I’ve been thinking a lot about the character of the blonde popular bitch in teen movies. There are a lot of examples:
Regina George (Mean Girls), Sharpay Evans (High School Musical), Heather Chandler (Heathers), and Cher Horowitz (Clueless) just to make a few.
What is interesting is all of their characters are defined by three primary characteristics: being physically attractive, being ultra-feminine, and having ambition. Now what’s interesting is the first two characteristics are things that society likes in women, so in a typical story one would expect these characters to be treated as heros or at least love interests. But instead ¾ of these characters are either primary or secondary villains. Cher is the exception, being the protagonist of her movie, but many of her actions are vilified by the script so despite being the protagonist, it isn’t until the end that she is treated like a hero.
Why is this character type villainized?
The answer is that these characters are women who use the things that society likes in women (femininity, beauty) not for men, but for their own personal use. This goes back to the aforementioned ambition. These characters crave power, and are willing to work for it, more specifically, they are willing to use their ~feminine wiles~ to get it. By having this ultra masculine character trait, these characters are seen as villains when they perform simple acts like caring about their appearance, or being flirtatious. Traits like this, ambition, flirtation and even vanity are praised in male characters.
Many of the actions and personalities these women do/have are strikingly similar to many male anti heroes in action movies.
They are arrogant, clever, manipulative, self-aggrandizing, just like characters like Tony Stark, Loki, Han Solo and Deadpool. But whereas these anti heroes become lovable scoundrels with hearts of gold, these characters become the villains of their tales because they are teenage girls.
To me what this says is audiences and writers are fine with all the traits associated with ambition, they just aren’t fine when it’s associated with femininity. Because an ambitious clever man is a scoundrel, but an ambitious woman is a bitch.
As a little girl constantly seeing these characters portrayed as evil made me develop a really negative image of femininity. I wanted to think I was superior to other girls because I feel better presenting pretty masculine. I was really misogynistic to a lot of girls because of my preconceived notions about femininity equating to shallowness and bad intentions. I know there are a lot of gay/gnc girls that like me had similar misogynistic hang ups because of gender non conformity and that really sucks!
As such I think it’s really cool when movies subvert the blonde bitch trope. To some extent, Clueless did this, but I think a better example is Legally Blonde. Elle Woods is clearly ambitious and hard working, but she’s also a feminine pretty blonde woman. And she is absolutely the hero of her story, and she is able to succeed due to a combination of her femininity and her ambition without having to compromise either!
What, like it’s hard?
Allow women to be feminine and ambitious and written like heros!
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Every time I think I have a grip on what Jodie means to me I see something else and start wanting to cry. Little girl me couldn’t have DREAMED of such things. Little me, growing up in the 80s, mostly saw that boys and men had all the adventures, got to be the heroes.
And I am SO glad that it’s changing. I am SO glad that little girls and boys can now see women be the heroes. Little me would pretend to be a boy having adventures because that was the way she thought it worked. Little girls now can just… have the adventures. They can just be.
name one native american intellectual off the top of your head, name one native american actor or actress off the top of your head, name one native american senator, one native american news anchor, or an author or a tv personality or a singer or a poet or a comedian, name a single native american teacher you’ve had, can you? probably not
ok so now think of one native american cartoon character you know of or a sports team relating to native americans whether it’s their actual name or their team logo, or a town you live in or near with a “native” name bet a lot of these things came to you right away i bet you didn’t even have to think
needing native representation in media, education and government are not decoy issues, the commercialization and appropriation of native cultures are not decoy issues, the lack of native representation is institutional oppression at work
White people specifically need to reblog this, I don’t CARE if it makes you uncomfortable–that’s the point. Listen to Native voices about Native issues PLEASE
Look, when I say “representation matters,” I believe that the most important thing is for people who are often ignored in arts and media to see themselves there.
But I also mean that it’s important for white/hetero people to see people who aren’t white/hetero.
Here’s the thing. I was raised in a very white/hetero community. Every friend I had was white. I never had a black person in my classroom until late high school. I never had a black teacher until college. There was one out-gay student at my high school. One. And I saw what shit he had to go through by being out.
And, if I’m honest with myself, most of the adults in my life were racist and homophobic. They were good, loving people…to me. But they were also racist and homophobic.
And as a kid through my teen years, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that didn’t affect me. I parrotted the adults in my life, which meant that I often parrotted their hate and their prejudice. I’m ashamed of those attitudes now–now that I’ve had education and met people who were different from me and travelled the world and put aside hate.
But then? It was easy to excuse racism. People who weren’t white and straight didn’t exist in my world–and they didn’t exist in the world I saw on television and in books and on the radio. It was easier to live in the bubble of that world.
Representation matters to white people, too. It is important for white people to see diversity. Not as a token, not as “politically correct”–the white people who feel that adding a minority character to a storyline is pandering are horrible people who are entirely missing the point. I’m talking about the white kids who don’t see minorities in their lives, but who see a black girl and a white boy being friends on Sesame Street. I’m talking about the straight teen reading More Happy than Not, I’m talking about the white teen empathizing with Malala Yousafzai. The more representation we have, the more we hold a mirror through the world rather than whiting-out people who aren’t like the majority, the better our world is.
Representation matters.
I swear to god, it’s like every damn word could have come out of my own brain. Brava!
Honestly. As someone who went to a very tiny, almost completely white private school through eighth grade and then to a high school in a city with the demographics of a marvel movie (89.3% White, 0.7%African American, 0.4% Native American, 5.6% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 0.8% other races, 3.0% two or more races. 3.7% Hispanic or Latino) I never realised that the casting choices in most tv shows and movies vastly underrepresent any race that isn’t white.
I remember being confused about people saying they should hire more actors of color for movies set in like new york because thats what i legit thought the rest of the US and western europe was like.
Representation matters more than you think.
Agreeing with all the above. I didn’t interact with people of color until I was in the military, because where I grew up was that white. Now, my parents always made a point of telling my brother and I to treat everyone the same, and not use certain words, and they at least made some attempt to expose us to different media. But it was still a culture shock when I finally met people and I know I said and did some ignorant things just because I didn’t know any better.
Also, graduating high school in 1997, there was nobody out when I was in school, and I didn’t even know bisexuality was possible.
Part of why I’m so glad for the Internet and things like tumblr is because it knocks down some of those walls. But people still need to seek those things out if they don’t see them in the ordinary media they consume.
Imagine being a kid in school. Your teacher comes up with an idea for class picture. Every student will draw pictures of their friends.
Everyone starts drawing enthusiasticly, and can’t wait to see what they look like in the drawings. When pictures are ready you notice that popular students have more pictures than rest, but nobody has done a drawing of you. The teacher notices that too, and asks if someone would do your picture. To your horror the class clown takes the job, and comes up with a caricature of you. Others are laughing, but you’re not. You feel awful. The teacher notices that. and asks again someone to do a drawing of you. One of the ‘good students’ starts drawing, but the result is forced. It’s just a drawing of a generic child wearing a shirt of same color as you a wearing. There’s no spirit, no soul in it. You start sensing that the class is geting frustrated with you. They want to be done with this. You ask quietly the teacher if you could do a drawing yourself.
After school your classmates confront you. Why did you have to make such a big deal out of it? The first picture was funny. The second picture was just fine! The drawing you did yourself wasn’t right, do you think you are that good-looking? There were other kids who got only one or two pictures of themselves. Who are you to demand special treatment? Maybe there would have been a picture of you if you weren’t such annoying baby, nobody likes you anyway, and nobody’s going to if you keep on being like that, you don’t deserve a drawing!
This could be story of bullying, but it’s also about how I see portraying LGBTQ+-people and PoC in mainstream entertainment.
