Elizabeth Tabor, From 'Token Girl' To 'Leading Lady'
For someone like me who grew up in the 1980's and '90s , there were not that many strong female role models in film or television. Yes, in the mid to late '90s, it slowly got better thanks to TV shows like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Kim Possible, and of course Xena: Warrior Princess and films like Charlie's Angels . Before these ladies, we were stuck with girls like Barbie (naturally), Webbigail from the original DuckTales series, all of the ponies in the first television iteration of My Little Pony , Jem, Rainbow Brite, Daphne & Velma from Scooby Doo, Smurfette from The Smurfs, and Disney's pre-Ariel/The Little Mermaid princesses-Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White. Granted that there were exceptions to this 'rule' like the ladies of Thundercats , Princess Leia from Star Wars and She-Ra.
As time marched onward, there was slowly a bit more variety of animated (and live-action) ladies to choose from such as both the pink and yellow power ranger, April O'Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Gadget from Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame, and both Dot Warner from Animaniacs and Babs Bunny from Tiny Toon Adventures. These girls went against the long and well-established 'damsel in distress'/'token (or useless) girl' trope that was prevalent especially on television up to and during this time. Where did the young girls of the '80s and '90s like me have to go to find a fictional character to inspire us to greatness? Why to the more masculine characters that were around at the time like Darkwing Duck, Spider-Man, and all four of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles just to name a few.
Don't get me wrong, the ladies were all cool in their own individual way but a good majority of them were not all that interesting to a lot of us. As I said before, things did gradually start to change in the latter half of the 1990's and that change is still going on even now in 2017. Today's girls have a wider variety of fictional females to look up to in comparison to what my generation had. Barbie is still around but even she has evolved into something more than just a girl with nice clothes, a sweet ride, and beautiful dream house as well as a hot boyfriend to boot! Even the Disney princesses have slowly evolved into ladies who want more out of life other than their prince. Princesses like Tiana, Merida, Elsa, Belle, Mulan, and Moana are showing girls than women are more than just a pretty face. The non-princesses of Disney like Nala and Judy Hopps are doing the same thing but without fancy crowns and glass slippers. Like Barbie, today's more modern television iteration of My Little Pony (or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) has a boatload of female characters that girls of all types can find relevant to them as individuals. Princess Leia is still around but she has since been joined by characters like Rey, Katniss Everdeen, Hermione Granger, Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff, and of course Wonder Woman which have caused throngs of ladies across the globe of all ages and walks of life to become fans of these ladies and their respective franchises and society has become more and more okay with it just like our popular culture.
But how did both society and popular culture come to be so accepting(even if to various degrees) of women being fans of things like superheroes and sci-fi all in the matter of a 20-30 year span of time? Why did it take so long to get this way? Are there any positive or even negative repercussions to/from this evolution within society and within pop culture itself ?
THAT is what I'm going to discuss!
Contents:
1. Tabor, 2- Women In Pop Culture Then & Now: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/working-title-critical-theory-book-ccu-2017/tabor-2?t=1513347831246
2. Tabor, 3- The Echoes of the Past & Our Present: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/working-title-critical-theory-book-ccu-2017/tabor-2?t=1513347831246
3. Tabor, 4- Here's To An Empowered Future : http://scalar.usc.edu/works/working-title-critical-theory-book-ccu-2017/tabor-2?t=1513347831246