Girlhood through film representation: Reconstructing spaces and places for girls

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Tsaousi Evdoxia

Department of Child & Youth Studies

Children, Culture, globalization, 30 credits, Second Cycle Thesis, 15 credits

Spring term 2012 Supervisor: David Payne Examiner: Börje Bergfeldt

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Girlhood through film representation: Reconstructing spaces and places for girls

Tsaousi Evdoxia

Abstract

There is a scholar consensus that girls have been marginalized in childhood studies. Taking into account the gender effect in constructing different childhoods for boys and girls this thesis explores the frontiers of girlhood. Girlhood as being abandoned and not perceived in the here and now is constructed only in the future, namely in the frames of femininity and womanhood. This initiates pathology in the lives of girls. This thesis through film representation explored new constructions of girlhood. Two films Barbie as Rapunzel and Tangled based in the fairy tale of Rapunzel were explored through Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. The discursive constructions, the “preppy” girl and the “alternative” girl emerged accordingly as the versions of the “authentic” girl that is searching for her identity and leading to the “self-regulated” girl discourse as a way to reconstruct girlhood.These discursive constructions can be used in the reorientation of girlhood as they unravel the necessities that exist in girl studies.

Keywords

Girl culture; media representation; gender performativity; femininity; Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

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Introduction

This thesis taking as a point of departure the abandonment of girls from research, education, law and policy (Aapola, Gonick & Harris, 2005; Gonick, 2006; Hains, 2007; Mc Robbie, 2007; Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2010; Olsen, 1992) intent to unravel new spaces and places for girlhood. Angela McRobbie, in late 1970s, as the first feminist social theorist that noticed the abandonment of girls from their own lives introduced the girl studies field as a field that searches girls in the here and now. This means that girls are researched from their own perspective and their own culture (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008).

Girl culture as long as it has been researched it could be said that is mostly represented from media (e.g. television, magazines, and books) as a culture that reflects the patriarchal lens.

Girls are circulated from girl heroines that want them powerful, sexy, victims of fashion, mean, competitive but also nice, vulnerable and obedient (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008).

This has been described as the backlash effect of feminism, since what it was expected has not happened and the research in girls’ culture indicates unhealthy discourses that construct women that are victims in a psychological base nowadays (Barger, 2011). Research in girl culture warns that new healthy constructions have to emerge for girls as depression, risk behavior, body dissatisfaction act as alarming conditions of growing up as a girl (Aapola et al., 2005). Rapunzel’s fairy tale represented from two films will be used in this thesis in order to unravel girlhood constructions that can make available the girl realities that act against girls.

Reflexivity

This thesis reflects my interest in gender studies and childhood.When I started the course Children, Culture, Globalization I became curious to discover why the gendered childhood has been so abandoned as a research and policy theme. I was expecting more progress in the area of children's rights. Having worked as a child and family therapist in Athens for four years I have come in front of situations such as different childhoods, disability, family ethics and schooling practices. This course made available new knowledge and practices enriching

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my interest in children’s rights and practices. This thesis gave me the chance to explore the gendered childhoods that affect dramatically the life of children. The search through the social constructionism scope since childhood is perceived nowadays as multiple acted as a help n the understanding of such a complicated research area.

This thesis constitutes one aspect of my constant exploration of the academic area of children’s rights. As a woman that had a girlhood and as a psychotherapist I can understand the mechanics that function beyond the common sense. The tool of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis helps me more to deconstruct the different realities and see what they hide. But the scholar research results made available new meanings and constructions. The abandonment and the marginalisation of girls are aspects of a socially regulated girlhood. The fact that those results concern the all Western societies introduced me in the global facts that affect this situation. In this sense, media constitute a good paradigm to research girlhood realities.

In my work as a child and family therapist I was proposing different kinds of media to parents as books and films. This made me capable of recognizing effective and functioning media for children as I was discussing those media with children. When I came to do my thesis it was easy to choose as a theme the film media in order to explore girlhood constructions and the meaning embedded to girl’s practices. Literature helped me a lot to understand what is the case in girlhood studies now and the enriching from the neuropsychology area of studies made clear for one more time the effect of the combination of biology with culture. The fact that girls have the biological opportunity of absorbing more the social rules and expectations helps to understand why media affect so much the life of girls making them more vulnerable to depression, body dissatisfaction and risk behaviors than boys. Reading Rapunzel' s story and seeing the two versions of this story gave me the opportunity to unravel social constructions that affect the behavior of girls and construct a new as a proposal to the literature's need of new healthier constructions.

I have already done a MSc in Counselling Psychology and a thesis following Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. I have read a lot about social constructionism and Foucauldian discourse in order to be capable to use this qualitative methodology. Hence, it was my pleasure to explore girlhood realities in depth and see what can be emerged. I searched the literature by key words as girl studies, girl culture and media representations of girlhoods. Lastly, the two films were seen with a reflective eye because I was taking notes in order to avoid subjectivity and followed the book of Willig (2001) in order to analyze the qualitative data taking a psychological perspesctive that is needed in this thesis.

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The frontiers of Girlhood: Girl realities in 21st century

It is noticeable that twenty years have passed since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989) was introduced. The UNCRC has functioned as a tool for promoting children's rights, for seeking to raise the children’s voice in the here and now and used in order to give an identity to children’s lives (Quennerstedt, 2010). However, according to contemporary views the full recognition of children's rights is not yet fulfilled. More than this, a complete system that can support children's voices from any violation of their rights hasn't been made available. With this reality in mind a necessity of consensus in the academic community of childhood studies is yet to be established (Yanghee, 2010).

Taking for granted that nowadays it is widely accepted that childhood is a social construction, that children are entitled to their own spaces and places (Jenks, 2005;

Montgomery, 2003; Prout & James, 1997; Wyness, 2006), the question of the genderblind language of the UNCRC (1989) remains unanswered (Kehilly, 2009). Olsen (1992) approaches UNCRC (1989) through four feminist perspectives questioning the abandonment of girls in the convention. More than this, the constant and progressive recognition of the threats that children encounter (David, 1999; Zivkovic, Warin, Davies & Moore, 2010) along with the “best interest of children” as a term that unfolds and feeds the concept of childhood nowadays (Archard & Skivenes, 2009; Kehilly, 2009; Ottosen, 2006; Zermatten, 2010) construct the academic reality of childhood that is gendered (Montgomery, 2005).

Moreover, an understanding of contemporary childhood, based on the assumptions of social constructionism, begins by claiming childhood as a discursive object, and is constituted by different and, sometimes, contradictory discourses that are unfolded from its study. Social constructionism explains and supports the view that persons are shaped while they shape their world. ‘Reality’ is considered as multiple, with different viewpoints introducing different aspects of it. This theoretical insight has powerful implications for society (Burr, 2003; Prout, 2008). Reality has a nature that has impact upon each person. Each person, then, reacts on this reality differently representing his/her construction of reality. Hence, the way people talk about different things illustrates how these things are represented in a society (Burr, 2003).

So, children are social actors too in a macro and a micro level of a society’s construction and affect their system of interactions (Jenks, 2005; Kjorholt, 2007; Montgomery, 2003; Prout, 2008; Wyness, 2006).

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Discourses are not simple representations of truth. They affect our lives and are produced through social practices and language (Burr, 2003). Hence, the way childhood is being constructed and the positions that are produced through social constructionism paradigm are indefinable since the taken for granted knowledge is challenged again and again (Prout, 2008). Jenks (2009) argues that the plurality social constructionism offers is needed in the study of childhood, since the lives of children are opened to the social and not to the developmental discourse. In a sense, children are open to the here and now, and are considered as fully formed subjects. This positioning leads to the child’s right of participation, which is today often highlighted and discussed, but is also the subject of deconstruction. In the literature, it is profound that participation of children is aligned to the process of deconstruction. Deconstruction is the exercise of identifying and evaluating the discourses that construct social practices. The act of deconstruction unfolds the power that is exercised through the discourses that are dominant in a society (Burman, 2008). In a way to flourish deconstruction, participation is the exercise of power. So, the participation of children in their lives as social actors is the new and the problematic (Wyness, 2006).

Gallagher (2008), in his article about the foucauldian analysis of power and its relation to children’s participation, proposes that Foucault’s view of power could be a sustainable alternative in thinking through the complexities of children’s participation. By this, it is meant that, according to Foucault, power is everywhere and can be practised by anyone notifying that power can be understood by its effects and not by the conscious purpose of the person.

Hence, this comes as a challenging proposition on how children’s participation can be used for their own human right of participation. When the theme of gendered childhoods comes to be researched, research concerns boyhood and girlhood. It is globally accepted nowadays that girls have a different childhood from boys. Historically, girls have been abandoned developmentally in their educational, social and psychological dimensions. Girls have not the opportunities of boys to be self-actualized since even nowadays are closed to the home and have more responsibilities than boys in the all age spectrum of childhood (Montgomery, 2005).

This comes as a burden for girls’ rights to have a voice and participate in their own life. As one of the main purposes of UNCRC (1989) was to reflect children’s necessities and differential rights, the right of participation is very important (Wyness, 2006).Girls have to be seen as actors in their own life and capable of affecting their environment. This view confirms research findings that stress the abandonment and marginalization of girls both in media and

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in their everyday lives. Girlhood constructions are oppressive and contradictory. Ideals of the proper girlhood are creating lives that are unhealthy and pathological. The girl that is voiceless, vulnerable, controllable and obedient is the characteristic picture of contemporary girlhood (Aapola, Gonick & Harris, 2005; Duits, 2010; Gonick, 2006; Griffin, 2004; Hains, 2008; Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008; Taefi, 2009). How can a childhood exist that promotes only boys? Where are girls in their rights? Questions such as these are directly posed to the UNCRC (1989) construction and its implementation. What is the best practice for this implementation in such a gendered world?

A study exploring a television show about the life of a teenage girl robot stands as a backup plan for the reconstruction of a more sustainable girlhood. This study exploring the media representations of girlhood made available the incapacity of the existing discursive constructions of girlhood to construct a healthy girlhood. Girlhood as seen only from the lens of femininity and patriarchy has no real place and exist only in the future. A girl is a probable woman and as such has to behave. This introduces the complexity of girlhood as a developmental stage in the here and now. Since the combination of power, agency and normative girlhood is not viable, a new girl culture is in need of emerging (Hains, 2007). My thesis, below, will try and show how film representation, doll heroines and girl culture, are interrelated schemata in the life of girls. Following the constant demand of seeking to give a voice to girls, this thesis endeavours to explore the representations of film media in girl culture, trying to recognize a new, more sustainable dimension and place of girlhood. Before addressing this prescriptive task, in the principal aim of this study is to analyse how girl culture works, making clear what practices are today effective at both a macro and a micro level.

It is widely recognized that even when girlhood is to be researched issues of race, socio economic and educational status must be raised too (Aapola et al., 2005; Griffin, 2004;

Montgomery, 2005). It is important therefore to mention that my analysis will be limited to Western societies.

Neuropsychology of girls

In order to understand the effect of film representations is important to mention how female brain works. Louann Brizendine (2006) as a neuropsychiatrist focused on girl and women

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neuropsychology can effectively represent the research around girl brain structure.

Brizendine’s book (2006) “The female brain” making a travel in the structure of female brain starts from the prenatal period indicating the importance of hormones in the structure of the brain. For the purposes of the thesis, the part concerning girl brain structure will be analyzed giving importance to enlighten the research data. In the first place the importance is given in the communicative skills that the girl brain has in contrast to the boy brain. The social aspect of the brain is more developed in girls than in boys and this is the effect of hormones. So, girls understand and absorb more easily the verbal and non verbal signs in their environment. This comes to confirm research findings that support that girls conform more to the social rules because of their capacity to understand the rules. Boys are exposed from the prenatal period in the testosterone and not in the estrogens as girls. In this way they do not develop such communicative skills.

Brizendine (2006) continuing her analysis has a chapter about the education according to gender, which comes as a confirmation of the above facts indicating how the environment establishes the biological characteristics of girls and boys. Parents’ expectations from their children make them to educate boys and girls differently giving matter to their social roles.

Thus, the biological tendency becomes established by the repetition and the expectations of parents. The fact that girls are more open to discussion and want the confirmation of the important others such as parents, teachers and family make them more vulnerable to the social rules. On the other side, a boy does something ignoring the important others and in this way gains more positive results for the development of his personality. The openness of the girl to the others creates mistrust and in this way has not the same opportunities with boys to search her abilities since she is sensitive to the social rules. This sensitivity of the girl brain to conform to the social rules indicates how a girl constructs her behavior according the environmental expectations. In the book is becoming also available that parents become more surprised from the bad or disobedient behavior of their girls than their boys demonstrating the cultural effects in the structure of the girl brain. This reality for girls makes them establish the neurons that want them to be in accordance to the expectations of the others. Generally, girl brain wants organization and union making girls avoid conflict and confirming that girls need different practices from boys (Brizendine, 2006).

All the above come to confirm girl studies which support that girls are not seen in the way they need. Findings that support that societies want girls to be obedient, vulnerable and voiceless indicate how much girls are socially constructed according the needs and the

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expectations of the others. Since the aggression of girls is not socially accepted girls are being marginalized and develop only the aspects of their brain that want them to follow the rules.

This has been characterized as unhealthy since girls do not develop all the aspects of their brain and see themselves through the eyes of the important others. This situation creates depression and risk behavior as girls do not know how to express their energy effectively (Aapola et al., 2005). Lastly, the above create questions about the effective education of girls and the gender orientation.

The underneath effect and its manifestations

According to West and Zimmerman (1987), in Western societies, gender is constructed and reconstructed in every day relations representing the conformity in the gender expectations of masculinity and femininity. Gender forms the identity of both men and women as an underneath effect, biasing the way in which men and women are seen. Social reality reinforces the creation of a gender system that can impede change (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). In a sense, the unconscious function of stereotyped gender roles is so powerful that it can dictate the way people behave, walk and speak and thus prohibit change (McLaughlin &

Carter, 2004; Roberts, 2002).

The effect of gender is becoming more problematic in the globalised world that we live nowadays, which is taken for granted in relation to gender issues (Davids & Driel, 2005). In a trial to unravel the different cultural childhoods, Montgomery (2005) points out that anthropology and the other academic disciplines that study children's lives should give attention to the gender issue, the impact of which has been underestimated and taken only from a globalised perspective. Gender has emerged through the parallel categorization of women with children. At the same time as it has been revealed in the life of women, then it has in the life of girls too. Montgomery (2005) indicates the variance in childhood that exists between boys and girls around the world, stressing that if scholars want to study childhood further they have to study gender.

Gender Performativity (Butler, 1999) could describe better the way gender affects differently the life of children. Gender performativity, following the social constructionism paradigm, indicates that gender is socially constructed and normalized. Men and women, following socially constructed gender rules, draw upon discourses that are dominant in their practice of

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gender performance. In a sense, they are obliged socially to follow social rules according to gender expectations. This shows that gender is not dependent upon a person’s physiology or biology, but is in part a product of different cultural constructions. Butler (1999) bases her thoughts upon Foucault’s discourse theory, which is used methodologically in this thesis. Her influential work raises questions not in the area of if we do gender but in how we do gender.

This important insight has given rise to queer theory. Queer theory supports the view of gender as interchangeable, since it is based in the performative acts of the subject. Media in this way are the means to understand queer theory and gender performativity representing gender images and identities that people can draw upon (Driver, 2007).

A way to understand this better is by researching how children perceive their gender identity.

A very effective research in order to understand gender construction as performative is a Swedish study by Änggård (2005). Using the idea of storybooks, this research indicates how much children try to conform to their gender social norms. In the storybooks, girls were said to construct their stories around Barbie, around the figures of the princess and the prince giving importance to relationships and feelings, while boys told stories about action and animals. The rationale around their stories was that it is natural to construct this kind of stories according to their gender. This study comes to confirm research results that support children’s negotiations to issues of race, gender, class and sexuality from the pre-school period of life (Aapola et al., 2005).

Research in the developmental psychology prove the tendency of children to recognize their gender identity and conform to this since the age of two and be able of justify this in the age of three. This confirms the power of gender as a social category to dictate the acts and the practices of boys and girls (Vas Dias, 2001). An important notion, however, is that children choose their theme according to their gender. They may like it, but they choose such a theme without reflecting upon the possibility that they can change if they would otherwise wish to.

For example, in the interaction within a class of both boys and girls has, girls could represent action stories and boys relationship narratives (Dyson, 1997).

The above indicate the capability of children to represent the reality in ways that confirm their gender performativity. Children can act upon their gender performativity and see themselves through the lens of their gender along with the opposite gender, which would show the possibilities of changing gendered social constructions (Driver, 2007). Hence, how the media contribute in the construction of girlhood, which is more vulnerable in the effect of gender neuropsychologically? What implications do the social constructions have in the lives

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of girls? The answer of this questions can reveal the way gender acts on girlhood, as well as what affording possibilities for new constructions can emerge.

The constantly abandoned girl

"Being a girl is great. Really, I would not want to be a boy. I just wish we girls could have more room to express OUR ideas. Ι also think that our culture would be more interesting and fun, especially for girls, if girls could be more of a jumping- off place for films, books, etc. I think that girls have to create their "own" popular culture and use what exists to do so" (Sarah, 12, Stumbar & Eisenstein, 1999, p. 88).

This extract from a discussion that a feminist mother had with her girl aged twelve years old is indicative of what happens in the area of girl studies. The essence that it is contradictory to be a girl and that a girl is often an injured party in the gendered construction of childhoods is highlighted in this passage. Literature on girlhood has identified two dominant discourses that master the life of girls nowadays, the “girl power” (Aapola, et al., 2005, p. 18) and the

“reviving Ophelia” (Aapola et al., 2005, p. 40). Those two discourses construct the life of girls around two oppositions that contribute to an image of future womanhood, since girls are not seen in the here and now but in their future. The “girl power” arose in 1990s through popular media and television heroines; on the other hand the “reviving Ophelia” discourse, while emerging during the same period, marks the renaissance of the obedient, vulnerable, voiceless girl (Gonick, 2006).

“Girl Power” is a feminist discourse that emerged through the necessity of women to be closer to their real needs. This discourse was the prevailing social construction of 1990s, and was represented through “riot grrrl” movement, spice girls and film heroines that revised the otherwise dominant image of the voiceless and passive girl. “Girl power” discourse is embedded to individualization, which is a dominant social ideology in contemporary life based in neo-liberalism and supports freedom, selfdevelopment, tolerance and equality of opportunities (Aapola et al., 2005). People give importance to their emotions and their aims to life more than fulfil gendered social roles.The constant self-invention stands as the total personal achievement and self-determination is the medium to achieve a personhood that is summarized in what somebody can be and not what he/she is (see Bellah, Marsden, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985). This shift from the social to the personal is the kingpin of the changing meaning of girlhood. Girlhood as socially dependent constructs girls that are

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confused with their identity between the good and the bad girl, namely between their authentic selves and the societal marginalisation that wants them dependent to others and vulnerable (Griffin, 2004).

“Reviving Ophelia” discourse emerged at the same period. Here the work of Pipher (1994) can be taken as exemplary. Aa a psychologist, Pipher (1994) unravels the issue of the pathological girlhood that has low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, depressive symptoms, victimization and high risk behaviours using the female symbol of Ophelia, Hamlet’s probable wife. This symbolization acts as a way to make clear the pathogenic form of girlhood that, in part, remains part of the social landscape. “Reviving Ophelia” can be understood as the societal conformism that asks girls to abandon themselves and focus on pleasing others (Pipher, 1994). The “reviving Ophelia” discourse is the source of the social construction of girlhood representing how society understands girlhood and what society wants from girls. It has a long history in Western societies and renders the psychological profile of the gendered woman clear, and underwrites also the systemic relations of social inequality that have existed, and still to this day exist, between the sexes. In a sense, today gender inequality is a psychological problem. Women have managed financial, political, educational freedom but they have to encounter within structures that are embedded within cultural and globalized constructions of social relations, leaving girls confused and anxious (Aapola et al., 2005).

Arguably, these two discourses, the “girl power” and the “Reviving Ophelia” emerged simultaneously working contradictorily. They construct the scene of the reality of the girls today. From the one side is the self and on the other the society’s rules that work through gender performativity (see Butler, 1999). In a sense, the personality of girls in different stages of development absorbs both messages of power and disorientation from the power introducing girls in a world of confusion (Aapola et al., 2005; Gonick, 2006; Mitchell & Reid- Walsh, 2008). Studies (e.g. Brown, 2008; Brown, 2011; Duits, 2010; Gonick, 2006; Griffin, 2006; McRobbie, 2007; Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2010) prove the constant abandonment of girls before 1990s. But the rise of “girl power” has been found again problematic as it marginalizes girls in particular behaviors (e.g extreme clothing) that are considered as inappropriate from the societies (Taefi, 2009). Moreover, studies that outline the threats that girls face in their everyday life, such as body dissatisfaction (Hayes & Tantleff-Dunn, 2010), are often indicative of a set of general societal expectations that are placed on both girls and women. Lastly, the constant and progressive recognition of the threats that girls encounter

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(David, 1999; Zivkovic et al., 2010) along with the best interest of children as a term that unfolds and feeds the concept of childhood nowadays (Archard & Skivenes, 2009; Kehilly, 2009; Ottosen, 2006; Zermatten, 2010) has helped to shape the emergence within the academy of girl studies.

Girl studies is now an established area of research, and was created in the 1970s as an answer to the enduring abandonment of girls. As a research area, it was a related part of more general thematic engagement with studies into gender. By the 1980s the field was characterized by empirical research on the everyday life of girls through the lens of patriarchy. Finally, in the 1990s, girl studies became a field of constant theorization, and served to positively mark the rise of the “girl power” (Duits, 2010). Quite unexpectedly, such theorization helped patriarchy to tie women in new roles that promote gender inequality.

According to the feminist social theorist Angela McRobbie, young women, embodying the discourses that promote success but gender inequality, are again the subjects of new practices of victimization (McRobbie, 2007).

This leads to the backlash phenomenon, which is the reverse of the results that feminists wanted. Feminists wanted more independence and power for women and girls but succeeded in achieving the opposite; the psychological costs, for one thing, were not considered. Media represent and have contributed in this situation by promoting heroines that succeed academically, financially and professionally but are alone and are burdened with many unrecognised social and psychical difficulties (Barger, 2011). Intriguing statements such as

“The marginalization of girls is a universal phenomenon” and “Girls are marginalized within the category of children as female, and within the category of women as minors” (Taefi, 2009, p. 345) create the research equation around girl studies. Importantly, even girl studies has been criticized as giving rise to the victimization of girls, often constructing them as unable to have agency in their own life (Brown, 2008). Nonetheless, girl studies has enabled the possibility of problematising girl cultures and girl’s lives. From the above emerge the dilemmas associated with ambiguous girlhoods that construct women that have to be beautiful, successful but also determined, selfassertive in order to succeed. Discourses around the success of girls reveal a girl that has both feminine sexiness and masculine assertiveness in her characteristics introducing girls to the proposition that in order to be powerful and successful they have to behave like boys, doing this from a feminist viewpoint. A girl that is successful in this way has to encompass a feminine brain and adopt a masculine behavior in

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order to reassure patriarchy. How easy is it for a girl to achieve this? This is the scene in which the contemporary girl has to play and be played (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008).

Indeed, the new international girl culture of mean girls, promoting aggressive discursive practices, remains the vulnerable girl, but who this time, does not attack to herself anymore, but does so to others creating a competitive girl culture that is not beneficial in its own right (Ringrose, 2006). Mean girls do not accept the social regulations helping to re-pathologise girlhood as the expected from them is to be nice. Developmental psychology has constructed girls as nice and obedient and the deviance from this is problematic. The different gender construction of aggression makes such girls fall on the wrong side of the line one more, again indicating how much the girlhood is placed into new systems and practices of regulation (Aapola et al., 2005).

From the above, we get a brief insight into what ways girls are repathologised. The establishment of the journal, Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal in 2008 represents the scene around the growing research field of girl culture. The aim of this journal is to give voice to girls. This point is emphasized by Mitchell Claudia, Reid-Walsh Jacqueline and Kirk Jackie (2008) in their editorial about the creation of the journal now is the time for the study of girls. In the same volume, “The ‘Girls’ in the Girls’ Studies” (Brown, 2008), stresses the necessity to give voice to girls by practices that promote the recognition of girls academically. Particularly this article illuminates the scene of girl studies through revealing that the only way to research girls now is by emphasizing the constant absence of girls from their own life. Two years after the publication of these articles, the situation is redirected.

Girls now have a voice and construct their own reality. But it is under consideration if their voice is the appropriate voice to be heard by the patriarchal demands regarding girls and women (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2010).

This introduces the “after girl power” construction that emphasizes the necessity to redirect girl agency in the future because the “girl power” discourse does not support effectively girl needs (Gonick, Renold, Ringrose, & Weems, 2009, p. 2). However, nowadays, the scene in girl culture is shaped from the “Reviving Ophelia” and “girl power” discourses and the realities that create for girls. In order to unravel new healthier constructions for girls, which means constructions that accompany girls’ needs as autonomous personalities, popular media constitutes a good paradigm.

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Girl Culture through Popular Media

Mass media can be described as the vehicle of producing discursive practices in an era in which the media plays an important role in the everyday life of girls. Popular culture, nowadays, construct the identity of girls through the power of representation. Television is continually one of the most influential and powerful media in the everyday life as it is the medium for information and communication with the world (Pollack, 2008). The power of the image, in connection with the effect of representation, which more specifically is the ability of the brain to capture memories even unconsciously, affects the way of thinking about reality.

The categorization that happens through representation and the integration in the memory are the powerful elements that affect the way people think, feel and behave (Smith & Kosslyn, 2009).

In a nutshell, representation is the power of different kinds of media such as television, radio, web, books and music to create a reality that helps the meanings that media produce without acknowledging the effect in the development of girls’ identity (Driver, 2007). A kind of marketing of children’s interests comes to stand as the way that commercialization succeeds to play the role of a pedagogue without on the other hand the effects of these practices in the lives of children being properly monitored (Buckingham, 2008). There is academic support that society plays a role in the massive effect of media in children and that the focus for children has to be in the learning to use technology and media in order not to be used by them (Bosacki, Elliott, Akseer & Bajovic, 1999).

It is well known that girls’ mass media have been recognized as influential for the girls’

identity. Through the enjoyment of media by children, it serves to construct and shape both beliefs and attitudes in the young. For example, Aidman (1999) doing a textual analysis of Pocahontas, a Disney film, recognized the interrelation of popular culture and messaging that media promotes. Pocahontas was made to be moremuscular and beautiful from all the other heroines of Disney representing the girl power and a reality that it was not known until then.

The three focus groups of girls that discussed about Pocahontas film in this research constructed differently the meaning of the movie and the heroine. Their constructions were based to their race, class and geographical backrounds. This according to Aidman (1999) is indicative of the effect that popular media have in the lives of the girls and how important is the continuing of deconstructing texts and subtexts of girls’ popular culture. As far as girl culture is concerned, it has been argued that it is affected nowadays through popular media.

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Girls recognize themselves according to their heroines “reacting” to the representations that are available (Driver, 2007). The world of a girl is often associated with a world of dolls, particularly barbie, often beginning life by being surrounded by dolls and barbies in different forms. Research has documented how girls pass their time by playing with dolls, constructing their identity through them (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008).

Mitchell & Reid-Walsh (2008) continuing their analysis of barbie, stress that she has been represented as the more “innovative” doll and through this has been the cornerstone of the market. The media, following the needs of commercialization, have promoted Barbie as a means to promote femininity and girl play with fashion. Barbie is constructed as a grown-up figure but intended to girls. This act connects Barbie with a set of discourses about teenage girlhood, making the line separating the world of childhood and womanhood unclear. Barbie changed also the game of girls. Dolls before Barbie were constructed in the means of motherhood. Barbie was the first doll connected to gender as the ideal feminine figure. Her globalization is also a sign of today’s hegemonic discourse on girlhood. Barbie follows a set of girl norms seek to symbolize their world and construct dolls as real people, at the same time as, through the doll itself, to produce a reality that might inform views and practices of the real world. This reflective act of girls became the flag of the Barbie construction and the entrance to a new girl world. Barbie’s gender narratives through her changing identities at times make her not only a fashion doll but an image of a sexy womanhood. This leads to her use by girls as an experiment with their identity and gender through the open play and narrative of her. It is important to mention also that her changing features and the ambiguous life narrative create confusion in the mind of girls. Barbie representing the different forms of feminine through her changing identities, for example prom queen Barbie or astronaut Barbie or teacher, nurse, doctor, ballerina, gymnast, singer, firefighter, office girl with computer, presidential candidate and a president was named as the “everything girl” (Mitchell & Reid- Walsh, 2008, p. 42).

Barbie’s popularity was continually reinforced as a role model of the ideal that girls cannot reach. She is even the model for the construction of other dolls like her that had to fall in the comparison with her. Barbie was the norm since was the first and created in 1959 from Mattel. In the twenty-first century, the Barbie.com web represents the cross-media expansion of everyday life of a girl. In a sense, Barbie is everywhere in the life of girls while adults promote her power through the politics of consuming (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008). The effect of barbie can be profound. For example in a discussion with a girl that doesn’t like

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barbie now that is ten years old while she used to play with barbie as a little girl. Questions such as why she wants to destroy barbies by removing their head or cutting their hair in order to be ugly and if or how much she hates barbie the answers are indicative of the barbie culture. The answer is that is fun to destroy barbie because she gives girls a bad name adding that the most damaging is that barbie affects the way men think about women (Rakow &

Rakow, 1999).

The above presentation acts as an introduction to the necessity of redefining girlhood and gives the opportunity to understand the pathology that the nature of girl brain (Brizendine, 2006), the effect of backlash (Barger, 2011) and the gender performativity (Butler, 1999) create in relation to girls. This means that the sensitivity of girls to understand the social rules and act according to the expectations of the others (Brizendine, 2006) came as a provocation for feminists who did not wanted girls to be so socially dependent and created a kind of aggression that is not accepted from the patriarchal society (Barger, 2011) without considering the necessity of the human brain to follow, even unconsciously, the social rules and expectations that are embedded to it (Butler, 1999).

The dominant contradictory discourses “girl power” and “reviving Ophelia” create different realities for girls but fall within the same situation that is the globalised mean girl that is promoted through media and re-pathologies girls in identities that are not authentic, namely near to their selves. Low self-esteem, depression, victimization, risk behaviours are some of the symptoms of contemporary girlhood. The calmness and obedience that are wanted from girls socially have transformed in anxiety for something that girls cannot answer until now and this is their identity (see Aapola et al., 2005). If a girl culture that is combined with the doll culture and particularly barbie have a bad name, why does this culture continues to exist?

Questions such as “what is girlhood eventually?” and “what are the ingredients of a healthy girlhood?” remain unanswered.

This thesis, which shall explores film representations in girl culture, will try to unravel constructions of girlhood that can help the understanding of the girlhood. According to the above presentation, a way to understand contemporary girl culture, films act as a representative medium of what is the appropriate behavior. In a sense, contemporary films reflect the life and the needs of girls and in this way constitute a good example for researching girl culture. In this way, the constitution of girlhood is opened to new meanings and subject positions that construct healthier realities for girls (see Aapola et al., 2005). This thesis follows the scholar implication of a growing necessity to renew constructions of girl culture. I

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intend in using foucauldian discourse qualitative methodology in order to analyze two contradictory films according to the fairy-tale of Rapunzel. This thesis helps to construct new realities and meanings about girlhood and attempt to answer the questions that have arised around the academic area of girl studies.

Methodology

Theoretical Approach

The predetermined system of communicating and functioning that a society hasconstructed through language affects human’s behavior in an underground andpervasive manner. As such, this imposable power of language to construct the thought and behavior of the human subject is a valuable source for understanding how the structures of a society are constructed (Burr, 2003). Foucauldian discourse analysis is a discursive approach that gives importance to the meaning of language that is embedded in discourses as a set of statements that constructs social reality and organizes the talkative structure of a topic or object (Cheek, 2004).

The emphasis then, is in the constructive role of language by exploring discourses, the subject position(s) behind the discourses and finally, to survey the dominant social constructions available in a given society. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis gives importance to what language ‘does’, and seeks to understand the discursive worlds of people and explore implications for subjectivity and experience. In a sense, Foucauldian Discourse Analysis studies ‘speech acts’ regarding talk as an example of more general interpretative practices (Burr, 2003; Willig, 2001). In a nutshell, Foucauldian Discourse analysis is an approach that by exploring the role of language in the construction of the reality is interested in the experience of the individual or the group and the meaning that is given to that experience.

More than this, discourse is processed linguistically and so it is understood to be everywhere, and insinuates in all regions of our lives. Texts as the meanings to understand discourse are visually, orally, written, verbal and non-verbal (Wodak, 2008).

Textual Analysis and Discourse Analysis

Textual Analysis as a methodology provides the researcher with the tool of analyzing cultures and subcultures by using the interpretation educationally. By interpreting texts (eg.

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films, magazines, books) we interpret the meaning embedded in these. It is a methodology used in media and culture studies such as this one (McKee, 2003). The textual analysis in this thesis is through the discourse analysis, namely during the text analysis the importance will have the discursive constructions of girlhood and the subjects positions that are embedded to them. The discourses that will emerge during the process of analysis will be analysed and deconstructed accordingly. In a sense, a process of deconstructing the films seen will reveal the discourses and the subdiscourses around girlhood and the meaning they have in the lives of girls (see Willig, 2001).

Audience and ethics

Animation films for girls are films that are seen by an audience of pre- school and school girls around the ages of three to thirteen, namely during the age of primary schooling.

Animation films provide cultural and societal meanings that girls absorb as reality.

Importantly, animation films are used to unravel new heroines that achieve something important for the girl culture. So, animation films produce and reproduce practices that girl rely upon for their behavior or for avoiding kinds of behaviors. This means that animation films constitute a source of constructions and discourses that can help to understand better the girlhoods that girls draw upon (Mitchell & Reid- Walsh, 2008).

This thesis recognizes the limitations of visual materials as the analysis is seen more subjective than in other data methodologies. However, it is well known that visual methodologies provide a differential meaning of analysing experience and as such can enrich social constructions such as girlhood. So, a summary of the fairy-tale and the two films that are based in this fairy-tale will be provided and the analysis will be based in the summaries in order to establish the objectivity (see Reavey & Johnson, 2008). Films were seen twice and notes were taken in order to help reflexivity and objectivity. These notes were used to create the summaries and the discourses that were unravelled following the rules according to discourse analysis methodology (see Willig, 2001).

The story of Rapunzel

As it has been argued above, films are a good example to understand the way media affects the perception, expectations and practices of girls. Animation films in this case constitute a paradigm for exploring girls' cultures as animation film are very popular in children.

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Particularly girls see films with heroines that try to find a solution to their plights. Examples such as princesses as Snow white and Cinderella are indicative of the unrealistic life that is proposed to girls as real (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008).

One such example is Rapunzel, which is a German fairy tale. It was first written and published by brothers Grimm. Historically, the story has been subject to many editions and re- tellings. This fairy tale is about a girl that was born and taken by a witch. Her parents are poor and live near the Mother’s Gothel garden. Mother Gothel is a witch who masters the garden and the life of the people there. The mother of Rapunzel looks at the garden every day, but one day grows ill because she wishes toeat a plant named rapunzel. Her husband notices this and in order to help her fetches the plant to her. But his wife wants more. The husband goes out every night and takes a little from the beautiful plant. The witch notices this act of thievery and calls him to account. The man, so terrified, agrees with everything says. So, their first child is named rapunzel and is taken by the witch against the will of the parents.

Rapunzel was beautiful but she was growing alone far away from the real world. Her hair is said to be blond and very powerful. On her twelfth birthday the witch locked her in a tower without having the opportunity to leave. One day a prince encounters the tower and listens Rapunzel to sing. He becomes amazed by her beauty song and searches for a way to see Rapunzel but cannot find any. Searching in vain, the prince sees the witch to allow Rapunzel to let down her hair. The witch first climbs up her hair, after which time the prince does the same. In this way, he meets Rapunzel, promising her that he will help her to escape. Rapunzel is cautious in the beginning but after a lot of times seeing the prince,she finally agrees. But Rapunzel tells the witch about the prince by mistake. And the witch angry, cuts off her hair, leaving her deserted and alone. The witch throws the prince outside of the window of the tower, who is then blinded when falling into a bush of thorns. Blind, the prince searches for Rapunzel in despair and after a long time he meets her. She recognizes him, and heals him with her tears. They live together with their twin babies happily ever after (Sauvant, 2006).

Two contrasting films

Two films will be compared in this thesis in order to unravel different kinds of girlhoods and their effect in the lives of girls. They are two animation films that talk about the same story but from a different viewpoint. The one is Barbie as Rapunzel and the other is entitled Tangled. Both films are based on the story of Rapunzel. So, the importance will be given in

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how they construct the story of Rapunzel and how the heroines realize the central heroine. By examining these two versions of the classic fairy tale of Rapunzel, this thesis wants to indicate how media represents the samestory through different ways and make visible new constructions of girlhood. The films were watched two times, each time extensive notes about the psychological profiles and the meanings given to them have been written. The notes, the discourses and the subject positions behind them have been noted and analyzed according to Foucauldian Discourse Analysis.

Tangled

This film is a reversal of the original narrative mechanics of Rapunzel. Rapunzel here is a princess, while the man that she meets is a thief. The story begins with the flower and its magical abilities. The queen was sick and forced to drink from the magical soup of the flower.

After Rapunzel’s birth, the witch stole her from her parents because her hair is magical and will make her become young again. In this version of the story, Rupunzel is smart, clever, cute, innocent, and full of fantasy; a totally different kind of girl in comparison to the original characterisation. She has personality traits such as spontaneity and passion. The dream of Rapunzel is to live in the real world. The dream accompanies her in the all story through showing her emotional states at times. The real world is again perceived as dangerous and as we see in the story is overrun by men. The witch helps reinforce this perception by reminding her that the outer world is full of bad persons and dangers. The story generally follows the authentic version of the story of Rapunzel but is more energetic and full of comical elements.

Rapunzel, in this version has as a friend, a chameleon, which is clever and hates the witch. A lot of years passed and the eighteenth birthday of Rapunzel is near. Rapunzel begs mother Gothel to let her see the annual floating lights that are released in the sky, but mother Gothel refuses. Rapunzel is in despair and sings outside the window while the spring is coming. On the other side of the kingdom that the tower is near, three people have successfully stolen the tiara of the princess. Symptomatically, one thief leaves the palace and goes near the Rapunzel’s tower, listening to her singing. He becomes amazed and after he sees the witch go up by Rapunzel’s hair tries the same and meet Rapunzel. She begs him to help her see the real world and he helps her escape. They have a lot adventures but the story is in line with the authentic fairy tale of Rapunzel. Finally, Rapunzel finds out that she is a princess following the signs that she meets in her adventures. She tries to escape from mother Gothel that is

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chasing her. She eventually finds her way and her parents. The film ends with the announcement of her marriage with the thief, with whom she fell in love as he helped her to discover the truth.

Barbie as Rapunzel

Barbie appears in another version of the story of Rapunzel. While based in Grimm brothers’

story, there are significant differences. Barbie tells the story in her little sister that does not believe in her painting abilities. The story of Rapunzel begins with a Barbie that is characterized by a talent in painting beautiful places that she imagines in the real world. She lives with Gothel believing that she saved her from abandonment when she was an infant.

Quite early Rapunzel discover things that are opposite with what Mother Gothel had said to her. This creates questions about her past. Important in this narrative is the discovery of a secret staircase that leads to the village near to the tower. While walking into the new world she saves a little girl and meets her brother, who is a prince. Quite differently from the original version, Gothel in this case has a pet that sees the meeting of Rapunzel with the prince. The whole story coheres around the name of the prince that Gothel tries to learn from Rapunzel. Rapunzel does not know his name and Gothel imprisons her, transforming the castle into a high tower and putting a dragon to watch her. But Rapunzel discovers a brush that was given to her from her parents. As Gothel has destroyed her beautiful paintings, she is in despair. Magically the brush turns into a magic paintbrush. Rapunzel with the help of her two animal friends (a dragon and a rabbit) paints a place in which she can enter magically and go outside. When she goes outside, she meets the prince again and showing him the brush, a gift from her parents, she begs him to find her parents. The story continues with the invitation in a ball that the prince had invited Rapunzel to. Rapunzel promised to be there. But when Gothel learns this event from her pet, she angrily cut the hairs of Rapunzel and puts a spell around her tower, which holds everyone that lies is forever enclosed. Then the transformation of Gothel into Rapunzel lures the prince while Rapunzel manages to leave the tower, since she is not a liar. The story continues by the reveal that the two kings of the villages are in fight because the one, the father of Rapunzel has lost his daughter since she was an infant and blame the other king for this. Gothel shows her real face and begins to attack them by revealing that she took the infant because the father of Rapunzel, King Wilhelm, did not love her and took another woman as his wife. Rapunzel arrives in the ball just at this moment and

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stops them from fighting. King Wilhelm recognizes her as his daughter. Gothel fights Rapunzel with magic and Rapunzel tricks her with the magic painting. Gothel is entrapped in Rapunzel’s tower and cannot leave it because she is liar. The story ends with the reunion of Rapunzel with her family and her marriage with the prince. The last scene is Rapunzel and the prince walking along a beach, which seems like that Rapunzel had paint implying that her dreams came true. Lastly, the scene of the beach is the painting of Barbie making her little sister feel better.

Results

Those two films draw upon different discourses. By this it is meant that they use different subject positions and they create different power relations. Their meaning is tied to differential practices. While I was seeing the two films and taking notes and summarizing, I was remarking the subjects positions that lead to discourses (see Willig, 2001). I was interpreting continuously the differential power that those two films expose. This came as a dinstict point to follow in order to understand the controversy that accompanies girls’ identity, which has implications in their right to participate and have a voice as actors in their own life.

The two dominant discourses “reviving Ophelia” and “girl power” were all the time in my mind and helped to structure the notes. When the notes made available that those two controversial films are based accordingly in those two dominant controversial discourses, the notes could be summarized in the diagram below (table 1). The “reviving Ophelia” as the basis of Barbie as Rapunzel and the “power girl” discourse as the basis of Tangled communicate each other and create girlhoods that draw upon them creating strong combinations and dinstictions. The explanation and the analysis that underlies their connection makes available new meanings that can reconstruct the pathology of girlhood.

Those meanings emerged the discourse of the self-regulated girl, which contitutes a reality that is closer to girls needs and identities since its basis is the self, namely the voice of girls, their needs. Accordingly, the “authentic”, “preppy” and “alternative” are the girls that were unraveled by the analysis of the two films and the fairy tale in which they are based. As such constitute the discursive realities that girls draw upon trying to find their self.

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Display of girlhood constructions

Rapunzel The “authentic” girl

Barbie as Rapunzel Tangled The “preppy” girl The “alternative” girl

Dominant Discourses of Girlhood

“ Reviving Ophelia” “Girl Power”

“Self –regulated” girl

Table 1

The “authentic” girl

The fairy tale of Rapunzel draws upon the authenticity of girlhood and the necessity to search the real self. Rapunzel is a girl that lives under the shadow of a woman that lies to her while she feels that there is something beyond the limits that mother Gothel has established.

The difficulty of understanding what else exists beyond the limits is resolved from the prince that constitutes the chance to see the outer world. This fairy tale discursively draws upon the trial of the girls to find their own identity. All the obstacles are the society's rules and representations that create an hostile environment for exploring the self.

The “preppy” girl

The two movies following the symbolization of the fairy tale of Rapunzel draw upon the "authentic"

girl discourse and start from there their analysis. It is easily to understand that Barbie as Rapunzel uses

Girlhood through film representation: Reconstructing spaces and places for girls

Abstract

Contents

Introduction