The Girl Public's Response to Post-Millennial Girl Fiction

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 ii 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 iii 1 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

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