Are Super Girls Super for Girls?
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RESEARCH 10 21/2008/E Rebecca C. Hains Are super girls super for girls? The negotiation of beauty ideals in girl power cartoons Supergirls populating the screen as ninity can be positive and em- chologists find so dangerous, along active heroines are attractive role powering. Thus, girl power can be with all of its trappings. This means models for girls – but it is problem- considered a response to girls’ prob- that although girl power offers pro- atic that even with these characters lems, intended to empower pre-ado- gressive messages, from a feminist physical attractiveness is central. A lescent girls before they reach the perspective, it is simultaneously re- qualitative study from the USA crisis of female adolescence. By em- gressive as well. shows how 8- to 11-year-old girls bracing normative femininity, girl In girl power television programmes, judge the appearance of characters power offers cultural support to girls including television cartoons, the in girl power cartoons and how they and all things girlish. Girl power po- range of physical appearances po- relate it to their own body. sitions a feminine appearance as sitioned as socially acceptable is ex- something girls and women can en- tremely limited. Girl power cartoons act playfully, for their own pleasure, such as The Powerpuff Girls, Totally n the 1990s, prominent books rather than to satisfy a male gaze – a Spies, Kim Possible, My Life as a such as Mary Pipher’s Reviving progressive concept. Teenage Robot, Atomic Betty, and IOphelia (1994) raised public con- W.I.T.C.H. offer pre-adolescent view- cern by arguing that as girls approach ers strong, smart, brave female role adolescence, they face problems that Girl power and models who look wholesome, but boys do not: their self-esteem and aca- beauty ideals their bodies and personal styles have demic performance drop, and their little variance. Within the narratives concerns with their appearances in- Girl power is complex to negotiate, of girl power cartoon episodes, girls crease. Since then, numerous psycho- however. Girl power offers problem- whose physical appearances do not logical studies have indicated that atic messages alongside the positive: conform are positioned as outcasts, Western cultural beauty ideals are a Although girl power intends to sub- as unsuitable superheroes. They are major influence in the development vert normative femininity by making excluded from the girl power clique. of these problems. Factors such as its production about one’s own plea- This message is in dialogue with the family relationships, teasing by peers, sure, the end result of a girl power messages about female beauty that and media exposure have a negative ethos is a capitulation to dominant pre-teen girls receive from the effect on girls’ body images, which social constructs regarding girls and broader cultural environment: in pro- numerous studies have shown can femininity. Girls still aspire to gramming like American Idol, lead to serious issues including men- achieve a specific appearance as they America’s Next Top Model, and The tal health problems and eating dis- grow up: a face made up with cos- Swan; in advertisements, movies, and orders (e.g. Archibald et al., 1999; metics; long, straight hair, preferab- music; in toys and books; in televi- Byely et al., 2000; Davison/McCabe, ly blonde or at least highlighted; a sion news broadcasts; and from the 2006; Parkinson et al., 1998; Sands/ slender body with long legs and people around them. From these Wardle, 2003). shapely breasts; and clothing that sources, girls quickly learn the rules In the wake of the cultural attention accentuates the wearer’s figure, pre- of normative feminine beauty and to girls sparked by works such as Re- cariously balancing the virgin/whore how to achieve them through cloth- viving Ophelia, the concept of girl dichotomy: “good-girl” respectabil- ing, makeup, accessories, diet strate- power emerged. Girl power suggests ity with an implied “bad-girl” sexual gies, and plastic surgery. These rules that girls are strong and capable of availability. In short, girls still inter- are on display everywhere, as com- anything, and that playing with femi- nalise the female body ideal that psy- mon as the air that we breathe – and RESEARCH 21/2008/E 11 given about the same amount of crit- perspective, I used a bricolage of the back and then, like, they had a skirt, a ical thought. It is no wonder that pre- methods, including frequent inter- purple skirt, that goes up right up to right adolescent and adolescent girls fix- views with girls in groups at their af- there, to their waist. ate unhealthily on whether their ap- ter-care programmes (meeting twice ANGELA: Yeah, they could be rock stars pearance aligns with the usually im- weekly with each group over a peri- like that – not. REBECCA: [chuckles] Kylie, what did possible Western beauty ideal. Many od of several months); individual in- you think? criticise this ideal on the grounds that terviews in the homes of key infor- KYLIE: I think their outfit was cool be- most women cannot possibly attain mants, sometimes including conver- cause they have wings, and they got long, it in a healthy way (e.g. Wiseman et sations with their parents and sib- those long, um, big sleeves. And then they al., 1992), and psychologists have lings; and field observations during have this skirt that goes up like this and argued that media images cause body the girls’ library class periods and goes to their belly button – image issues and eating disorders lunch recess. ZOË: Like, at the bottom of – right here (Nemeroff et al., 1994; Stice, 1994; [pulling up her shirt and point to the bot- McCabe/Ricciardelli, 2001). Tigge- Physical appearance on screen tom of her belly button]. [some chuck- ling] mann (2005) found that children’s The girls I interviewed had surpris- KYLIE: And, um, I like their shoes and social learning from television in par- ingly little to say about the appear- their wings. And I also liked their hair a ticular has negative effects on their ances of the girl heroes they liked. In little bit. body images, and genres that fo- response to my asking, “What do you cussed on physical appearance (such think about how these girls look?”, This snippet of conversation illus- Audrey1 describ- trates the specificity with which my ed the Powerpuff informants could critique cartoon My Life as a Teenage Girls as “cool characters’ appearances, and it also Robot and pretty.” Zoë demonstrates how disagreement could Idea: Rob Renzetti and Kylie both lead to more fruitful conversation Jenny is a female teenager – and described them than simple agreement that characters a super power robot. Her “moth- er”, a scientist, constructed her as “pretty”. Kylie are “pretty”. Perhaps because “pret- to save the planet from catas- elaborated, “their ty” is the norm, mediated and mod- trophes, but Jenny would prefer hair, it’s always, elled throughout society, there is not to do something really interesting, e.g. to go to school. like, nice, and, much to say about it. Deviance is um, I like their easier to discuss. as soap operas) have an especially dresses […] and shoes.” Recalling an My informants and I watched sever- strong influence. Given this situation, episode of My Life as a Teenage Ro- al girl power cartoon episodes in then, girl power’s uncritical embrace bot in which Jenny receives a spray- which a main character’s physical and promotion of normative feminin- paint makeover, Desirée described appearance suddenly deviated from ity is a considerable problem. What Jenny as looking “cute” and “pretty.” the norm. For example, we screened are its implications for real girls? In contrast, my informants tended to Powerpuff episodes “The Mane be more specific about their dislikes. Event”, in which Blossom receives a For example, when Alex of Totally terrible haircut from her sisters, and How girls negotiate Spies became extremely muscular in “Twisted Sister”, in which the Girls girl power and “The Incredible Bulk”, Kylie said, create a new Powerpuff who is as normative femininity “She looked ugly. Her muscles made unsightly as she is an ineffectual su- her ugly and her voice made her perhero. We also screened several My I sought an answer to this question sound ugly.” Audrey agreed, saying, Life as a Teenage Robot episodes in through fieldwork. I spent over a year “She sounds like a man!” After we which the protagonist Jenny had studying two groups of pre-teen girls, screened W.I.T.C.H. (see ill. 1) for the trouble with her appearance, such as ages 8 to 11, who enjoyed watching first time, only a few weeks after it “Hostile Makeover”, in which Lexus, girl power cartoons. My informants had premiered on television, my in- a robot villain from outer space, tries lived in the suburbs of a major city formants debated whether the five su- to make Jenny join forces with her, on the east coast of the United States, perhero girls looked “cool” or “weird”. in part through the strategy of making with key informants composed of a her look ugly; and the Totally Spies ZOË: I think they looked weird because group of African-American girls and how small the wings were, and how high episode “Passion Patties”, in which a group of Caucasian girls from their socks were, and then, like, they had the Spies try to track down a villain neighbouring towns. Grounding my a green shirt and then they had a point in whose addictive cookies make peo- work in a feminist cultural studies the front, but, like, all flat and straight in ple who consume them obese.