Not having any children, I found myself at a loss
answering how girlhood, specifically “girl” markets, sold, advertised, and
targeted girls. I am old enough, shame to admit, to remember the Mary Lou
Retton tampon ads and the strange sense of taboo and danger associated with
them. I was not much for dolls, but I did fall head over heels for my little
ponies, little mermaids, and all manner of little things with inordinately long
hair, precisely because I could comb, brush, and otherwise groom them.
So, I did the only thing I could think to do and
searched through YouTube.
The first piece of advertising (under my search for toy commercials for girls) I came across
was Pixar’s trailer for Brave. The
first thing that struck me was how much it drew on the classic “Little Red
Riding Hood,” with a few variations. Rather than a wolf, a bear sets its sights
on the seemingly helpless, lone, heroine, cloaked in black, riding atop a black
stallion. The forest itself menaces her in its nighttime shadows and veiled
mist, while the voice over narrates about an ancient legend that requires
bravery. In the last cut, the heroine leaps from her horse. Her hair, red hair,
falls in dramatic bright ringlets around her head as she draws back on her bow,
releasing a zipping arrow at the bear, looming large over her. Most of the
trailers for this movie I had seen before the YouTube clip were funnier and
campier, all sunlight and snarky remark. Did the specificity, for girls, pull this particular clip up? If it was, then does this imply that
girls taste still lean towards the fairytale but fairytales morphed from Angela
Carter’s days, where the princess does not need a prince, or a mother, but is
ready to defend herself with skill, confidence, and now bravery? Yesterday, I
brought up the movie Hanna in my post
about the male figure bearing the burden of the sexualized, objectified gaze.
This trailer reminded me that I wrote a paper, analyzing Hanna as a fairytale. In the paper I postulated that while Cate
Blanchett’s character substituted for the Wolf’s role, her inability to have
children, her childlessness, became a fixated theme in the movie, ultimately
characterizing her and gendering the character female, despite the male
connotations and positioning. It comes back to Mulvey’s assertion that the
predominant characteristic of a woman is lack, but now back to the trailer. In
this case, with the spooky setting and lurking danger, is it bravery that the
heroine is lacking or the belief in her own bravery? Is this another instance
of a market capitalizing on women’s institutionalized fear of self (Little Red
Riding Hood after all is a coming of age story and all the bloody mess that
comes with it) and “human insecurity” that biologically sexed girls can relate
to in ways that boys cannot?
It makes me wonder if “a baby girl’s character” is “as soft, impressionable, and fast
setting as plaster of Paris” because the environment surrounding girlhood
desires, conditions, and demands it (25). That said, I looked up Brave action
figures and found the “Disney Pixar Brave Merida Toys,” www.squidoo.com/disney-pixar-brave-media-toys.
Characterized as “a feisty Scottish medieval princess who’s an expert archer,”
the Merida product line markets domestic settings and trappings, princess-hood.
There is a Castle & Forest set, made complete with a Barbie-like-Merida
doll, and horse. Also, the “Story Gift set” comes with changeable dresses and
Merida’s mother, Queen Elinor. Her bow, symbol of defiance, skill, and bravery,
features in all these sets but only as accessory.
Aha! I wish I had read this before I posted. It's that darned ol' set I mention in my own posting. Isn't it crazy that Disney Pixar is working toward a revisitation of the fairy tale, but still markets to the girl in the way that girls are marketed to?
ReplyDeleteI too am old enough to remember Mary Lou. : )
The tampon ad is a great example. The last time I taught this class we talked lots about how shameful most of us felt in middle school - and even now - about being seen with a tampon or pad. I have to admit I usually put things in my pocket before heading to the bathroom even now - even though half of the world's population is doing the same thing. Who taught us all to be ashamed of what is a very feminine action, while we are taught to celebrate others?
ReplyDeleteThere is a book called Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps—And What We Can Do About It by Lise Eliot. I haven't read it yet, but it appears to deal with how gender is constructed and marketed.
ReplyDeleteIs hiding evidence of menstruation mostly to hide it from men in order to protect oneself from their behavior and comments? I think it was certainly true in middle school. ( :
My experience with pads and tampons centers on the shame in purchasing them for my mom. In high school, I was a checker at Safeway. Out of convenience, my mom would ask me to “pick up the boxes.” That’s right - two boxes a month! One box each of pads and tampons. I am not sure how my dad bypassed the task. Anyway, she was petite, which meant she needed certain shapes and sizes – the type with double stage absorption, flow control, wings, etc. I cannot believe I remember the attributes of my mom’s sanitary napkins. Adding to my heightened sense of embarrassment was the fear of “getting caught” by my football teammates.
ReplyDeleteThat fear motivated me to find a work-around – “prebagging.” I would send a carryout (meek, misfit type) to the personal care section to prebag the boxes, then I would prepay another checker (aloof) for the items. Mission accomplished: kept the purchase on the DL and mom got her stuff.
Perhaps the pads and tampons violated the space between my mom and the notion of intimacy; the items were too close for comfort. Purchasing the feminine hygiene products also crossed the line in terms of how I understood manhood; gender ideologies were still well-defined in the early 1980s. Blue was masculine, pink was feminine. And only moms purchased pads and held purses. Perhaps Mulvey’s commentary (p. 59) regarding the female image as the bearer of the bleeding wound and its relation to castration were part of the principles that kids my age subscribed to...unknowingly.
By the way, I remember Mary Lou Retton.
I like the work-around. Very smooth. I would agree the items were too close for comfort. I would not have enjoyed being in your position.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if I can write this without embarrassing my daughter-shh don't tell her. When she hit puberty, she was so angry that she had to be bothered by such things. She wasn't embarrassed but mad that females got the raw end of the deal. I couldn't figure that one out. I didn't have an answer. I am glad for the new openness and embracing tampons!
ReplyDelete