By Megan Tripp, Staff Writer, Emerson College
My little sister is a freshman in high school and like most young, teenage girls, she watches TV and idolizes the women she sees.
But, when I watch TV with my sister (we primarily watch Disney Channel), I expect to see the kind of plot lines I watched when I was younger, like Lizzie McGuire–esque characters fighting to be able to buy bras, or a “That’s So Raven” character telling off a fashion designer for airbrushing the women on the cover of a magazine.
Instead, I see the female characters proudly declaring that they don’t eat, ditzy women who can’t figure out how to drive, and mean high school girls with no depth. Cheap laughs seem to be the goal these days, and female empowerment got lost somewhere along the way.
Shows on Disney Channel today are no longer getting empowering messages across to the young girls that are watching them. Shows of the early 2000’s like Kim Possible were undoubtedly centered around female empowerment. Kim was a strong character whose love life did not interfere with or have any bearing on her ability to defeat Dr. Drakken or any other crazy villains that popped up. Even though her relationships were major plot points at times, they were never all she thought about. Kim never wasted an entire episode worrying about one interaction she had with the cute football player she had a crush on (I’m ignoring the movies, one of which centers around Kim’s boyfriend and does not represent the TV show well in my opinion). There was always badass evil-fighting to do.
However, when I watch “Phineas and Ferb” with my sister, though I find myself enjoying the premise and the witty dialogue (“hey, where’s Perry” makes me inexplicably excited every time), I don’t think it presents a role model for the empowered woman I want my little sister to grow up to be.
Candace, the main female character on the show, is Phineas and Ferb’s older sister and is obsessive, shrill, and annoying. Her role in the show is to constantly attempt to bust Phineas and Ferb and rat them out to their parents. Not only is this a bad representation of a sibling relationship, but it reminds me a lot of Seth MacFarlane’s incredibly sexist remark at the Oscars about Zero Dark Thirty. MacFarlane trivialized Jessica Chastain’s character’s decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden by chalking it up to the fact that women are never able to let anything go. Candace’s character perpetuates this idea about women and teaches the young girls watching the show that this is what being an older sister and a young woman in high school is all about.
When Candace is not obsessively trying to bust her brothers, she is obsessing over Jeremy, her crush/boyfriend depending on where in the series you watch an episode. She changes how she dresses for him, she goes to incredible lengths to stalk him to find out what he wants for Christmas instead of just asking him, and is clearly depicted to seem insane. And this is the type of girl that my fourteen year old sister wants to be like? This is how Disney Channel is teaching my sister to act as a young woman in high school: hate your siblings, mindlessly obsess over boys, and always seek revenge; or as MacFarlane put it, never let anything go.
Now this isn’t to say that the TV shows of my childhood are perfect. I remember Lizzie McGuire sobbing over boys quite a few times in the show, and Miranda was by no means a role model either. But Lizzie was never crazy obsessed or one-dimensional. She went through things that I went through and I loved her for that. I don’t see this happening with today’s Disney shows.
This also isn’t to say that all current Disney shows disempower and misrepresent females, but, I’ve noticed a distinct drop in strong, three-dimensional relatable female characters. Characters like Marnie from Halloweentown, Zenon, and Ren from Even Stevens, have fallen by the wayside. Plotlines are disintegrating as well. What happened to The Color of Friendship which blatantly promoted racial equality, or Cadet Kelly, a movie ahead of its time regarding female empowerment in the military, and let’s not forget Gotta Kick it Up which, aside from being an amazing debut for America Ferrera, was also a fantastic feminist movie that took portrayed cheerleading in a respectful, empowering way.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this, and it’s possible I am, but I miss badass kung fu fighting Kim Possible. I miss thinking I shouldn’t be embarassed to talk to my mom about a bra. I miss watching Raven eat on camera, and enjoy it. Female empowerment, resisting the stigma on female issue like bras and periods, and loving your body for what it is no matter what’s cool or fashionable are the kind of messages I grew up with from the Disney Channel shows in the early 2000s. Where have all of those gone?
Megan Tripp is a junior WLP major who drinks way too much coffee and watches and re-watches Gilmore Girls way too often. She likes shiny things and looks forward to making a career out of making things up and writing them down.
My little sister is a freshman in high school and like most young, teenage girls, she watches TV and idolizes the women she sees.
But, when I watch TV with my sister (we primarily watch Disney Channel), I expect to see the kind of plot lines I watched when I was younger, like Lizzie McGuire–esque characters fighting to be able to buy bras, or a “That’s So Raven” character telling off a fashion designer for airbrushing the women on the cover of a magazine.
Instead, I see the female characters proudly declaring that they don’t eat, ditzy women who can’t figure out how to drive, and mean high school girls with no depth. Cheap laughs seem to be the goal these days, and female empowerment got lost somewhere along the way.
Shows on Disney Channel today are no longer getting empowering messages across to the young girls that are watching them. Shows of the early 2000’s like Kim Possible were undoubtedly centered around female empowerment. Kim was a strong character whose love life did not interfere with or have any bearing on her ability to defeat Dr. Drakken or any other crazy villains that popped up. Even though her relationships were major plot points at times, they were never all she thought about. Kim never wasted an entire episode worrying about one interaction she had with the cute football player she had a crush on (I’m ignoring the movies, one of which centers around Kim’s boyfriend and does not represent the TV show well in my opinion). There was always badass evil-fighting to do.
However, when I watch “Phineas and Ferb” with my sister, though I find myself enjoying the premise and the witty dialogue (“hey, where’s Perry” makes me inexplicably excited every time), I don’t think it presents a role model for the empowered woman I want my little sister to grow up to be.
Candace, the main female character on the show, is Phineas and Ferb’s older sister and is obsessive, shrill, and annoying. Her role in the show is to constantly attempt to bust Phineas and Ferb and rat them out to their parents. Not only is this a bad representation of a sibling relationship, but it reminds me a lot of Seth MacFarlane’s incredibly sexist remark at the Oscars about Zero Dark Thirty. MacFarlane trivialized Jessica Chastain’s character’s decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden by chalking it up to the fact that women are never able to let anything go. Candace’s character perpetuates this idea about women and teaches the young girls watching the show that this is what being an older sister and a young woman in high school is all about.
When Candace is not obsessively trying to bust her brothers, she is obsessing over Jeremy, her crush/boyfriend depending on where in the series you watch an episode. She changes how she dresses for him, she goes to incredible lengths to stalk him to find out what he wants for Christmas instead of just asking him, and is clearly depicted to seem insane. And this is the type of girl that my fourteen year old sister wants to be like? This is how Disney Channel is teaching my sister to act as a young woman in high school: hate your siblings, mindlessly obsess over boys, and always seek revenge; or as MacFarlane put it, never let anything go.
Now this isn’t to say that the TV shows of my childhood are perfect. I remember Lizzie McGuire sobbing over boys quite a few times in the show, and Miranda was by no means a role model either. But Lizzie was never crazy obsessed or one-dimensional. She went through things that I went through and I loved her for that. I don’t see this happening with today’s Disney shows.
This also isn’t to say that all current Disney shows disempower and misrepresent females, but, I’ve noticed a distinct drop in strong, three-dimensional relatable female characters. Characters like Marnie from Halloweentown, Zenon, and Ren from Even Stevens, have fallen by the wayside. Plotlines are disintegrating as well. What happened to The Color of Friendship which blatantly promoted racial equality, or Cadet Kelly, a movie ahead of its time regarding female empowerment in the military, and let’s not forget Gotta Kick it Up which, aside from being an amazing debut for America Ferrera, was also a fantastic feminist movie that took portrayed cheerleading in a respectful, empowering way.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this, and it’s possible I am, but I miss badass kung fu fighting Kim Possible. I miss thinking I shouldn’t be embarassed to talk to my mom about a bra. I miss watching Raven eat on camera, and enjoy it. Female empowerment, resisting the stigma on female issue like bras and periods, and loving your body for what it is no matter what’s cool or fashionable are the kind of messages I grew up with from the Disney Channel shows in the early 2000s. Where have all of those gone?
Megan Tripp is a junior WLP major who drinks way too much coffee and watches and re-watches Gilmore Girls way too often. She likes shiny things and looks forward to making a career out of making things up and writing them down.