The Girly Girl Trope, Explained

party the girly girl lover of puppies shopping and the color pink she is fancy she is vain she is Queen of girl world and I'm like totally into shopping like shop till you drop dead charge it if we look at the girly girl across film and TV we can spot some common characteristics that define this type she's materialistic the girly girl loves pretty dresses and of course jewelry it's jewelry jewelry yeah she's in touch with her feelings sometimes to the point of melodrama and she's figured out how to weaponize those tears now she's going to make the Disney face her lip is going to quiver and her eyes will flutter but they won't ever actually close but do not feel sorry for her she only likes girly media comic books gross math not unless you count calculating a buy one get one deal at a shoe store if you want to distract a girly girl try a chick flick it's her Kryptonite a reference the girly girl will not understand then I turn on the news I'm like and then I turn on Sweet Home Alabama and I'm like other girls may like to get dirty or have a career you know boy stuff not the girly girl her goals in life are simple look cute get a man and live happily ever after people do live happily ever after but when we conflate girliness with passivity Acuity and victimhood it not only devalues girly girls it devalues all women and robs both men and women of experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion there's no crying in baseball the girly girl can have as much depth drive and strength as any tomboy if she's written with care and empathy here's our take on the girly girl her wants her role in fiction and why we're seeing everyone get a little girly today shopping makeovers iPhone makeovers [Music] you're watching the take let us know your take thank you to skillshare for sponsoring today's video skillshare is an online learning community where millions of people come together to take classes that fuel their creative Journey the first 1000 people to use the link in our description will get a free trial of skillshare Premium membership so become a member today and start exploring your creativity for less than ten dollars a month you think I'm one of those women one of what women one of those women we hate who just works until she gets married the girly girl can feel like a regressive Trope in movies TV and literature she's often portrayed as a character that holds other women back but for much of Western history girliness was the default historically nobility had very exacting standards of dress that to our Modern Eyes look pretty girly and girly girls were status symbols for families girls acquired status through performing girliness and converted that status into marrying well in other words their job was to be pretty and marry whomever their dad said they should marry it wasn't essentially passive Life Plan one where having too much individuality or drive could get in the way I was brought up a proper lady I wasn't meant to understand things I'm just meant to look pretty and then someone nice will marry me possibly a baron that's why in the 1920s setting of The Great Gatsby B Daisy wishes that her daughter will grow up to be that's the best thing a girl in this world can be beautiful meanwhile if you were poor tomboyish or not white this perfect girl ideal was inaccessible as girliness is at its Essence both a product and signifier of wealth and class it takes training to hold yourself in a feminine way to look and speak and behave in the correct refined manner I come up first of knowing more than half a dozen women in all my acquaintance that are truly accomplished she must have a thorough knowledge of Music singing drawing dancing and the modern languages to deserve the word we can still see this link between girliness and money in 1995's Clueless where Tai who's implied to be less wealthy is singled out for failing to present as sufficiently girly she could be a farmer in those clubs her interest in skateboarding her accent and her clothes are mocked and corrected for not fitting the template of the Beverly Hills Elite just as long as we do it every day not just sporadically how do you know if we're doing it sporadically that's another thing Ty we've got to work on your accent and vocabulary even today it costs money to look girly and if you want to perform the girly lifestyle into adulthood you can't have a taxing manual blue-collar job the ultra feminine ideal was also long completely off limits for women of color as being a lady was defined by whiteness the social obsession with protecting white femininity was the justification for horrific violence against people of color and until recently if we ever saw a non-white girly girl on screen she had to be fabulously cartoonishly wealthy shopping with Dr Seuss at least I wouldn't skin a collie to make my backpack as a feminism made inroads in society though different expressions of Womanhood have gradually become viable the Gilded Age saw the popularization and culture of the new woman a term coined in 1894 by writers Sarah Grand and Maria Louise Renee describing a woman who pursued things things like education and the right to vote political equality and equal rights with men new women fought to have careers to play sports to never get married or to engage in relationships with other women from this point forward there were two versions of girlhood the normal girly girls and the pioneering gals no longer outlier characters girls with gender defying Ambitions became protagonists all these girls gonna be in the league where first wave feminism sought legal rights for women second wave feminism starting in the late 60s tried to rectify cultural wrongs against women the rest of them I understand but Gloria Steinem she's so pretty how could she not find a husband no she doesn't want one and shunning girliness came to be seen as a key part of this Liberation it was a feminist's duty to rebel against gender Norms as seen in Joe Freeman's [ __ ] Manifesto our society has defined Humanity as male and female as something other than male because she has insisted on being human before being feminine on being true to herself before kowtowing to social pressures a [ __ ] grows up an outsider even as girls [ __ ] violated the limits of accepted sexual behavior in this view being feminine is the same as agreeing that you are subhuman and therefore holding the rest of The Sisterhood back by emphasizing a rejection of gender Norms second wave feminism left girly girls behind and to this day our society as a whole kind of hates teen girls their interests are mocked their moods are pathologized and their clothes are policed what the hell is that a dress says who Calvin Klein it looks like underwear go upstairs and put something over this judgment of a girl's interests actually starts much earlier As We Lay the gender binary on everything almost from birth we're told that boys like trucks girls like Dolls boys like blue girls like pink boys like sports girls like makeup boys are angry girls are sad boys are active Heroes girls are passive victims boys are the protagonists of stories girls are objects to be won how dare you all of you standing around deciding my future I am not a prized to be one and of course in all these dichotomies that persist in our culture the girly stuff is seen as lesser even parents of young kids who try to escape these limiting binaries more frequently do so by encouraging their girls to adopt boyish interests rather than vice versa affirming the implicit message that to spend your time liking pink Princesses mermaid Maids or anything else coded as explicitly feminine isn't as good and our stories reinforce the same assumption writers of female protagonists often feel they have to give her stereotypically unfeminine hobbies and Pursuits just to make her seem like a lead character we can all approve of I go to London a boy so where does that leave the girly girl in popular narratives the girly girl often finds herself paired with a tomboy you get the girl equivalent of The Jock nerd dyad contrasting your girl characters and how feminine they present is a simple immediate way to distinguish one girl from another class princess the problem is that these two characters tend to receive very uneven Story Time and characterization often the girly girl is just an accessory to the other girl the writer wants us to emotionally invest in since girliness has long been the default the Tomboy automatically draws our attention for her originality and courage I don't like to do what people expect why should I live up to other people's expectations instead of my own the Tomboy actively defies social norms while the girly girl appears to be passively conforming I hate having to go along with everything my friends say why do you do it and when the Romantic lead applauds our main girl for being not like other girls the girly girl is those other girls some girls like to shop not all girls apparently Jessica in the Twilight series is a normal high school girl who crushes on both Edward Cullen and Mike apparently nobody here is good enough for him but both prefer bookish unconventional Bella in the movies Jessica exists mainly to create background noise while Anna Kendrick is talking nearly every minute she is on screen her words are drowned out by Bella's melodrama I'm going through stuff too you know that's how unimportant her thoughts and feelings are to the directors of the Twilight series the movie wants us to think well Bella is reorganizing her life around a guy who said he wants to kill her but at least she doesn't care about prom fella what do you think [Music] looks great he said that about like the last five dresses though we're supposed to take it for granted that the girly girl's priorities are out of whack you know I think you're the only girl in the world that can stand on a stage with a spotlight in her eye and still see a diamond inside a man's pocket and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Marilyn Monroe's gold digging Lorelei motivates the plot yet we're encouraged to look down on and laugh at Monroe's character because she's so one-dimensional in her attention to her looks and her attraction to wealth I just love finding new places to wear diamonds if we're paying attention we do get clues that there's more to Lorelei than meets the eye I can be smart when it's important but most men don't like it she understands clearly that women in the 50s aren't able to be good earners and her class Mobility is reliant on being able to NAB a rich man don't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty you might not marry a girl just because she's pretty but my goodness doesn't it help on the other hand what most viewers are likely to remember is that she sings A Love Song to jewelry [Music] our girl's best friend in Pride and Prejudice Lizzie Bennett's youngest sister Lydia risks her personal safety and her family's Honor by running away with bad boy Wickham I will join Mr Venice and find his idea before she ruins the family forever it's not really explained why she would do something so rash except to show that Lydia is the shallow typical girl everything Lizzie is not where Lizzie is self-possessed Lydia is gushy where Lizzie reads Lydia flirts or Lizzy turns down to proposals Lydia elopes with Wickham without a second thought I can't wait to see my mother's face and my sisters Kitty will be so envious yet why should her falling under the spell of this bewitching man be so hard for us to sympathize with after all Lydia isn't the only one who's tempted by Wickham's charms Lizzie herself also falls for him without knowing him well and she lets this attraction blind her to the deeper character of her true love Mr Darcy she told me if his Misfortune oh yes you ruined his chances and hit you treat him with sarcasm and while in most adaptations Lydia is given no deeper motivation for her impulsive behavior in the web series adaptation the Lizzie Bennett Diaries Lydia gets her own Vlog to explain her side of things Jane and Lizzy are too worried about sobriety and letting things take take their own time and not overusing air quotes to get anything done at all we see that she acts out of insecurity about being compared to Lizzy and a desperate need for affection and validation that her family just doesn't give her he treats me like I'm someone I guess um he always puts me first and I didn't know people really did that girly girls are so automatically discounted they are often the first to go when a longer running TV show loses its grip on character development I know it's my turn to do the dishes but I'm in character and if you make me do kill myself in seasons one and two of 30 Rock Jenna's vanity is shown to be the Practical professional awareness of an actor on a TV show whose boss is closely monitoring her looks and weight she needs to lose 30 pounds or gain 60. anything in between has no place in television but as the series gets more cartoonish and packed with jokes Jenna Maroney quickly goes from being a believable best friend for Liz to an over-the-top parody of the narcissistic celebrity listen up fives a 10 is speaking first you get married now you're winning an award these are my things next you'll tell me Mickey Rourke catapulted you into the Hollywood Sign shallow depictions of the outsized girly girl exists mainly to put on a little distracting dance for the audience and crucially to draw your attention away from any character flaws your protagonist girl may have designed to kill I don't care girliness is made into an aberration something wrong with a person that makes them less than [Music] power is about being an individual being whoever you want to be wearing your short skirts you wonder bras and your makeup for having something to say from the 1990s on third wave feminism examined the ways traditionally feminine things had been devalued both Riot girl and girl power reclaimed pink works like Carol Gilligan's in a different voice validated women's emotion-based reasoning and sex positivity examined how women could take pleasure in their bodies and appearance I always celebrate my body sometimes twice a day in this environment our culture is aversion to girliness was interrogated as Yael Cohen wrote in New York Magazine what's wrong with girly anyway rolling our eyes at pink feels like another way of treating female culture on the whole as a niche interest somehow secondary to male culture aka the mainstream is this a kissing book likewise in fictional works with a deeper commitment to character development we can see this interrogation of our attitude dudes to girliness at play in Greta gerwig's 2019 adaptation of Little Women Amy March is at last given the character depth she's been denied for over a century in the novel and adaptations Amy's portrayed as selfish Vain and Petty and she's maligned by audiences for stealing Lori from Joe who incidentally never wanted him I can't love you as you want me to I don't know why but Gerwig understands Amy as both A Gifted artist and a pragmatic young woman of her time Florence pews Amy knows that she has to marry well in order to provide for her family since none of her other sisters will she has to give up her pipe dream of becoming a professional artist and as a woman there's no way for me to make my own money not enough to earn a living or to support my family thus far from being a marker of flighty thoughtlessness her girly presentation is a sign of her worldly Savvy and realism so don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition because it is on Mad Men we're encouraged to invest in non-girly girl Peggy an embodiment of second wave feminism's Mantra that women can do everything a man can do the conversation of a raise is not inappropriate at this moment but do not be timid you presented like a man now act like one interestingly this doesn't mean that the girlier girls in the story are discarded as one-dimensional Don's wife Betty is flushed them of her society's old-fashioned ideas of girliness which she can't admit don't actually make her happy happy and through madman's femiest character Joan the show fully explores both the benefits and limits of playing to gender stereotypes Jones starts out upholding ideas about traditional marriage roles and continues even after her fiance assaults her your fiance is so handsome he is but as the show goes on Joan negotiates her way through femininity recognizing her deeper longings for Independence and professional success and picking up and discarding parts of Womanhood as they suit her I wonder how many women around here would like to speak to a lawyer I think the equal employment opportunity commission has one by the end of the show she's a satisfied single mother running a company Holloway Harris how may I help you of course please hold for Joan the well-developed girly girl also gets to show off other parts of her personality that have nothing to do with her gender newer versions of Daphne on Scooby-Doo usually give her something other than Damsel in Distress to portray in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island she's an ambitious reporter and the live action movies gave her martial arts skills now here's the damn Zone distress girly girl Rachel Green goes through a decade of character development on Friends arguably more so than any other character on the show look you know when you first came to the city you were this spoiled helpless little girl who still used Daddy's credit cards look at you look at you you're even this big executive she starts the show as a spoiled rich girl who buys new boots with her daddy's credit card rather than find a job but even in the pilot her ambition for more shines through all of my life everyone has always told me you're a shoe and then today I just stopped and I said what if I don't want to be a shoe Rachel finds career fulfillment in fashion marrying her ambition and girliness into one package today's films and shows increasingly feature girly girls of color girly girls who get to drive their own stories girly girls who might be into other girls I'm a lesbian love gold star Kelsey are you coming out to me oh God no I've been out ever since Queen Janet's wardrobe malfunction and girly girls who are differentiated from less girly girls but aren't reduced to this one aspect of their personality 30 years from now when I am the second black female president all you'll be able to do is think about me and I won't remember your name when we allow girly girls to be more than just the butt of jokes it makes room for different types of people to be seen as competent and rational human beings someone can take pride in their makeup and to be competent at their job as well as have complex mixed feelings about the role femininity plays in their life meanwhile giving girliness respect on screen also makes room for men to embrace their feminine sides without risking losing all their status in society as the gender binary continues to break down in pop culture we've seen an increasing number of celebrities refuse to identify with any one gender and that's made room for people to explore girly Pursuits as more than just the default territory of people who are assigned female at Birth girly girls continue to display hidden depths and we're even getting to see some girly boys and girly thems in pop culture I'm not a girl Bob's Burgers has Gene Belcher who is defiantly one of the girls tell that to my vagina and Steven Universe's titular character is the girliest one on the show just today you were crying about snakes they don't have any arms his whole life is pink themed he loves cats and romance but what sets Steven apart is the way his girliness is his strength you care about me or something yes whereas his super-powered foster moms use violence to solve problems Steven always tries to befriend his would-be enemies and his compassion for all living things may be his greatest superpower heal [Music] through shows like pose and Orange is the New Black femininity has also been claimed by women who have previously been doubly denied the girly girl Label Black trans women girliness for the women of pose is a political statement affirming that they deserve as much compassion and protection as white cisgender women I know our presence threatens you we fought for our place at this table and that has made us stronger than you will ever be as we continue to erode the divisions between what is masculine and feminine the negative assumptions that girliness is inherently weak stupid or necessarily rooted in societal pressure have started to fall away as well but we still live in a world where people are mocked for embracing their girly side or even subjected to violence and it remains all too easy for creators to fall into the Trap of mocking girly girls without interrogating what they're really mocking still for every show or movie that treats the girly girl as its punching bag there's one that gives her brains heart and bouncy hair we need to cherish these girly guys gals and non-binary Pals their ability to be vulnerable their love of beauty and their compassion are much needed in a world that too often fails to reward these special gifts you must always have faith in people and most importantly you must always have faith in yourself if you're new here be sure to subscribe and hit the Bell to be notified about all of our new videos this video is brought to you by skillshare an online learning community that offers affordable classes designed to fit your schedule and your skill level skillshare is a great way to tap into a new supportive community that provides encouragement and inspiration with classes on everything from graphic design to productivity hacks you'll be immersed in a new creative world one skillshare original you can check out right now is plant Queen's class 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Channel: The Take

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Length: 24min 39sec (1479 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 06 2020