Customer Reviews

Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

Reading this book is like spending a long weekend with a new friend about your own age, wallowing in music and decades-old sitcom reruns while you trade memories that begin "Did you ever see . . . ?" and "Remember the one about. . . ?" You laugh yourselves silly, but also come away with a new appreciation for how TV, movies, and music helped you define who you were and how you saw the world.

OK, I'll be honest. _Where The Girls Are_ is also a first-rate introduction by example to the field of media studies, a brilliant defense of feminism, a scathingly funny critique of American broadcast journalism and an insightful exploration of the complex ways that girls and women relate to the steady stream of female images they're fed by the mass media. But if I led with that paragraph, the book wouldn't sound like it was any fun at all. And it *is* fun. Oh, my, is it fun.

Susan Douglas starts from the idea that, although her experiences and those of her friends (white, middle-class, suburban, straight, Baby-Boom-era women) aren't universal, they *can* be used to illustrate larger truths about how people relate to the mass media. She proceeds, for 300 pages, to do just that. Her analyses are always sharp (you will *never* look at "Charlie's Angels" the same way again), and her prose is as far from academic-ese as you can get: funny, pointed, and (when the subject warrants it) wrath-of-God angry at some of the manifest injustices she describes.

Read this book. Even if you're not part of the Baby Boom generation. Even if you're not a woman. Trust me.

This book chronicles the images of females in baby-boom popculture and how they reflected and shaped politics.

Because women have been historically consigned to the private sphere of home and hearth, the idea that our tv and mass media images can alter society is a riveting idea. Douglas then backs up this thesis with an admirable amount of intensive research and personal recollection that travels from Gracie Allen to Northern Exposure.

Although the book was primarily intended for babyboom women's culture, I am old enough to remember the rise of the superwoman as personified in Wonder Woman and Charlie's Angels and how this new genere was designed for both male tittilation and female admiration. Meanwhile, myself and other first graders loved the show because people who looked like us (hopefully when we were older) were the center stars of the show.

While I am now eagerly awaiting a revised and expanded edition with chapters on Buffy, Xena and Charmed, the book still provides an excellent example of the un-ending struggle between feminist and anti-feminist influences in the American mass media. No self-respecting feminist of any age ought to be without this awesome and well-researched tome.

"Where the Girls Are" is a tour through and a look at how pop culture affected girls and women. It is a thought provoking, sarcastic, and very witty portrayal from a woman who admits to having an "attitude problem." The targets are taken from literature, movies, TV and music, and include everything and everyone from "Bewitched," The Shirelles, "Sex and the Single Girl," Charlie's Angels, Murphy Brown and Madonna. She also examines famous feminists'impact including Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. The book contains plenty of quotes from anti-feminists, as well, to show (at least in this reviewer's eyes) just how ridiculous if often effective the opposition to the Women's Movement was.

One thing. The author laments that role models in children's literature are "few and far between." Either she is making a blanket statement, or she has no experience. Young adult and children's lit, even back in 1994 when the book was published, are a treasure trove of strong, positive female heroines.

I borrowed this book from my sister who was reading it for school. I found it incredibly interesting. The book traces the history of women and how the media has portrayed them. Although it is used in feminism and media classes, it reads nothing like a textbook. Although it is nonfiction, it is a quick, informative, entertaining, and engaging read. I highly reccomend it.

While I found this book to be breezily written and often entertaining, I also found it to be very one-sided in its knowledge of and presentation of primetime entertainment television history.

To read Ms. Douglas's book, one could easily come away with the belief that not a single "positive" image of American womanhood has ever been broadcast in the history of the small screen. The world set forth in "Where the Girls Are" is one where women were constantly demeaned by the media; and the real-life women of the time (one assumes) willingly, ignorantly accepted these images and these programs which (one also gathers) were created and broadcast by a group of 100% male, women-hating producers, writers and network execs.

To make the above myopic point, Douglas ignores entire genres and entire series. In her book, she makes no mention of Barbara Stanwyck on "The Big Valley" or Anne Francis on "Honey West" or of the series "The Nurses"; or of the popular anthology programs of the era often hosted by the likes of Stanwyck, Jane Wyman and Loretta Young; or of the variety shows of the time also often helmed by women; or of the constant presence of individuals like Kitty Carlisle, Faye Emerson or Arlene Francis and their witty, wise contributions to the primetime panel programs also of the time.

She also makes no mention of Yvonne Craig or Julie Newmar on "Batman" or of Pat Crowley's avant-garde mom on "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and she unfairly dismisses "Our Miss Brooks" as just a "husband-hunter," failing to recognize her as the competent professional she was. Instead, Douglas prefers to take easy shots at the usual TV targets-"Charlie's Angels," "I Dream of Jeannie" and the poor, much-maligned Donna Reed, among others.

By focusing only on the popular targets, Douglas fails to put her subject (TV programs) in a proper context. If Lucy or Donna Reed were unfair images to beam into the homes of the young women of the 1950s and `60s, was Gomer Pyle, Gilligan or Ralph Kramden an inspiring image for young males? And if young men were able to watch shows like "Gilligan's Island," et.al. and suffer no ill-affects then why doesn't Douglas have faith in young women that they too could and did do the same thing?

Furthermore, in order to build her case of all-bad-female-images-all-the-time, she carefully prunes away episodes of many series which do not support her thesis. For example, she chastises the "Bionic Woman" for often sending its lead, Lindsey Wagner, undercover in traditionally female occupations as a nun or a roller derby queen. She ignores the times the series sent Jamie Sommers undercover as a scientist, a race car driver or a police woman. (She further dislikes that the "Bionic Woman's" day job was as school teacher; a diss that seems to degrade the hundreds of women all over the country who, proudly teach America's next generation.)

In regard to undercover roles, Douglas has the same criticism of "Angels," again not mentioning the times that the trio went undercover as female football players, truck drivers, stuntwomen or even joined the military for a particular case.

Concerning "The Flying Nun," Douglas focuses only on the Sister's clumsy, slapstick landings in the few two or three episodes of the series, choosing to ignore the rest of season one and all of seasons two and three where's Sally Field's ability to fly often saved the convent, saved the day, and even saved lives.

And sometimes she misreads programs entirely. She upbraids "Wonder Woman" stating that Wonder Woman's alter ego, Diana Prince, always showed up at the office in "low-cut dresses." Actually, the first season of this series was set during WWII, when Ms. Prince wasn't Wonder Woman, she was in an official Army uniform. Later, when the series was moved ups to present day, Prince's daytime wear was always appropriate to the workplace. Did Douglas even watch an episode?

"Where the Girls Are" is a thought-provoking work but I believe it must be read with a critical eye. To accept all its arguments without questioning does an enormous disservice to the women, in front of the camera and behind it (and, yes, there were many) who created these long-lasting, enduring programs and images. I also can't help but think that it also does a disservice to the women, young and mature, then and now, who watch/watched these programs and felt not only entertained by them but also often empowered by them.

I was assigned this book in a gender studies class last year and am re-reading it, cover-to-cover, presently. If you are looking for a fascinating base of feminist theory and history, Susan J. Douglas's work is for you. She writes with a personal, fun voice, yet she really hits hard and makes some compelling arguments while presenting the history from the perspective of a baby boomer living it. I forget sometimes that she's writing all of this from a 90's perspective, some of it seems as if she's really living the drama of the 50's and 60's. A very quick read, and a true outlook changer. Highly recommended for anyone.

I spent countless hours reading books for my thesis. I read until my eyes felt like were going to fall out and I wanted to cry. And then my advisor told me to read *another* book. This one...and I felt revatalized afterwads.

Douglas managed to make me laugh on the subway...and in Boston, you don't laugh on the subway when reading. I went around quoting her for weeks on end (and still do). And I was able to pull out of my thesis/senior slump.

Why? Douglas portrays and relates the experiences of the american woman and her relationship (at times comfy, most often at odds) with the media. Relating her own experiences of seeing stay at home moms on tv and watching her mom go to work are only the beginning. She disects Disney with a rapier wit and keen vision. She points out that I dream of jeannie was not fluff, but subversive. She tells us "why the shirelles matter".

Her book is mostly free of academese, and if you are neither a historian, nor a women's studies major you can easily understand what she's saying, which is often not the case. She's fun to read and she's brillant. Even if you're not of the baby boom generation (as I am not) or even if you're not a woman, you NEED to read this book. It's fun (first of all) and you'll never look at the tv you mindlessly ingest the same way again (or the magazines or the billboards or the....)

The effect a culture as a whole has on its women is incredible. The author uses this idea and develops every piece of the culture in which she grew up to prove her point. She brings society's contradictions into the limelight. "Like millions of girls of my generation, I was told I was a member of a new, privileged generation whose destiny was more open and exciting than that of my parents. But, at the exact same time, I was told that I couldn't really expect more than to end up like my mother (25).

Douglas uses her witty style to fills her reader's mind with the hypocrisy of the society at that time. The reader will find herself laughing out loud at the outlandish ideas that were being forced on these adolescents. Although at times they become repetitive, each of Douglas' arguments is legit. She begins the book explaining how this generation gained so much social and cultural attention. "But precisely because there were so many of us, we, as kids, became one of the most important anything can become in America: a market (24)." From here on Douglas' examples will amaze you, and the way she presents them will make you chuckle. Her voice is one of an intelligent feminist who has clearly thought all of this through beforehand. Examples are so specific that their meanings can be lost to those who aren't a product of the baby boom. However, most will be entertaining to any reader, male or female, who already realizes the effect mass media has upon our lives.

"I especially wanted to avoid ending up like Mom (42)," she says at the end of the first chapter. Females of Douglas' generation, the mothers of today's adolescent generation, will remember the attitude of their teenage years. It was one of hope for changes in the women's place in society. They dreamt of being more than teachers, homemakers and secretaries. Girls of this generation didn't want to "end up like Mom," and they weren't looking towards them as role models. Instead, heroines of sitcoms, models in advertisements, and even characters in Disney movies became the females who showed young girls the way. The older generation was no longer providing direction for the large market of adolescent girls in the Sixties and Seventies. Instead, they looked towards the mass media.

Douglas' insightful mind finds hidden messages in almost everything. It is almost funny that when women were trying their best to become more intelligent and independent than the previous generation that they were ignorant to the fact that the media was effecting them everyday. These teenagers watched shows like Charlie's Angels without recognizing that, "while it reinforced traditional male power through Charlie's faceless voice and agenda-setting instructions, it also tired to pretend that there was no such thing as patriarchy, as least the way feminists characterized it. Instead, there were just a few bad men, isolated deviants, and if only these guys were exterminated or locked up, women would have nothing to fear. There wasn't a system that oppressed women, only a few power hungry bad-guys (216)." After reading this book, one will never look at a re-run in the same manner. Douglas teaches us to open our eyes to the manipulation that was caused by shows like Charlie's Angels, Bewitched, and The Flying Nun.

Where the Girls Are follows the timeline of cultural history from the Sixties' Queen for a Day and Jacqueline Kennedy, to the loudmouthed Roseanne Barr, who became the most popular sitcom actress in 1990. Bringing her readers to the present Douglas teaches them to keep at least one eye open at all times when looking towards the media. The last chapter of the book pokes at more recent flaws of the media to which today's generation can relate. During the Epilogue, Douglas makes the tone more personal by showing us what she sees happening to her own daughter. If you haven't already fallen in love with her style at this point, when Douglas allows us to hear the voice of a mother everything becomes personal. She says that the media has made improvements to things that have been brought to its attention, but this has left doors open for new negative ideas to flow in. Because so many baby boomers have children who are part of today's generation of adolescent females, readers can relate to her desire to keep her daughter safe from the messages being thrown at her. "I will try to teach her to be a resistant, back-talking, bullshit-detecting media consumer, and to treasure the strong, funny, subversive women she does get to see...At least, this is my hope. For she will see with her eyes and feel in her spirit that despite all this, women are not helpless victims, they are fighters. And she will want to be a fighter, too (307)."

Douglas' Where the Girls Are is an amazing, informative, and incredibly entertaining history of American culture and its effects, those positive yet mostly negative, on the girls and women who are subject to its media. This book also teaches the methods of looking deeply into the media to seek out its hidden, and usually negative messages. This book will appeal to anyone who grew up during the Sixties and Seventies because of its specific, in-depth analysis of sitcoms, advertisements, and other pieces of culture that someone who grew up at this time will certainly remember. It is a chance to re-live one's past, but see it through different eyes. Someone of today's generation can compare their world to that of their mother's and perhaps see that not much has changed. Douglas points out that, "many folks are ready for some media activism, if not for their own sakes, then for their children's (309)." She provides a list of semi-current "major offenders" to which a reader can voice his or her own opinion. Readers of Where the Girls Are will find themselves, in the end, educated about the effect media plays in their life, and inspired to do something to help the present situation. Douglas' book not only educates the general public, it continues the activation of the feminist movement by instilling desire in its readers to recognize the media's poisonous effect...and do something about it.

Susan J. Douglas has accomplished a major feat in Where the Girls Are (Growing Up Female with the Mass Media) in creating a work that is intelligent and scholarly and insightful, while always being great fun and very entertaining. Her observations on television shows and pop songs are surprising and will make you look at various aspects of the past pop culture in a new way. It was wonderful to see the Shirelles and certain television sitcom sixties genies and witches as important and subversive. This book is well written and the author makes all of her points convincingly and she will have you on her side as she begings to discuss the more serious matters later in the book. A wonderful discovery.

And then we wonder why we're not happy. . . . Ms. Douglas really made me think about how I thought about being a girl, and being a woman, and why I objected to being pigeonholed in either category. A truly thought-provoking book, especially for people who grew up on the reruns.