes toward illness, and the definition of evil at the end of an unprecedentedly secular century”

(3) because the monster is transformed over the course of time and serves as a bellwether for the perceived dangers within a society.

Within traditional literature and oral narrative, the monster is often limited to being characterized as flatly evil, yet “in novels and stories published in the United States since 1970, on the other hand, the vampire often appears as an attractive figure precisely because he or she is a vampire […reflecting] a change in cultural attitudes toward the outsider, the alien other” (Carter 27). The female Cullen vampires are all uniquely beautiful and richly drawn characters; their creation stories reveal that the transition from human to vampire was a process of shedding their human pain – Alice gains clairvoyance after spending her human life within an insane asylum (Meyer, Twilight 448) while Esme 76 becomes a matriarch of a large family after commiting suicide over the loss of her baby, and Rosalie gains the strength to avenge the horrific rape which led to her transformation

(Meyer, Eclipse 158-160). Each of these female figures possesses a great potential for protective violence – “graceful little Alice pulled back her lips in a horrific grimace and let loose with a guttural snarl that had me cowering against the seat in terror” ( Meyer

Twilight 389) – but also the confidence which comes from living life in self-defined ways.

Bella is immediately drawn to Alice and awe-struck by Esme and Rosalie. As the stories progress, the girl reader bears witness to Bella striving to join the Cullens through both her relationships and through her physical transformation. Bella admires not only their surety, but also the way that Edward treats these women. After her transformation into a vampire, Bella explains “I had to admit, I was enjoying myself a little. I hadn’t interacted with humans much besides Charlie and Sue. It was entertaining to watch him flounder. I was also pleased at how easy it was not to kill him” (Meyer, Breaking Dawn

641). She has confidence in her physical appearance, as well as in her ability to control her tremendous strength. Within the promotional hype preparing for the release of the fifth and final film in the Twilight franchise, Kristen Stewart as Bella intones “After eighteen years of being utterly ordinary, I found I could shine”(Stewart). Through

Meyer’s use of the monstrous other, girl readers are allowed to consider, imagine and challenge the process of gaining self-confidence within a counter-culture. Contrary to traditional fantasy literature, in which “ a particularly important effect of this diminishing of the role of the human victim is that the sympathies of the reader or viewer no longer have a human locus to which they can attach themselves, no human character with whom 77 to identify” (Zanger 21), Meyer constructs her monstrous other as a site of strength, but not a site of impossibility for the girl reader.

Within the Gossip Girl world counter-culture is not represented by monsters, but by outsiders. Despite Vanessa’s lack of speed or strength, she is still able to function in the ways that the girl crisis genre had deemed impossible in the post-millennial world:

“Vanessa was an anomaly at Constance, the only girl in the school who had a nearly shaved head, wore black turtlenecks every day, read Tolstoy’s War and Peace over and over like it was the Bible, listened to Belle and Sebastien, and drank unsweetened black tea.”(Von Ziegesar, Gossip 54). Perhaps the most useful feature of Vanessa’s RiotGrrl- like persona is that Von Ziegesar crafts plot points where Vanessa must contend with commodification and commercialism, as well as the challenges of co-existing with her schoolmates. Vanessa does not remain aloof, but struggles to maintain the values she has chosen for herself. It is in this struggle that Vanessa’s outsider status becomes a valuable territory for the girl reader because despite the vision of girlhood possessed by Simmons,

Douglas, Hinshaw and the like, choosing to exist outside of dominant culture is challenging as well as rewarding for teenage girls.

As society moves further into the twenty-first century, humanity is becoming distanced from the traditional world of girl reading; reading has, since Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, been a largely private act. As current girl readers engage in reading, as seen through an investigation of both the Twilight and Gossip Girl series, adult publics must acknowledge that reading exists in both the private and public spheres.

For modern girl readers there is an element of co-constructing meaning within a broader context and reading community. In fact the popular teen girl text presents an ideal venue 78 for girl readers, as it is crafted and marketed in ways that keep it from being closely scrutinized for its literary merit, yet widely scrutinized for its potential social impact.

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III. A Steady Diet of Junk Books? Considering Structure and Style

The anxiety expressed for girls and girl culture is often fixated on the image of the girl, alternating between that of stereotypical purity and vulnerability and that of danger and sexual deviance. This polarized anxiety manifests itself in many ways, as outlined in the previous chapters, but perhaps most interesting is the societal apprehension held for girls’ reading. Much of the research on children’s literature and adolescent literature considers fiction to be a presentation of realms in which the young reader may consider and practice the adult world in preparation for her place within it; in fact the argument of this project relies on the theory of fictional practice realms, yet there is danger in considering texts only in this way. What academics assume about the “fate of the fictional or literary child, in particular, says much about the way in which we view our own nature and destiny and even, as many works of contemporary fiction attest to, our chances for succeeding as a species on this planet” (Pifer 16). Yet necessary to this view is the assumption that texts act upon young readers without their control.

Confessions and Condemnations

As I began and continued my research for this project, I fielded many questions about my focus and my argument. Everyone – from my colleagues and instructors, to my family and even to adult Twilight fans encountered in the grocery store – was curious about my stance on girl reading habits and interests. Most often the assumption was that as an adult, as a feminist, as an educator and as an academic I could not possibly support girls reading ‘such trash.’ As I drafted my initial project proposal, one of my instructors 80 productively challenged my stance that girl reading of popular fiction is a rich, varied and somewhat unknowable series of actions. His concern was that allowing girls to read such texts was the intellectual equivalent of allowing a five year old to sit in the corner consuming nothing but McDonald’s hamburgers. My instructor was not alone in his challenge; I heard pleas from many people against these texts and the social phenomenon that surround them. The arguments against these texts range from horror in the face of overly dramatic prose and ‘weak writing with poor editing’ to hatred of ineffectual and limited female protagonists to worry over the representations of relationships which can been seen as both heteronormative and misogynistic to a reluctance to consider what is often seen as predictable or reductive plot lines.

Alternatively, my colleagues and friends often shyly confessed their own pleasure reading of post-millennial girl fiction, worried that my interests did not extend beyond my research, and that my curiosity did not include reading or viewing for enjoyment.

Both of these experiences – the disregard and the quiet confession –ensure that girl reading is never the solitary, private act it is so often envisioned to be; instead girl readers of post-millennial girl fiction are engaged in a tremendously public and tremendously judged act of reading. And it is this public reading that should be seen as being wielded by a reader who is conscious of her audience.

The adult public’s worry about adolescent readers of popular fiction is defined by fears “that reading popular fiction is harmful because it wastes time and instills ‘false views of life’ [in] impressionable readers” (Ross 633). To be dismissive of adolescent texts is an easy stance to take. As Howard Sklar stresses, adult “discussions of literary works in schools focus on the content of stories […] rather than on students’ experiences 81 of that material” (494). Reading is seen as an act of functional comprehension, rather than one of deep thinking and personal reflection. In his article, Sklar references Paulo

Freire’s work which proposes that educators view students as being “impregnated with anxieties, doubts, hope or hopelessness” (494) to help students come to understand for themselves which issues are most important to them. Both Sklar and Friere articulate that analysis of young adult fiction cannot stop at thematic consideration as the relationship between the text and reader is also a key determinant in the value of the text. Thus, adolescent books are at once sites of cultural examination, as well as sites of reading and analysis. To assume that girl readers experience only the “content” or message of the stories they read is far too narrow a field of view. Instead, girl readers experience texts in multiple ways: as societal reflections, as outlined in Chapter One; as presentations of archetypes and stereotypes, as outlined in Chapter Two; and also as texts constructed out of a web of narrative style, bibliotherapy and psychonarrativity, intertextuality, structure, authorial design and genre.

While approaching post-millennial girl fiction as a text, rather than as a social or archetypal representation, it is important to once again consider the intellectual framework through which the texts will be considered. As stressed in previous chapters,

Janice Radway’s construction of a dual viewing, which keeps hold of a position as both an observer of readers’ views (11) and as an academic reader of the text, is of central importance. Peter Hollindale articulates how key this dual reading is when considering not only popular fiction, but specifically works for children by explaining that “it is sensible to pay attention to children’s judgements of books, whether or not most adults share them. It is sensible to pay attention to adult’s judgements of children’s books, 82 whether or not most children share them” (4). Hollindale continues by articulating the importance of acknowledging the academic, which in his work is aligned with an adult stance, without neglecting the realization that this stance is necessarily different from the reading of the intended audience. It becomes of utmost importance to “think in terms which include but also transcend the idea of individual authorship, and reappraise the relationship between the author and the reader” (Hollindale 15). As well, Hollindale acknowledges the discomfort of this dual reading, explaining that the truisms which he proposes straddle the balance between privileging the adult expert and trusting the child reader in an uncomfortable way. “[The arguments] are contentious because on the one hand they cast doubt on the supremacy of adult literary judgement and on the other they suggest that we cannot generalize about children’s interests” (Hollindale 4). In order to consider the relationship between post-millennial girl fiction and the girl public, doubt, but not wholehearted rejection, of the adult academic viewpoint is useful. It is easy to apply formalist analysis to texts and determine that they do not hold sophisticated or complex stylistic features; but by doubting this academic stance, it becomes possible to identify the structural components of the text and begin to consider how the girl public responds openly to these text features. The post-millennial girl texts that are the focus of this project prove to be a rich space for girls to identify and respond to authorial control, not from a sophisticated or even from a didactic space, but instead from a space that is familiar and thus personally productive.

Narrative Style and Focalization

One of the initial critiques of teen literature written for girls offered by dismissive adult readers concerns the strength and thus validity of the protagonist. If the girl at the 83 centre of a novel is strong, independent and largely espouses the values of feminism (with all of its shifting and evolving definitions) then the novel is ‘good for girls.’ If, however, the protagonist is unproductive, doubting, boy-curious or mean then the novel is classed as trashy. This division was held in tension by Silver, as previously discussed in Chapter

Two. This continuation of the good-girl/bad-girl dichotomy is interesting when examined not only as an issue of values, but also as an issue of focalization. The term focalization was initially crafted by Gerard Genette in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in

Method and can be defined as the process of including and excluding narrative information based on the “experience and knowledge of the narrator, the characters or other, more hypothetical entities in the storyworld” (Niederhoff). Key to understanding this consideration is the distinction between narration or who speaks and focalization or who sees (Penrod). This division of speaking and seeing is useful to analyzing post- millennial girl texts, especially Twilight and Gossip Girl, though it is important to acknowledge that such a division is not inherent to Genette’s concept of focalization, nor does it honour the more recent work of Mieke Bal, who adds that the subject who sees is further complicated by the object that is seen. Within this context, focalization must be distinguished from perspective by considering the distinct relationship between the observer and the observed. Girl fiction is often critiqued because this observer-observed relationship is vilified by critics who claim that authors create messages about the observed girl which are designed to accelerate or harm the development of their readers.

Ultimately, an analysis of girl fiction must contend with the narrator or speaker’s perspective, as well as the author as focalizer or the watchful observer. Within both the

Twilight and Gossip Girl series, the narrative style or point of view becomes a point of 84 criticism. Elinor Walker summarizes this construct by explaining “Women writers, in particular, often construct both figurative and literal ways to document a female character’s struggle to achieve a satisfactory ending to her story, one that allows her to reintegrate the disparate parts of herself or redefine the limited roles available to her”

(79). While this stance has been used to craft powerful messages in the analysis of texts, girl fiction suffers from such an assumption. It becomes easy to dismiss girl fiction because the narrative voice does not empower or directly critique ‘girl world.’ However, if narration and the figure of the narrator are considered by placing the reader in an observatory role, as suggested by Sklar in “Narrative as Experience: The Pedagogical

Implications of Sympathizing with Fictional Characters,” different analytical possibilities emerge. Sklar entertains the concept that narratives are by nature social, that “narratives provide absorptive experiences – readers become immersed in the events and details of a story and the sensations that they produce” and that “narratives tap into early adolescents’ developing capacities for reflection on narrative content” (492). By allowing the girl reader to become distanced from, rather than subjugated by, the narrator of her book the possibility of curiousity, neutrality and even rejection of the narrator’s stance becomes possible.

The creation of perspective is handled quite differently by Von Ziegesar; while

Twilight is largely reflective of Bella’s perspective, Gossip Girl’s perspective fluctuates between the Gossip Girl persona (an unknown insider to the character’s world who publicly shares the secrets and actions of the characters) and a more traditional omniscient narrator. The effect of this narrative structure is to cast the reader as an insider to the world of the book: “Our shit still stinks, but you can’t smell it because the 85 bathroom is sprayed hourly by the maid with a refreshing scent made exclusively for us by French perfumers” (Von Ziegesar, Gossip 3). The use of inclusive pronouns like

‘our’, ‘we’ and ‘you’ are prevalent throughout the Gossip Girl series. This point of view creates an “impossible narrative [voice]” (Shostak 808) which makes the distinction between author and narrator more prominent in its construction. “The narrators at once explicitly interpret evidence for themselves and organize it for the consumption of the unknown narratee to whom, according to the premise of the novel, they wish to confide their perplexity” (Shostak 809). According to Shostak, the use of ‘we’ creates a sense of social approval for the perspective, while Von Ziegesar’s use of ‘you’ creates a complicated idea of who, other than the reading audience, is included – the reader is at once an active member of the book and distanced from a world which is likely quite different from her lived reality.

The language of inclusion offered by the narrative construct of the Gossip Girl persona is extended beyond the private information being shared about the characters.

The reader is also entertained and educated by Gossip Girl with brief, flippant definitions that ensure not only that the reader knows of the characters’ actions but is also able to speak (and thus more richly consider) within their culture. For example, Gossip Girl writes “he couldn’t have looked more porcine. Meaning ‘piglike,’ for those who got low scores on their SAT verbal” (Von Ziegesar, All I 109) within one of the text’s web updates (referred to as Gossip Girl blasts) shared prior to a chapter where the characters make use of the same word in their dialogue. Here the narrator is not only constructed as separate from the adult author, but is also made distinct from the reader. For all readers key elements influence judgement of narrative voice; not only does the reader consider 86 what the author or focalizer sees within the world of the reader and the world of the novel, but also evaluates what they understand of what is being seen.

Just as definitions and language of inclusion afford a productive distance between reader and narrator, as well as between the reader and the author, as is seen in Von

Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series, Stephanie Meyer makes use of alternate perspectives intermingled with her focus on Bella within the Twilight series. Within the first novel,

Meyer uses letters to allow the reader to reflect on how the character represents her feelings and life events to her mother (Twilight 33). By including not only Bella’s depiction of her life, but her mother’s letter as well, Meyer gives the reader a space within which she can carefully consider this relationship and its impact on the character’s life. Meyer makes use of two additional perspective-shifting techniques that have an impact on the construction of the narrator: pseudo-stream of consciousness writing and a dual narrative structure within the third book in the series. Throughout the Twilight series, Bella’s emotionally fraught states are marked by jumpy dialogue which attempts to portray erratic and still developing thoughts:

It seemed excessive for them to have both looks and money. But as far as I could

tell, life worked that way most of the time. It didn’t look as if it bought them any

acceptance here. No, I didn’t fully believe that. The isolation must be their

desire; I couldn’t imagine any door that wouldn’t be opened by that degree of

beauty. (Meyer, Twilight 32)

While this style of narration does not follow the traditional structure of stream of consciousness writing (with limited punctuation and rushing thoughts), Meyers is creating her narrator as an observer in the moment-by-moment thought development of 87 the protagonist. This choice to display Bella’s introspection allows the reader access to the characters’ thoughts without a lens of judgement; ultimately, judgement is reserved for the reader. Throughout her novels, Meyer balances the level of access the reader is given regarding Bella’s decisions. While this use of Bella as a focalizer has perhaps led to many of the critical views of Bella as anti-feminist, antiquated or weak, Meyer has constructed choices which girl readers must consider and examine when they lack full access to Bella’s reasoning.

The use of a dual narrative structure appears twice within Meyer’s Twilight series, within New Moon where the narrator alternates between observing Bella and observing

Jacob, as well as in the unpublished Rising Sun, the incomplete and unpublished manuscript meant to depict Edward’s vision of the events shared from Bella’s experience in Twilight. As “meaning shifts when the vantage point shifts” (Shostak 813), Meyer is able to fashion emotional complication for her characters - enough emotional turmoil in fact to inspire the cultural phenomenon of the ‘team Edward versus team Jacob’ debate.11

This transparent shift in perspective echoes a much more complex shift in the author’s process of focalization, as it is no longer simply a matter of voice but also one of vision.

Both Meyer and Von Ziegesar make use of a narrator whose gaze is alternatively tempered and released. The girl readers can then clearly see that the speech acts of the narrator, in whatever form they appear, are influenced by the focalizing vision of the author. Through Jacob’s story, Bella’s actions become events that are thoughtless and painful to another person, while similar events focalized through Bella are rationalized

11 At the close of New Moon, the second book of the Twilight series, Bella’s character has to choose who she will pursue a relationship with, either Jacob Black or Edward Cullen. As fans made predictions prior to the publication of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, they began to identify themselves as being on either ‘team Edward’ or ‘team Jacob’ based on the choice they felt Bella should make. 88 and emotionally necessary for her character. Meyer is presenting a dual vision of the same events in order to maintain emotional tension which is useful to the plot and has proven immensely engaging for the girl audience. In a similar fashion, Gossip Girl’s snide depictions of the Manhattan teen elite encouraged judgement, while the chapters which are focalized to depict the characters’ actions through an omniscient narrator offer insights into emotions, insecurities and hidden agendas.

A relationship triangle between character, narrator and reader is controlled by the author-focalizer (see Appendix D). Pattee, whose study of the Sweet Valley series is shared in the text Reading the Adolescent Romance: Sweet Valley High and the Popular

Young Adult Romance Novel, explains that the series “relies on narrative focalization to underscore the novels’ pro-family ideology; this same technique ensures that Jessica’s adventures are recognized as the morality tales they are” (Pattee 44). In a similar manner, the lens of the Gossip Girl figure and the shifting perspectives of the Twilight series create distance for observation which permits readers to consider the morality, without simply mimicking the choices of the character in their own lives. Stylistic and creative choices about when and how information is revealed to the reader can influence and change these moral judgements, yet the reader retains, through the use of multiple perspectives and inclusion, the ability to accept or reject the stance being offered by each vision of the fictional world and its occupants.

All discussion of focalization, perspective and narration within children’s and teen literature eventually considers the question of whether authentic child or teen voices can be crafted by adult writers. Much popular critique of writing for young people is fixated on authenticity of voice: “if writers want to create an illusion of an authentic child [or 89 adolescent] perspective, they must pretend that the narrator does not know or understand more than the focalizing character […alternatively] An adult narrative agency focalizing young characters can verbalize their thoughts and feelings for them” (Nikoljeva 12).

Mike Cadden extends this tension: “When an adult writer speaks through a young adult’s consciousness to a young adult audience, he or she is involved in a top-down (or vertical) power relationship” (146); Cadden continues “It becomes important then, that there be equal (or horizontal) power relations between the major characters within the text so that the young adult reader has the power to see the opposing ideologies at play”

(146). Both Nikoljeva and Cadden consider focalization or the author’s gaze upon young people as an act of imposing power upon the reader. Yet it must be argued that this balance is a careful one; without the guidance of an adult narrator there is a risk of losing character depth, while too much guidance leads to an authoritarian or didactic tone that is unappealing to young readers. Chris McGee describes this problem as “something odd, and something definitely worth examining further, in any sort of narrative where adults pretend to be real teenagers speaking to other teenagers about what adults would most like to hear” (McGee 173).

When considering the construction of each of the sample series it is important to draw the distinction between Meyer, who writes from a space of personal creativity, and

Von Ziegesar, who writes under the auspices of Alloy Entertainment. McGee’s sense of the ‘false’ teen voice is omnipresent within the Gossip Girl series. Throughout Alloy’s marketing website, as well as interviews with VonZiegesar herself, there is a clear awareness and openness about eagerly seeking sample girl voices – mainly as a marketing ploy. In fact, the initial concept of the Gossip Girl figure was to be used 90 within Alloy’s market research, as a ploy which would encourage girls to follow the lives of ‘real people’ and real consumption. Ultimately, this idea was rejected because of the danger for the creators of being caught creating a lie. The decision to use this figure within a fictional world indicates that as a creator, Alloy and VonZiegesar are cognizant of girl readers’ ability to identify the tension which exists between author and narrator/character, proving a different power relationship than the one proposed by

Nikoljeva. In fact the awareness of a savvy readership is much more in keeping with what Cadden identifies as “ ‘active’ double-voiced discourse” where “no single position in the text is clearly endorsed or becomes clear at the expense of others, […enabling] the reader to consider the rightness of the positions based on the specific details of the narratives” (147). By referencing the thinking of Bahktin, Cadden extends his thinking:

This is why the novel genre has such power in ethical education, according to

Bakhtin: the sheer length of the text enables the reader to assemble enough

particulars to make each case unique and beyond judgement by abstract rules.

Double-voiced discourse forces work because it forces choice; there is neither

eager nor unconscious acquiescence to an authorial position. (147)

The reception of Stephanie Meyer’s final book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, indicates how powerfully influential the relationship between the focalizer and the focalized girl must be. As Meyer’s audience read the fourth book of the series there was great debate and critique of the key plot event of the book. Bella is impregnated and gives birth to a mythic half-vampire child that causes the vampire world to descend into a divisive war which motivates the second half of Breaking Dawn. In interviews, Meyer appears quite defensive of this creative choice, as for example, when she says: “Are there 91 a few little trespasses against the mythology12 in this vision? Yes, as some of you have pointed out. The consensus was that a minor deviation from what had been established was forgivable in the name of entertainment” (“Stephanie Meyer Addresses”). This creative decision reflects a lack of connection between Meyer and her girl audience – in this choice Meyer lost her understanding of the capacity of her audience and her subject.

For example, on YahooAnswers!, one fan poses the question “How did Bella get pregnant?” and inspires two responses: “In the first book, SMeyer said vampires don't have blood, only venom, they aren't alive, and their bodies don't change” and “Because

Stephenie Meyer broke all her own rules in order to make Bella's Mary Sue level skyrocket up to maximum. She shouldn't have got pregnant. [Meyer] hasn't yet come up with a decent explanation for it and I highly doubt she will” (Anu). These comments reveal a readership that is aware of a focalizer’s gaze upon them and the character that may represent their interests. The implication of the girls’ commentary is that Meyer’s adult gaze is miscalculated, representing her own life and interests more than those of either her created girl or the girls of her audience.

Consideration of the reader-generated reviews available on www.chapters.ca reveals a similar awareness within the Gossip Girl audience. By contrasting the following comments, one can perceive the reader sensitivity to being observed, as well as reader awareness of the relationship triangle offered among characters, authors and readers:

I read these books in middle school, my mom saw the books lying around and

decided to read them. She found them filled with sex, drugs, drinking, stereotypes

12 Some girl readers argue that by having Bella give birth to Edward’s child, Meyer violates the ‘rule’ regarding vampires’ blood and other bodily fluids being replaced by venom, which was set out in the first novel. 92

etc. and told me this was just the authors twisted fantasy that she was living

through her books. I saw them from her point of view, and I agree. It's just stupid,

and I can't believe I wasted my time on this. As long as you know that none of

this is in any way real, your fine.

(Chapters Indigo Wintray 16 – posted May 7 2011) and I love it. If you go in the mind of the caracter you will see that they are vunerable

but they hide their feelings behind the partying, drinks and brands.Teens will love

it but adults don t understand it. It a real fashion and a good moral role model and

it s great.

(Chapters Indigo QueenBee123 – 17 – Dec 9, 2010)

Honoring Janice Radway’s methods for reading these comments reveals not only the girl reader’s awareness of the act of creation being wielded by an adult author, but also her own ability to decide if that author’s representation of girlhood is acceptable and interesting to her.

The Possibility of Bibliotherapy

The question of what girls ‘gain’ from reading adolescent girl novels is central to this project, yet thus far answering this question in a definitive way has been avoided, simply because reading is profoundly personal and must be considered in a way which affords girl readers independence. The analysis of child and adolescent fiction as developmentally productive is, however, a point of interest because the child character unavoidably “serves as a nexus between details of narrative structure and the wide- ranging cultural issues that each text calls into question” (Pifer 2). While much research 93 considers how representations of the child have influence on child readers, it must also be considered how post-millennial girl fiction and the narrative style employed by its authors create a space rich for bibliotherapy for the girl public.

The belief that “providing adolescents with opportunities to engage with the lives of fictional characters, and particularly to experience feelings of sympathy for individuals toward whom they ordinarily might feel aversion or uncertainty” (Sklar 481) is closely aligned with bibliotherapy practices. One must be cautious when espousing the benefits of bibliotheraphy, as by definition bibliotherapy is the “process of dynamic interaction between the personality of the reader and literature under the guidance of a trained helper” (Shrodes cited by Phersson); while books can allow readers a rich way of considering their lives and the lives of others, it is important to mention once again that adult guidance cannot be the pivotal force when teen readers interact with texts. As girl readers proceed through texts their “expectations and judgments are complicated; they progress through the narratives and are challenged to revise, modify, or question those judgments in light of subsequently revealed material” (Sklar 489). Within “Narrative as

Experience: The Pedagogical Implications of Sympathizing with

Fictional Characters,” Sklar outlines the complexity of the process of reading: “Given the uncertain state of early adolescents’ emotional lives, the prospect of stirring up this emotional intensity by providing fictional works that directly stimulate emotions and uncertainty in readers may on the surface seem counterproductive” (Sklar 490). As he continues, Sklar explains that it is this very tension which is most useful to readers:

“students’ experiences of narratives involve a complex interplay between existing beliefs and ideas and their development or ‘elaboration’” (Sklar 495). When adults consider 94 texts for ’ bibliotherapeutic’ potential, girl readers gain a space within post-millenial girl fiction which is productive in a personal way. Post-millennial girl texts can allow readers to consider their own lives by considering how the narrator represents the lives of the characters; readers may make conclusions about how others rightly and wrongly see their lives.

As outlined in the previous chapter, the perceived ‘literary quality’ of a text is secondary to the girl reader’s perception. In his analysis of the critically acclaimed YA text Speak, Chris McGee focuses on the frustrating simplification that teen fiction is seen as ‘good’ when the narrative is defined and motivated by the “insistence that the adolescent speak and that strength comes only from “coming to voice”” (184). McGee, whose analysis is closely aligned with Foucault’s ideas of texts providing an ‘incitement to discourse,’ challenges some of the adult assumptions regarding the requirements of bibliotherapy. When the only acceptable reaction to how a text represents a world is limited to either negative outrage or positive mimicry, adults have created a reading space which is not defined by the “dynamic interaction between the personality of the reader and literature” (Shrodes cited by Phersson). Thus, girls must be afforded a reading space where they can experience a wide range of emotions and reactions to the characters’ actions and how the author and narrator choose to represent those actions.

Fairy Tales, Princess Culture and Touchstone Texts

Stylistically, both Von Ziegesar and Meyer seek to create opportunities within their writing for girl readers to make, discover and extend connections to fairy tales and popular culture. Perhaps one of the worst fears presented by current girl crisis texts, as 95 outlined in Chapter One, is societal fascination with princesses and what princess culture

‘does’ to girls and women. While most analysis of princess culture is well connected to products and stories crafted by the Disney corporation, princesses are more traditionally connected to the world of fairy tales. Both fairy tale princesses and the princesses crafted within popular culture are significant to understanding the Twilight and Gossip Girl series. Within post-millennial girl fiction there is a productive opportunity for girls to consider and re-consider the morality and messages of fairy tales and other princess narratives. In order to closely examine how allusions and direct references to fairy tales function within these texts, it is important to acknowledge that the authors are making use of a combination of Disney-crafted and more traditional versions of fairy tales. The references rely on a more general awareness of stories, rather than familiarity with a particular version of each princess narrative. These hybrid references are significant because they are representative of societal imaginings of fairy tale figures and plots rather than conventional literary allusions. Current girl readers have matured in a world which included many princess stories; talking to girls reveals common touchstone ideas attached to the names of Snow White, Cinderella, Princess Jasmine and Rapunzel. It is my assumption that these touchstones were created by what Hollindale refers to as a “mass of experiences” (17). It is important to understand and honor that fairy tale “ideology is not something which is transferred to children as if they were empty receptacles” (Hollindale

17); they are actively interacting with all stories and societal messages which are presented to them as children, as well as in reflection as adolescents.

While books like Cinderella Ate My Daughter express outrage at the overwhelming pressure on children to embrace princess culture, the residual effect of 96 such messages is rarely examined in a way which is disconnected from childish innocence. Adolescence and the adolescent capacity to reflect on their experiences must stand as a connected but singular time. “Adolescence does not clearly refer to ideas of innocence, origin or moral security, and it is located, not merely as ‘other’ to adulthood, but also as ‘other’ to childhood” (Waller 6). Like Hollindale, Allison Waller is interested in adolescent identity which is independently constructed. Within Waller’s book, Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism, she explains that adolescence is “a liminal space onto which a distinct dichotomy of desires or fears cannot easily be projected […] Teenagers are described as constructing their own identities through absorption, rejection or ‘bricolage’ of the dominant ideologies and social patterns of their parents or educators” (6). It is the concept of ‘bricolage’ which is central to this project.

Post-millennial teen girl texts embody this gathering of ‘convenient’ materials to craft something new. While girls bring their childhood experiences with both princess culture and fairy tales to their reading, it is still powerful to examine the allusions and references to fairy tales and the pop culture princess world which both Stephanie Meyer and Cecily

Von Ziegesar employ as unattached or independent ideas. As an adult reader, I am resisting the urge to interpret what such images can, should or might mean to girls.

Within the study of children’s literature, a great deal of academic thought is concerned with the historical significance and cultural impact of fairy tales. Fairy tales are often credited with having collective resonance for all readers; however, arguments regarding the either positive or negative impact of this collective power tend to define the study of traditional fairy tale narratives. Jennifer Waelti-Walters’ work typifies the argument regarding the dangerous, negative impact of fairy tales: “The reading of fairy 97 tales is one of the first steps in the maintenance of a misogynous, sex-role stereotyping patriarchy, for what is the end product of these stories but a lifeless humanoid, malleable, decorative, and interchangeable” (Waelti-Walters 1-2). In contrast, Bruno Bettleheim argues: “the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form […is] that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence – but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious” (8).

Coincidentally, and interestingly, fears regarding the social messages and societal impact of fairy tales are closely aligned with the fears presented by girl crisis texts. Arguments regarding gender, psychology and convention are fascinating, revealing a great deal about each author’s generational fears and curiosities. Girl readers are not unfamiliar with the key themes of academic and popular thought regarding fairy tales and princess culture.

They are free to consider whether the protagonists they are presented with are “lifeless humanoids” or “victorious” heroines. Ultimately, this is one of the mental exercises that girl readers may elect to entertain while reading. Where fairy tales are useful (whether they are positive or negative) is that their appeal lies in the simplicity with which they approach a complicated and unknowable world, and eventually this is why fairy tales and princess culture references appear so frequently as creative tools for writers like Meyer and Von Ziegesar.

Within the study of girls’ fiction, one comes across the curious division between stories which represent societal or normative visions of the world and stories which represent a non-normative worldview, something which Gina Hausknecht refers to as

‘Girl’s own stories.’ Hausknecht continues her divided definition: 98

Girls’ stories are about accommodation, acquiescence, and fitting in: Jo March’s

great destiny is marriage […] the assorted Judy Blume protagonists come to

accept their situations and realize they aren’t as different as they believed. On the

other hand […] the Girl’s own story is precisely about not fitting in, about

failing, willfully or unwittingly, to fulfill normative cultural expectations. (22)

Hausknecht is not alone in her division of writing for girls, as both Waelti-Walters and

Deirdre Baker echo similar divisions. The creative use of fairy tales lies at the centre of this type of thinking, as many argue that “Fairy tales teach girls to accept at least a partial loss of identity, and thus endanger all the relationships in which they must take part in a lifetime”(Waelti-Walters 7). Thus it would be concluded that the use of fairy tales within post-millennial girl fiction is enhancing the story’s normative nature. Yet such a stance presumes a great deal about the girl audience’s recognition and acceptance of what can be considered ‘normative.’ While the two case study texts presented here offer very different visions of love, marriage, friendship and motherhood it is possible for girl readers to form their own goals and connect their reading experience with both their understanding of fairy tale culture, as well as their understanding of both their lived experience and the wider world. In this way, post-millennial girl fiction is affording girls an experience which is not their own, perhaps broadening or complicating their understanding of the world and their own position within such a world. This may allow girls to achieve Bettelheim’s vision of successful living: “to find deeper meaning, one must become able to transcend the narrow confines of a self-centred existence and believe that one can make a significant contribution to life” (4). Ultimately, the use of fairy tale and princess culture references do not confine stories to a normative or a non- 99 normative stance, but instead allow girls familiar tropes and characters to explore their own considerations of the world.

The use of fairy tales and princess culture references within the works of Von

Ziegesar and Meyer relies on a girl audience which can recognize the story and then use that understanding to extend the stories. One such image which appears in both the

Gossip Girl and Twilight series is “Little Red Riding Hood”, also known as “Little Red

Cap”. According to Bettelheim, “ ‘Little Red Cap’ speaks of human passions, oral greediness, aggression, and pubertal sexual desires” (182). Serena follows this version of

Red Riding Hood as she skips down a fashion runway in a short skirt, pigtails, thigh high red boots and a t-shirt declaring her love for her boyfriend (Von Ziegesar, Because I’m

116-17), whereas Meyer makes repetitive use of the phrase “Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?” in New Moon to indicate Jacob’s willingness to go against the wishes of his friends. The first of these examples is an allusion in keeping with Bettelheim’s analysis, while the other makes use only of the villain, stripping away what could be seen as a traditional interpretation. In both examples, the story and the figure of Little Red Riding

Hood allow the reader to recognize the allusion before interpreting the actions of the characters.

Meyer and Von Ziegesar most frequently make use of fairy tale images as a method of characterization. Contrasting references to Snow White appear in Breaking

Dawn and Because I’m Worth It, yet both function as an understanding of the image of

Snow White as a character poised on the edge of innocence. Within Breaking Dawn,

Snow White is used as an extension of magical purity: “It was a place where anyone could believe magic existed. A place where you just expected Snow White to walk right 100 in with her apple in hand, or a unicorn to stop and nibble at the rosebushes” (Meyer 479).

The image of Georgina, which appears in Because I’m Worth It, is marked with both vulnerability and danger: “Across the circle a girl with dark brown hair that hung down almost to her waist, bloodred [sic] lips, and skin so pale it was almost blue gazed at him soulfully, like a coked-up version of Snow White”(Von Ziegesar 113). In each text the character’s innocence is tainted by the existence of evil and the potential damage that such evil can cause for that particular character. In both instances, the authors make use of the figure of Snow White to create some questioning of innocence and evil. “Snow

White’s story teaches that just because one had reaching physical maturity, one is by no means intellectually and emotionally ready for adulthood” (Bettelheim 213).

Continued examination of both the Twilight and Gossip Girl series reveals other fairy tale figures, namely Rapunzel and Cinderella – for example: “What did they expect from a princess who’d been locked in her tower for too long?”(Von Ziegesar, All I 188).

Yet the most fascinating use of fairy tale characterization appears through the more generic princess story which Bettleheim refers to as the “damsel and knight” story (115).

Both Meyers and Von Ziegesar allow their characters to speak about their romances in the context of fairy tales: “True love was forever lost. The prince was never coming back to kiss me awake from my enchanted sleep. I was not a princess, after all. So what was the fairy-tale protocol for other kisses? The mundane kind that didn’t break any spells”

(Meyer, New Moon 411). It is important to consider the various interpretative paths girl readers have available to them when interacting with such statements. They can empathize with the character’s feeling; they may opt to reflect on why fairy tales exist as society’s romantic model; they may connect the characters’ experience with experiences 101 within their social sphere; or they may consider the archetypes and how they function within the world of the book. The use of fairy tales within adolescent fiction is interesting as “tales whose familiar plots and characters constitute a kind of mythology primer” (Hausknecht 36). Unlike children’s books, which Nikoljeva claims are “action- oriented; that is, they focus more on plot” (8), the motivating feature of post-millennial girl fiction is character. Through the blending of fairy tale and popular culture princess allusions, readers are presented with a short-hand version of familiar characters, enabling them to recognize, reconsider and reinterpret as they engage with the new representations.

The use of familiar stories extends beyond fairy tales within both the Twilight and

Gossip Girl series. Von Ziegesar and Meyer make use of historical and literary figures that broaden and deepen the girl figures whom they are crafting. These references are so prolific that an adult reader must consider the function of such allusion: are the authors attempting to introduce girl readers to a wider literary tradition or, alternatively, are they attempting to falsely compliment girls’ intelligence by referencing texts from the conventional canon? When reading an allusion such as “Nate led Jenny out a side door and up a narrow stairwell. She had read enough Jane Austen and Henry James books to know that these were the servants’ stairs” (Von Ziegesar, You Know 81), girl readers who are familiar with these authors can comprehend how this plot action functions, though girl readers who lack experience with either Austen or James can still access the plot action. The accessibility of the allusion makes it difficult to determine authorial intent.

In interviews, both Meyer and Von Ziegesar invest time in establishing themselves as readers of traditional, canonical literature. Within four books, Meyer crafts allusions and 102 direct references to: Arabian Nights, Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” Midsummer Night’s

Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Wuthering Heights, Anne of Green Gables, the Bible and Orson Scott Card. Likewise, within her first four books, Von Ziegesar references

Joan of Arc, Bananarama, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Henry James, War and Peace,

John Paul Sartre, The Sun Also Rises and many Audrey Hepburn movies. Largely, these references serve to enhance characterization and seem to create a series of ‘academic paths’ for girl readers who want to be ‘in-the know.’

In addition to using allusions as a characterization tool, both Meyer and Von

Ziegesar create epigraphs which make use of other works as a touchstone. For example,

Meyer uses Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” as an epigraph in New Moon. Within the context of both series, these epigraphs serve as thematic introductions to the plot events which follow. Meyer takes this touchstone technique further by linking each of her books in the series to an inspiration text: Twilight to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; New

Moon to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; Eclipse to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights; and Breaking Dawn's theme to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer

Night’s Dream (Kirk). The use of the touchstone technique creates a world within both the Twilight series and the Gossip Girl series which demands that readers see the authors as readers and perhaps even consider their own, more personal, relationships with other texts.

Considering Structure and Form

Stephens defines story as “what we might roughly think of as ‘what certain characters do in a certain place at a certain time,’” and discourse, as “the complex process of encoding that story which involves choices of vocabulary, of syntax, or order of 103 presentation, of how the narrating voice is to be oriented towards what is narrated and towards the implied audience, and so on” (17). These definitions then require consideration of both story and discourse if one is to attain a reading of the sample texts which truly honours their position within the social cultures of girls. Central to an understanding of each series’ discursive nature are two questions: are there elements that define these texts as ‘Young Adult’ fiction and are these structural elements common to both texts, and thus perhaps contribute to these texts’ popularity?

Returning to the anecdote about current teen fiction as intellectual ‘junk food,’ analysis of the value of texts is often intrinsically linked to their structural and temporal qualities. When considering modern, young adult fiction both the convenience of the canonical status of older texts and the potential for complexity that can be found in adult fiction are removed from consideration. “Teen fiction resides in a rather uneasy position between high and low culture. Although it alludes and relates to the popular cultures of adolescence through music, magazines, fashion, drugs or alcohol, sport and ideas of leisure and disposable lifestyle, it remains a part of high culture through its affiliation to the institution of literature” (Waller 10). Waller’s argument regarding the position of teen fiction clearly states the challenge of young adult fiction and more specifically girl fiction. It is remarkably easy for an academic reader to be distracted by the popular culture elements which so often define post-millennial girl fiction, ignoring the structural elements, or discourse, which define this particular style of text.

While clearly divided in their categorical appeal and style, Von Ziegesar and

Meyer exhibit two common structural elements within their writing which can be compared. Both the Twilight and Gossip Girl series make use of contemporary 104 references, such as use of internet searching (Meyer, Twilight 127) or the use of a palm pilot (Von Ziegesar, Gossip Girl 57). Such references create a temporal framework which defines the book; many authors write with a particular intention to avoiding such

‘time stamping.’ In the case of post-millennial girl fiction, such ‘time stamping’ can be particularly relevant to creating appeal for girl readers, who may be reading for public as well as private reasons, as outlined within Chapter One. Additionally, books of the heightened realism genre, like the Gossip Girl series, require ‘time stamping’ in order to solidify their believability or at least plausibility. As Pattee explains in her analysis of the

Sweet Valley High series, “children’s and young adult literature is defined in part by its address to a youthful audience, an audience considered en masse and primarily as a construct, a product of its historical, social and cultural situation” (7). All literature is in some way defined by the social, economic and cultural time period from which it emerges, yet post-millennial girl fiction has a unique relationship to its time period, as such girl fiction is published by companies who are eager to capitalize on periods of intense popularity of texts. This intention and the resulting marketing will be explored further in the conclusion of this project.

Current adolescent literature is being consumed not only by an adolescent audience, and while girl readers’ interaction with texts such as Gossip Girl and Twilight is central to this chapter, the structure of current adolescent fiction is not created within a vacuum. Instead, post-millennial girl texts, like many young adult books, are crafted within a literary and educational context which values ‘high interest’13 books that demonstrate a range of textual genres within their construction. Both Meyer and Von

13 High interest books are crafted with active and current plot events. These texts are also frequently structured to a specific reading level in the hopes of engaging non-readers. 105

Ziegesar embed various elements, such as letters, blog entries, dictionary definitions, or newspaper articles, within their narratives. Within both series these elements are further highlighted by paratextual considerations such as italics, spacing and different pagination.

The intentionality of such creative choices is designed to increase the sense of realism and reader inclusion within the narrative.

Post-millennial girl fiction exhibits some stylistic patterns. For example, heightened realism texts, such as the Gossip Girl series, often extend the realism created by time stamping to include frequent product placement. Von Ziegesar’s writing is firmly grounded in its sense of ‘nowness’ by her use of product names and eponyms. It becomes easy to criticise the Gossip Girl books and worry that they are little more than advertisements for expensive goods, yet closer examination reveals an allusory quality to the use of brand names: “Maybe one day when [Vanessa] was disgustingly rich and famous she’d have her own personal waxing and sugaring staff, but for now she’d have to get rid of the rest of the hair on her legs the old-fashioned way – with a pink plastic Daisy shaver” (Von Ziegesar, Because I’m 88). Here, in a way that is remarkably similar to the allusion to Henry James, the characterization of Vanessa is extended and the brand name becomes something of a short hand for her nature and desires. Von Ziegesar places products frequently, enhancing the reader’s knowledge of characters and their world; most of these eponyms are fashionable and trendy clothing brands and beauty products.

As Driscoll explains “fashion provides a range of already sanctioned codes for coherence and recognition to be cited by the girl in pursuit of identity. In synthesizing this unified character, the beauty routine and the fashionable look are synecdochic of the process of adolescence” (245). It becomes easy for the academic reader of the Gossip Girl series to 106 become curious about the girl response to this overt branding, yet this too is a reflection of an adult model potentially confining the girl reader. Driscoll extends her thinking by explaining that “the girl market is not organized by an ideal girl or by one set of parameters for ideal girlness, but has different shifting boundaries for the embodied assemblage of different girls and girl markets” (286). Thus, Von Ziegesar’s use of product placement places the Gossip Girl books in a realm of exploring various ‘ways’ of doing girlhood (Pomerantz).

Pattee discusses teen romances of the 1980s in a way which is particularly relevant to post-millennial girl fiction such as Gossip Girl:

According to Benfer, the “Sweet Valley” series does not (and did not) necessarily

reflect the world as it is (was), but, instead, imagined a world that could be, and,

as such, shaped the dreams of its readers. Because these imaginings are not,

Christian-Smith and others argue, innocent or altruistic constructions but instead

reflect and reproduce political relations and contestations outside of the text, it is

useful to consider, for example, the way “Sweet Valley High” encoded the dreams

it described. (Pattee 34)

Von Ziegesar’s use of product placement within the Gossip Girl series is a way of

“encoding dreams” for her readers. While the expense of the products described within the Gossip Girl series is often prohibitive for all but a narrow group of girl readers, fiction offers a location where an extreme, consumerist lifestyle can be considered or

‘dreamed.’ Considering heightened reality texts, such as the Gossip Girl series, may allow girl readers to consider how consumption manifests itself in other ways, perhaps even within their own lives. 107

Nikoljeva proposes that there are key elements to consider within the context of narrative theory as applied to children’s literature: she addresses closure, plot action over characterization (though this element is not relevant to the character-focused nature of girl fiction), and the use of direct speech to carry the plot. In addition to these traits,

Nikoljeva indicates that “the consonant closure, or the conventional happy ending – which in most cases presupposes a combination of structural and psychological closure – is what many scholars and teachers immediately associate with children’s literature and put forward as an essential requirement in a good children’s book” (7). This theoretical standpoint raises an interesting question concerning the structure of post-millennial girl fiction and its serial nature. Both Meyer and Von Ziegesar structure their books within a larger context than a singular novel; their initial novels were never intended to conclude.

Instead these texts reach a “structural closure (a satisfactory round-up of the plot)

[…rather than a] psychological closure [that brings] the protagonist’s personal conflicts into balance” (Nikoljeva 7). Interestingly, both authors choose to include references to continuity and conclusion within the context of their books. Within the final book of the

Twilight series, Meyer writes “To speak the word was to make it final. It would be the same as typing the words The End on the last page of a manuscript” (Breaking 674). This line appears, playfully hinting at the conclusion of the series, prompting the reader to peek ahead to check if ‘The End’ does appear, for the first time in the series, at the end of the fourth book. Comparatively, Von Ziegesar references continuity: “Dan picked up his observation book and followed her to the front desk. Poetry be damned. He couldn’t resist following this story line to the next chapter” (Because 199). Again, playfulness is 108 key, as this line appears as the final line of a suspenseful chapter. Defying the conclusion of the plot is a key structural choice within a serial.

Serial novels crowd the ‘teen’ shelves in bookstores and some investigation of the popularity of serial fiction serials within the realm of post-millennial teen fiction, and more specifically girl fiction is demanded. Budra and Schellenberg, in their text Part

Two: Reflections on the Sequel, ask “What configuration of ‘author’, original, narrative, and audience, in what cultural conditions explains a sequel?” (3). For current YA publishers there appears to be a fascination and an eagerness for the serial structure.

Logically, the financial potential of a series is appealing to publishers, especially in a world which has experienced ‘Harry Potter mania’ and midnight book release parties.

Budra and Schellenberg reference Roland Barthes’ idea and explain that “the postmodern novelist, despite situating her- or himself at a critical distance from the popular marketplace nevertheless acknowledges […] the Death of the Author. In an intertextual universe within which the name of the author no longer demarcates an inviolable territory, every text is a sequel to every other text” (11). In translation to post-millennial girl fiction, authors like Von Ziegesar and Meyer do not have the ability to maintain a critical distance, as their books are in a way manifestations of the ‘popular marketplace.’

Sequels and serial fiction have a long standing history within the literary tradition.

“The practice of spinning off sequels and series was a marketing innovation that flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – an indication that authors and publishers were becoming quite adept at catering to the demands of the marketplace”

(Wadsworth 31). As Wadsworth explains, the drive for sequels and serials can often be seen as originating from the marketplace rather than from the author’s own creative core. 109

Yet, Wadsworth maintains, there is another impulse which promotes the creation of sequels and serials, the reciprocal relationship between the desires of the marketplace and the tendency of sequels to have “in turn shaped, defined, and fostered a sense of community among these respective groups of readers” (33). As stated previously, reading is both a private and a public act for many girl readers; the potential of sequels to create a sense of community is a positive manifestation of a public reading act.

The concept of a community being created by or around a text is not limited to sequels, though the theory Scott McCracken outlines regarding the placement of popular fiction within the three key perspectives of text, world and reader (see Appendix E) can be extended by the idea that the popular sequel is crafted from the apex of the three perspectives, unifying the reader, the world and the new text. As McCracken notes,

“Popular fiction, from folk tales and fairy tales to popular ballads to modern bestsellers, has always provided a structure within which our lives can be understood. Who we are is never fixed, and in modern societies an embedded sense of self is less available that ever before. Popular fiction has the capacity to provide us with a workable, if temporary, sense of self” (McCracken 2). Arguably, the temporary sense of self created by a popular sequel reflects the co-creation of the reader public and the sequel. Within the realm of post-millennial girl fiction, the interconnectedness of the reader and the sequel is best captured in a careful consideration of the cover art provided for both the texts considered by this project and those published contemporaneously There is a trend amongst YA publishers to ensure that not only texts in a series, but also texts with a similar appeal or target audience (rather than a similar genre) are visually linked (See Appendices F and 110

G). Michelle Pan, the seventeen-year-old14 author of Bella Should have Dumped

Edward: Controversial Views and Debates on the Twilight Series, references this visual structure by explaining that the “book with the apple on the cover” changed her life (Pan

15). While the bloggers writing for “Em and Emm Expound on Exposition” refer to this phenomenon as “Twi-washing” (“On Twi-washing”), visual alignment extends beyond the desire to appeal to Twilight fans. Books which appeal to Gossip Girl readers are most frequently jacketed with a combination of pink and partial figures of girls – not unlike the covers of girl crisis texts, as discussed in Chapter One. Books which appeal to the readers of the Twilight series are characterized by their monochromatic background with a vibrant splash of colour such as red (“On Twi-washing”). Even more interestingly, publishers have attempted to draw the community of ‘sequel-loving’ girl readers to the literary canon by recovering classics such as Wuthering Heights and Jane

Eyre (See Appendix H) to capitalize on Stephanie Meyer’s commentary regarding her inspiration and personal reading interests.

Ephemeral Genres and Post-Millennial Girl Fiction

It is difficult to confine post-millennial girl fiction to a specific and singular genre; many have united the texts as the ‘“airhead girl’ book (a genre inclined toward mass appeal)” (Baker 691), while others divide it from the Twilight series and reference it only as a fantasy book. For the purposes of this project the Gossip Girl series has been referenced as a ‘heightened reality’ text, while the Twilight series has been named a

‘romantic fantasy.’ These genre ‘titles’ are intentionally vague; the act of naming a genre can be an extension of the private and public acts of reading. Many periodicals, from

14 At the time of publication, 2010. 111 parenting magazines, such as Today’s Parent, to Slate and Bust, have lamented the seeming requirement for post-millennial girl fiction to be ‘romance and makeover’ bound. These worries align with those of girl crisis texts and assume that if “writing for children is usually purposeful, its intentions being to foster in the child reader a positive perception of some socio-cultural values which, it is assumed, are shared by author and audience” (Stephens 3), then the plotlines defined by the genres of romance and self- discovery through a physical makeover are limiting girl readers to narrow definitions of femininity. Stephens’ theory needs to be reconsidered in relation to adolescent books.

Perhaps the various genres of young adult fiction are less linear. Instead of a direct conduit of communication regarding values, the fact that teen readers often select their own reading materials implies that their books would be more organic, allowing information about socio-cultural values, but not in a didactic way.

Another genre-guided vision of post-millennial girl fiction can be typified by

Christine Selfert’s magazine article “Bite Me! (Or Don’t)”. Selfert argues that books like the Twilight series create a new genre, which she refers to as “abstinence porn, sensational, erotic, and titillating […]. Twilight actually convinces us that self-denial is hot” (23). Central to her argument is Selfert’s belief that as a genre, abstinence porn is dangerously anti-feminist: “If the abstinence message in the previous books was ever supposed to be empowering, this scene [the series’ first sex scene which leaves Bella bruised by a much stronger Edward], presented early in Breaking Dawn undoes everything” (Selfert 24). Selfert’s dislike of the Twilight series is defined by her stance regarding its genre and its subsequent popularity. The logical extension of the argument presented within “Bite Me! (Or Don’t)” is that publishers should avoid supporting, 112 creating, marketing and selling texts which glorify abstinence. Remarkably, Selfert makes use of assertions which are similar to Wolf’s critique of the Gossip Girl series and the assertions found in girl crisis texts. Central to the arguments presented in all cases is the assumption that girls are manipulated by society and by the texts which are created by the culture of that society. While Selfert attaches her thinking to the genre of the text, this kind of genre study is defined by previously achieved conclusions being clustered around genre theory. Perhaps girl readers will reach conclusions that are similar to

Selfert’s; perhaps they will reach an interpretation which is distinct or in opposition to

Selfert’s by viewing the Twilight series as a sample of romance, fantasy, or some other genre. The thinking of girl readers as they read and select texts is often genre-defined, allowing girls to move from one personally appealing text to another.

One must consider genre carefully in reference to post-millennial girl fiction.

Obviously, publishers are confined by the current needs and desires of the marketplace.

Yet, as post-millennial girl fiction progresses there is also a publishing imperative to discover the ‘next’ interesting genre for teen readers. Tracking shifts in popular genres is a difficult and unwieldy task; since the publication of the two sample series of this project, girl readers have seemed to publically embrace first dystopian fiction like The

Hunger Games, followed by interest in the steampunk genre exemplified by books like

Cinder. “The development of genres in young adult literature reveals ways in which authors, publishers and readers choose to represent and recognise adolescence in fictional terms” (Waller 12). In addition to revealing truths about the creation and publishing industries, genre study reveals a great deal about the assumptions of those who critique post-millennial girl fiction. 113

Careful consideration of texts and their style and structure is a defining feature of the academic work done by those who study literature. As this project considers post- millennial girl fiction, the focus on style and structure cannot be separated from the study of the societal forces which influence both the creation and the consumption of the texts.

In Demon or Doll: Images of the Child in Contemporary Writing and Culture, Ellen

Pifer refers to the work of Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society and explains that the novel provides readers with a space that is “daring, supple, and precise enough” (Pifer

12) to really consider the unknowable or unrealizable truths about a society which is still in the process of being lived. Like all readers, girls are aware of the construction of the texts they read to varying degrees. One girl reader may fixate on the text as a representation of societal values, while another reader may consider the impact of characterization and narration on the story and a third reader may evaluate the text from another perspective entirely. The varied reading stances are personally relevant and key to the impact the text will have upon the reader. Readers cannot engage with texts in a vacuum; thus academic consideration of a text must contain, but not be confined to, analysis of structure and style.

I return to the question which has danced around the edges of my thinking throughout this chapter: is allowing girls to read post-millennial girl fiction unchecked the intellectual equivalent of approving a junk food diet? I must consider the assumptions which are present in such a question. As an academic, I see the value of texts which are considered to be canonical. Such a hierarchy of value amongst texts and the debate surrounding how to re-vision such a canon can be a useful reflective exercise.

Within the context of this project, I also acknowledge that it is problematic and counter- 114 productive when such a hierarchy strives to dismiss or limit the actions of a particular reading public. Analysis of the structure and style of post-millennial girl fiction affords the academic reader with an opportunity to map her understanding of the variety of ways that girls might read. While some girl reader’s interpretations may not align with such analysis, girls’ perceptions and interpretations of post-millennial girl fiction are purposeful and useful because of their independence. Girls may read and react to a wide variety of texts; the quality as perceived by adult readers does not have to impact their readings.

115

Conclusion

Post-millennial girl fiction serves as a kind of meeting place where the various publics who experience, analyze, or worry about girlhood can be considered. At their core, these texts are defined by many public acts: authors and book packagers craft, publishers print and market, various adults consider and critique, while girls read and respond. In this meeting place, girls can choose to consider, trial, critique, enjoy or respond to the personas and stereotypes which have been crafted for them by adults.

Through the anecdotes at the beginning of Chapters One and Three, the act of reading was conflated with the act of dressing. Girls are aware of being observed, and are also aware of the worries such observations produce and reveal. There are many ways for girls to represent themselves and their ‘of the moment’ image, and as members of the adult publics which surround girlhood we must be aware of their reception of these images. When all choices that are made by girls are reduced to dichotomous categories of ‘safe’ or ‘violating innocence’ our perception is misconstruing. As Driscoll outlines, the term“ ‘Girls’ seems both not specific enough for subcultural identity and so homogenous it overwhelms other possibilities for one” (210). As stated, using merely two interpretive possibilities masks the richness of girlhood. This project entertains that reading is a public act for girls, where a girl’s construction of her image can be carried by a book as much as it can be carried by an item of clothing. Consideration of post- millennial girl fiction and its potential influence must be completed by extending beyond the text to include the web of consumption which these texts exist within, as well as the array of public responses girls craft in relation to these texts. 116

One of the features which delineates most mean girl fantasies from romantic fantasy, as discussed within Chapter Three, is the author’s stylistic use of product placement, often in ways which function as a sort of popular culture allusion to aid characterization. This technique honours what Driscoll explains about fashion and beauty regimens being “synecdochic of the process of adolescence” (245). Von Ziegesar, because of her work with Alloy Entertainment, was critically aware of the role Gossip

Girl was to play within a larger web of consumption. Packaged books are designed for their cross-market appeal; Alloy specializes in the kind of adolescent market research which prompts creative products that are marketable within various consumer arenas, such as publishing, media, as well as physical products. In this case, the texts serve as a sort of nexus for the marketing which will surround the creation. Girl readers are aware of the use of product placement through their experiences with media literacy education; interestingly, they may not be aware of the methods utilized by book packagers. Thus, it becomes possible for girl readers to interpret a book’s transition onto film as a validation of its popularity, yet the transition was likely planned for prior to the book’s creation.

Creating Icons through Market Saturation

In addition to product placement within the texts (something that, unlike traditional product placement, is not an income generating endeavor), Gossip Girl has made such an intentional transition into an incredibly successful television show. This show first aired in 2007 and eventually ran for six seasons, ending in December of 2012.

The Twilight series has undergone a similar, but less intentional treatment, as Meyer’s four-book series has been developed into five movies released between 2008-2012. For 117 modern publishers, the allure of teen fiction is often in its potential as a cinematic product.

As one investigates the cultural aura of both Gossip Girl and Twilight, it is interesting to note that the plots of both series were altered as they were re-crafted for the big and small screens. Gossip Girl show co-creators Stephanie Savage and Josh

Schwartz revisioned the plot, re-characterizing some key figures such as Blair and Chuck

Bass. By comparison, Twilight received a much more typical book to film adaptation.

Plot changes were crafted to increase entertainment or compress time, and characters stayed largely true to their depiction in the series. Girl readers’ reactions to these changes, as captured through social media, have been plentiful. The transition between text and film seems to be fraught with the potential to generate discussion for many girl readers. Over time, the wide reception of the film and television versions ensured both

Twilight and Gossip Girl function as popular culture references, understood by those who do not consider themselves part of the audience.

In addition to re-releasing texts with cover art that displays movie and television connections (see Appendix I), both of the sample texts of this project inspired many other products and marketing endeavors (see Appendix J). As mentioned, a substantial part of the current publishing phenomenon for adolescent girl literature is the propensity for these books to welcome film and television adaptations. This extended marketing or cross-pollination of formats allows for greater saturation of ideas. Yet these books do not simply evolve through a world limited by writing and filming; these books come with manga and graphic novel interpretations, posters, t-shirts, even special edition Godiva chocolate bars. Girls do not simply read, view and discuss what they have read or 118 viewed; they can also plaster their walls with film posters and loudly proclaim their alliances with fictional characters through clothing, buttons, cell phones and journals.

The extended marketing for post-millennial girl texts is by nature exploitive.

Adult marketers identify and then extend a trend which girls have embraced in their reading – and I would argue, girls are aware of this exploitation. Consumption has

“precise significance and is used precisely – assuming the reader/consumer knows the reference” (Baker 683-84). These products can be divided into a few categories: fan products which overtly or covertly proclaim the user as a fan of a text or series; market linked products which make use of characters or actors to market an unconnected product; and multi-media products such as complementary books, films and music compilations. The exploitive nature of extended marketing of post-millennial girl fiction is a site rich for girl crisis worry, panic and discussion. “Mass culture industries have helped define adolescence as a functional spending frenzy in pre-reproductive years.

This redefinition is gender specific: […] that coded as feminine adolescence is perceived as being channeled into and constituted in consumption” (Driscoll 217-18). The link between marketing and modern young adult literature is an area of research which necessitates further academic analysis to observe trends which are unique to the marketing of texts, or those that are distinct from the marketing trends which are more generally thought to be ‘adolescence-friendly.’

Yet, the effect of marketing connected to post-millennial girl fiction can be considered more narrowly. As Driscoll explains:

The girl market has always utilized nonconformity and, in particular, relations

between conformity and nonconformity. But the opposition between pleasure in 119

consumption figured as conformity and pleasure against the grain of such

conformity does not provide a useful model for considering girl culture, where

resistance is often just another form of conformity and conformity may be

compatible with other resistances. (269)

By using Discoll’s stance, the manipulative nature of extended marketing becomes more complicated than a girl crisis mindset would allow. Marketing may be exploitive, yet how girls conform to and rebel against such marketing will not appear in distinct ways because of girls’ awareness of being exploited. This is especially true of fan products, many of which were originally designed and crafted by girl fans themselves, before they were assumed by larger marketers. Even some multi-media products, such as Michelle

Pan’s Bella Should Have Dumped Edward,15 which was referenced in chapter three, are crafted by members of the girl-reader public before their mass marketing. Ultimately, girls’ reception of the extended marketing of post-millennial girl texts is ephemeral.

Girls can participate both through purchasing and avoiding such products; they may also use and consider these products in ways which are intentionally satiric or ways which evolve products beyond what was originally intended by the producer-marketer.

Additional observation of girls’ reactions and interactions with the extended marketing realm of post-millennial girl fiction would be warranted.

Reciprocal and Parallel Use of Social Media

In addition to this blurring world of consumption, viewing and reading, girls are also actively using blogs and fanfiction sites. Through these mediums, a girl reader is

15 Michelle Pan originally created the website www.BellaandEdward.com as a place for fans to share their opinions and questions about the series. She developed Bella Should Have Dumped Edward by compiling answers to popular discussion threads and then writing a final, personal stance for each question. 120 able to completely immerse herself in the cultural world of her books. Traditionally, childhood and adolescent reading is viewed as a solitary act. Stephanie Meyer highlights this assumption in her characterization of Bella: “they didn’t know how preoccupied I could get when surrounded by books; it was something I preferred to do alone.” (Meyer,

Twilight 156). In contrast with this traditional model, girls can make use of social media and other ‘fan actions’ to respond to post-millennial girl fiction, blending excitement, obsession and detailed pretending. It is important to also consider the sense of empowerment and belonging which girls attain through their participation in these extended communities.

In her article “Beyond the Image: Adolescent Girls, Reading, and Social Reality”,

Hubler advocates approaching books as “maps of meaning”(93). Social media is perhaps one way that girl readers are parsing and interpreting these maps. While analyzing girls’ interpretations of texts and the subsequent impact of those interpretations on their psyches would require careful psychoanalysis to ensure authenticity, it is possible to gain some access to girls’ thoughts through their participation in social media and other activities. Again such access must be guided by Radway’s double-reading model to avoid what Wadworth refers to as the “persistent misapprehension of what girls wanted to

(or should) read.” (26). Participation in fan activities like blogging or attending release parties and other fan events is not required for girls to be members of the post-millennial girl reader public for a particular text. Instead, girls who participate in these extension communities are often moving beyond merely exploring identities presented within the texts, into realms of embracing, critiquing and even rebelling against such identities. 121

Waller identifies cyberspace as a “ ‘middle landscape’, in between the security of home and the freedom of the unknown” (149). Within this ‘middle landscape’ girls are afforded a space which is productively straddling the public and private spheres (see

Appendix C). Girls’ use of social media varies: fansites like Michelle Pan’s www.bellaandedward.com, which provide a forum for discussion and praise, exist alongside “I hate Twilight” facebook groups which serve a very different group of girl readers. Social media’s form and structure allow girl readers to respond to texts with varying levels of conformity and non-conformity (Driscoll). In fact, social media allows many smaller publics and counterpublics to form and confer. In her study of the Sweet

Valley High series, Pattee explains that there are groups “dedicated to identifying the series’ weaknesses and exposing the novels’ ideologies, [allowing the bloggers to] form and create online communities of readers characterized by their opposition to the text”

(127). In contrast to simply viewing girls as members of a girl reader group, they can also be identified in more specific, more personal ways.

Social media provides greater opportunities for the link between author or focalizer and reader or focalized subject to interact with one another. Before her interview with Entertainment Weekly, Stephanie Meyer is credited with having breakfast with the “gleeful members from the online community Twilight Moms.” As this interview continues, Meyer confesses to “wincing over the occasional amazon.com one- star review” (Valby). Valby credits Meyer with a great deal of love for her fans, as well as a desire to use their feedback to improve her writing. While this reciprocal relationship between reader and writer is and should be questioned for being fraught with affectation, social media usage by all readers has created a demand for at least the 122 semblance of a feedback loop between author and reader, focalizer and focalized. By comparison, Cecily Von Ziegesar is a more apt, and thus more subtle, user of social media and thus her social media persona seems to be less of an affectation. In order to publicize her support of Barack Obama’s first campaign, Von Ziegesar made use of her

Gossip Girl persona to compare Obama with her characters before concluding with the admonishment “So get over yourself and vote. You know you want to. I’ll be watching closely. I’ll be watching all of us. It’s going to be a wild and wicked year, I can smell it.”

(http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/gossip-girl/articles/5315/title/gossip-girl-obama-cecily- vonziegesar). The tone of Von Ziegesar’s post both imitates and satirizes Gossip Girl’s language within the texts, as its topic is divided from the narrator’s typical focus.

Interestingly, this blog post is more readily available as a repost shared by girl readers, than it is in its original form, indicating interest on the part of girls.

Unlike Meyer, who seeks to display a reciprocal relationship with readers through social media, Von Zeigesar is able to use social media as a space “where physical and character reinvention is possible” (Waller 185). Gossip Girl readers interact and opine on

Von Ziegesar’s thinking, but in her various interviews Von Ziegesar does not speak about seeking fan input, but instead relates to her readers by frequently crediting them with being excited about the series far ahead of other social observers and critics.

How the authors speak about their fans and participate in social media also seems to impact the publication strategies employed by Little Brown. Von Ziegesar, Alloy

Media and Little Brown sought the kind of hurried publishing schedule that has been seen with many youth serials, such as Sweet Valley High and Goosebumps. Gossip Girl books were released frequently, twice a year during Von Ziegesar’s tenure as the series’ author. 123

It can be argued that the publication of Gossip Girl did not seek reader reaction as a condition of publication. Instead the fan use of social media existed as a parallel, rather than reciprocal entity.

By contrast, Meyer maintained a less hectic publishing schedule, creating anticipation and longing for the next text. In this case, Little Brown was able to follow the marketing technique of the Harry Potter series, making use of midnight opening parties and intense focus on the ‘date’ of release. Christine Selfert describes one such release party:

Sandy, Utah, Barnes & Noble store. One the evening of August 1, 2008, before

the fourth book was released, guests flocked to the store wearing formal wedding

attire to celebrate the happy fictional couple. Pre-teen girls in princess dresses,

“My Heart Belongs to Edward” stickers plastered to their faces, posed for photos.

Grandmothers in flowing gowns or homemade “I Love Edward” t-shirts stood in

line to play Twilight trivia. Clever teen boys in Edward costumes fought off

ersatz Bellas. (23)

Driscoll speaks about subcultures as being constructed by “presenting a group identity constructed through ritual [and] dress” (207). The midnight release party takes group identities which may have already been carefully constructed through participation in different social media groups. Here the use of social media appears to be reciprocal. For example, Selfert’s ‘grandmothers’ may be participants in the online TwilightMoms community, while the ‘pre-teen girls in princess dresses’ may be reading www.bellaandedward.com. Arguably, the detailed pretending witnessed by Selfert represents participation in an imagined world marked by interactive participation. 124

It is reasonable to assume that arriving in costume at a bookstore does not emerge through solitary reading. Social media provides an additional place for girls to explore personas and societal expectations. As Hubler outlines, it is important to avoid the

“assumption that readers imitate fictional characters, and that women’s inequality is reproduced by the continuity in gender roles such imitation produces” (Hubler 88); instead, social media becomes another way of honoring the many facets that can result from girls reading post-millennial girl fiction. Further study of girls’ participation in social media as an extension of their reading is warranted. Focus should be on the contrast within their commentary in the very different acts of creation: through website management and the writing of fan fiction.

Extended Audience

One of the most fascinating results of post-millennial girl fiction’s popularity is the tremendous number of adult readers who embrace these texts. As mentioned in the opening of Chapter Three, I have been the receiver of many proud and quiet declarations of adult fandom. This stretched audience is apparent throughout this project, yet their opinions and statements have been intentionally avoided. These readers cannot be clustered with girl readers – they simply do not read with the same experiences or viewpoints. Writers like Christine Selfert often refer only to ‘readers,’ amalgamating commentary by adult fans to prove the danger of what Selfert refers to as ‘abstinence porn’ for all readers (refer to Chapter Three for further details regarding Selfert’s arguments). Allowing for adult commentary to represent the girl reader’s thinking presents challenges, provided that the argument of generational shifts to viewpoints is 125 accepted. Study of the stretched readership would allow for an understanding of how adult and girl publics interact, impact and even ignore each other. As post-millennial young adult fiction enjoys popularity beyond its intended audience, the reactions of the intended audience become intermingled with the reactions of the stretched audience.

While interest in a specific series of books would seem to unite these groups, there is a kind of nostalgia presented in many comments by adult readers. This longing for idealized youth often manifests and supports a reimagining of the books, highlighting elements of romance and innocence.

Adult readers tend to approach young adult texts with nostalgic hindsight, while girl readers approach texts with the varied purposes outlined previously. As girls observe the repossession of ‘their’ texts by adults, they may become disenchanted with particular books or series. “The readers’ evaluative shifts reflect their situation within new social networks and adoption of the values of the adult literary culture” (Pattee 117). Pattee suggests that Sweet Valley readers predictably and formulaically ‘outgrew’ their enjoyment of the series. Within the context of post-millennial girl fiction, girl readers do not experience social pressures to move beyond post-millennial girl fiction. This is a facet of the extended audience. However, girls may be alienated or validated by the reading of

‘their’ books by adults. For adult readers, these books are less about a maturing identity and the practice realm for adulthood; instead post-millennial texts are more about a nostalgic or escapist reading. In a way this extended audience may come to define the lessening of popularity for post-millennial girl texts.

In ways which are similar to the cycling of girl crisis texts, popular girl texts shift easily. The publishing industry has witnessed waves of fascination, first with romantic 126 fantasy, then with dystopian writing, before moving into the more current interest in

‘steampunk’ fiction. Perhaps this shifting ground is in fact caused by the adoption of teen fiction by adult readers. It can be argued that as young adult books gain a stretched audience, they also become an iconic, widely discussed element of culture. Such visibility may deter girl readers who are in search of a pseudo-private fictional world to explore one or more images of girlhood. Reading after a stretched, adult readership must contend with not only the social view of girlhood which created the text, or exists contemporarily with the text, but also with the new revisioning of girlhood which has absorbed the adult interpretations of the text. Additional study of the decline of post- millennial girl fiction texts might reveal that the birth of ‘hate’ movements (for example

“I hate Twilight” facebook groups and “real vampires don’t sparkle” t-shirts) is in unison with publicity involving a text’s extended audience.

The study of girl publics and post-millennial girl fiction is unwieldy and in some ways resistant to analysis by academia. Girl readers can and must choose fiction in personally relevant ways; thus adult judgement of this reading must resist over- simplification. Arguably, texts achieve widespread popularity because they appeal to an interest held by the girl public. As post-millennial girl texts shift through various popular genres, common elements appear. Within both mean girl texts and romantic fantasy texts, as well as other genres, girl characters exist in tension with their society, possess a clear vision of some aspect of themselves, whether it be Bella’s compassion for others or

Blair’s detailed understanding of the political machinations of girl friendship, as well as romantic relationships which are ambiguous enough to allow readers to judge, reinterpret and rebel against them. These common elements become the practice realm or problem 127 narrative, while the additional plot devices, characterization and stylistic elements allow girls new ways of defining, observing and rebelling against visions of girlhood.

128

Appendix A

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0312370059/ref=sib_d#reader-

129

Appendix B –Cover Art

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0345418786/ref= dp_image_0?ie =UTF8&n=283155&s=b http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385425767/ref=sib_d#reader-

http://www.amazon.com/Odd-Girl-Out-Culture- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B004U7ES0M/ref= Aggression/dp/0156027348/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qi dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=b d=1303352615&sr

130

Appendix B (Continued) – Cover Art

http://www.amazon.com/Lolita-Effect-Media-Sexualization- http://www.amazon.com/Triple-Bind-Saving-Teenage- Young/dp/1590200632/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=13 Pressures/dp/0345503996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid= 03352780&sr 1303352699&sr

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0749924373/ref=dp _image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=b

131

Appendix C

Public Private 1. Open to everyone 1. restricted to some 2. accessible for money 2. closed even to those who could pay 3. state-related; now often called public sector 3. nonstate; belonging to civil society... 4. political 5. nonofficial 5. official 6. special 6. common 7. personal... 7. impersonal... 11. domestic 10. in physical view of others 12. circulated orally or in manuscript 11. outside the home 13. known to initiates 12. known widely 13. acknowledged and explicit

Good Girl/ Bad Girl Figures from Post- Millennial Girl Fiction

132

Appendix D

Reader

Authorial Control

Character Narrator

133

Appendix E

Three Key Perspectives in the Experience of Reading Popular Fiction*

The Reader The World “Our view of the self determines The social context of the text whether we see the reader as active and critical or passive and uncritical.” (McCracken, 2)

The Text

The text is most often analyzed, but not always in the context of the other two perspectives.

*This diagram serves as a summary of Scott McCracken’s theory about the perspectives which need to be consider while critically considering popular fiction, as outlined in the introduction of Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction

134

Appendix F

http://www.tvfanatic.com/forum/gossip-girl/general- discussion/new-gossip-girl-novel-i-will-always-love-you/page- 3.html

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your -favorites-100- http://www.teenreads.com.asp1-14.dfw1- best-ever-teen-novels 2.websitetestlink.com/reviews/0316734748.asp

135

Appendix G

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Teen-Reads/Any- books-like-Twilight/td-p/366144

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/- _jwUVKyyil0/TegSCGMNfNI/AAAAAAAAANs/Dzua4DO- 5Is/s1600/twilight+new+moon+eclipse+breaking+dawn+stephe nie+meyer.jpg

http://www.examiner.com/article/if-you-like-twilight-you-ll-like

http://www.us.penguingroup.com/packages/us/yreaders/vampire academy/books_vampireacademy.html 136

Appendix H

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/- http://1.bp.blogspot.com/- jMT8yVMHQDU/TegR1Xx0IwI/AAAAAAAAANk/9PxTT4_ QbQgIJRDSZQ/TegR3LTQCzI/AAAAAAAAANo/s66oqugZk pA/s1600/jane_eyre_rose_twilight_white.jpg w-hQ/s1600/jane_eyre_flower_twilight_black_bronte.jpg

http://www.truetwilight.com/news/twilight/ 137

Appendix I

http://www.twilightgear.net/twilight-merchandise/dvds-cds-and- http://talking -gossip.com/gossip-girl-book-one-summary/ books

138

Appendix J

http://www.twilighttrueloveandyou.com/ http://entertaining.about.com/od/product http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl about-twilight-true-love-and-you/ reviews/tp/Fun-Books-For-Cooks-In- =http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QA9oQ4Ke 2010.htm Q9Q/SwNuiaOIexI/AAAAAAAACtA/q 2DznSVQgas/s1600/39950815.jpg&img refurl=http://adaywithjake.blogspot.com/ 2009/11/just-cant-contain- it.html&usg=__S1FG1OW4f0gvGjXhvJ 8qRCGmme0=&h=480&w=391&sz=37 &hl=en&start=9&itbs=1&tbnid=HE8myhttp://twilightguide.com/tg/ cvDz0U_AM:&tbnh=129&tbnw=105&p2008/12/14/twilight- rev=/images?q=twilight+godiva+chocolapparel-vampires-wolves/ ate+bar&hl=en&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl =http://images.teamsugar.com/files/users http://www.geekologie.com/2009/06/21- /2/22911/46_2007/Gossip- week/ Girl.preview.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www .geeksugar.com/Gossip-Girl-Tech-Quiz- Seventeen-Candles-Episode- 805927&usg=__aZCWHmiPbWPtre9SP KkOU8ktqvc=&h=273&w=550&sz=55 &hl=en&start=3&itbs=1&tbnid=izqbZV DsKzBqgM:&tbnh=66&tbnw=133&pre v=/images?q=gossip+girl+products&hl= en&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1 139

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