Girl Power Cartoons
By Angela Roberts
September 2, 2011
I was flipping through the cable guide recently and stumbled upon some cartoons on Teletoon Retro that I hadn’t seen in years: He-Man and She-Ra. (The original He-Man, not the recent reboot that sucked.) And it got me thinking about the types of cartoons I grew up with. Long before the Spice Girls and the so-called Girl Power craze, the Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s and early-mid 90s presented, shall we say, different female role models. Women who didn’t fit the stereotypical molds. Women who didn’t need rescuing all the time. Women who were leaders, who spoke their minds, and who were respected for more than just their looks. And also women who demonstrated a different, more peaceful approach to resolving conflicts. The toy companies went wild for the young female market in the 80s in a way I don’t think they ever had before. This was the era of a new Barbie every week. It was also a time when your average girl owned several Barbie dolls. (I had a whole soap opera cast.) I think toy companies (the main purveyors of cartoons, then and now) suddenly realized that girls watched cartoons, and that cartoons could be a fantastic way to sell toys to girls. This was also the time that anime was really hitting the North American market in a big way, and there had already been a strong tradition of female characters and female-oriented entertainment in Japan. Add to that the fair assertion that this was a time when more and more women were reaching prominent positions in the television industry and so had a vested interest in producing works for girls, and you have the ideal conditions for some of my favourite girl power cartoons; She-Ra, Jem, and Sailor Moon.
I know I never thought of any of this when I was a young girl, or even what kinds of role models I was being exposed to. It’s fair to say that the women of the cartoons I watched religiously every Saturday were different from the women my mother would have seen on TV at my age. They were often career women, owners of businesses or political leaders or journalists. They loved, they fell in love, but they didn’t really need men or marriage to validate their existence. They were the rescuers more often than the rescued. They only used violence when necessary. And they did all this without losing their femininity. They were perfectly capable of being strong women and still remaining women.
It’s also worth noting the ubiquitous theme of double identity that ran through the cartoons of the 80s and early-mid 90s. I think there was a real struggle with identity in this period. And it was probably a lot easier to sell these new role models as a sort of “Superman” transformation – the meek mild-mannered human sheds their persona to become the superhuman, and then turns back when their task is completed. This was the case with both He-Man and She-Ra, with Jem, with Sailor Moon. It’s still a popular device now, but it was rampant back then. Certainly it made for toys with lots of accessories. But it’s also important to look at how this theme was used to portray these female characters. She-Ra may have been her powerful confident alter ego, but Adora was the real protagonist. And She-Ra would always conveniently disappear so that Adora could finish up. Jerrica Benton and Serena actually grew throughout their respective series to become less dependent on their superhero alter egos to solve their problems. (I say superhero for Jem because Jem was, in many ways, a superhero of glam rock.) They became better, more confident people through the enacting of a more confident persona. Adora too, of course, but she was perhaps less dependent on She-Ra than others, even Adam/He-Man. Essentially, as their stories progressed, the line between these women and their alter-egos became fainter and fainter until they could operate almost openly in their other persona. And as themselves.
I’m not sure that the current cartoon offerings on TV have the same impact for girls as they did for me. The lineups have become greatly reduced as of late and it does seem that they’ve swung back towards boys as a target market. Plus, the widening of the age range for North American cartoons means that the real quality cartoons are being made for older children. It’s a shame how the industry has dumbed down the Saturday morning cartoon lineup. Last time I tuned into cartoons early on a Saturday, I was horrified by the stupidity of stuff like The Superhero Squad Show where mini Marvel characters get together in a club and fight crime. Because, obviously, kids can’t handle proper superhero cartoons. I was horrified, not because of my late-20s geeky female perspective, but because I would have found it stupid at age six. They’ve just lost touch. Which is unfortunate. Girls need to see role models on TV. And, at this point, if I had a daughter, I’d be switching the channel to Teletoon Retro.