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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2011
Of Bridgets, Rebeccas, and Carries: Chick
Culture Defines Woman
Vivian Ruíz
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
OF BRIDGETS, REBECCAS, AND CARRIES: CHICK CULTURE DEFINES
WOMAN
By
VIVIAN RUIZ
A Dissertation submitted to the
Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded:
Fall Semester, 2011
Vivian Ruiz defended this dissertation on October 24, 2011. The members of the
supervisory committee were:
Celia Daileader
Professor Directing Dissertation
Delia Poey
University Representative
Leigh Edwards
Committee Member
Donna M. Nudd
Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members
and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university
requirements.
ii
DEDICATION
I dedicate this
To my mother
Vivian Limonta
And my father
Francisco Ruiz
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..v
INTRODUCING THE CHICKS……………………………………………..........1
1. DEFINING TERMS—DOING GENDER: DEFINING FEMININITY….......6
1.2 DEFINING FEMINISM/DEFINING POSTFEMINISM……………......19
1.3 “AIN’T I A WOMAN?”: DEFINING THE
UNDEFINABLE…..............................................................................32
2. SO, WHAT IS CHICK-LIT?: HISTORY, MARKET, AND CRITICS……..46
3. THE EDGE OF REASON: IS BRIDGET JONES A FEMINIST
HEROINE?...........................................................................................63
4. “MERELY SUCCUMBING TO THE WESTERN DRAG OF
MATERIALISM”: THE GLAMORIZATION OF PATHOLOGICAL
SHOPPING AND SPENDING IN SOPHIE KINSELLA’S
CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC……………………………...84
5. SATC ♥s NYC: CHICK-LIT AND THE CITY……………………………105
6. “WILL PERSEVERE WITH RESOLUTION TO FIND A NICE
SENSIBLE MAN”: CARRIE, BRIDGET, AND REBECCA MAKE
IT TO THE BIG SCREEN………………………………………….124
CHICKS JUST WANNA HAVE…BEER?...……………..................................146
REFERENCES………………………………………………………………….150
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………...155
iv
ABSTRACT
Chick-Lit is a fairly young literary genre that is widely popular among female readers
and holds an important place within the publishing industry. For this reason, I have
chosen Bridget Jones’s Diary, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Sex and the City
(three culturally significant Chick franchises) to approach said genre from a critical
perspective with the aim of exposing and challenging its primarily traditional,
conservative content. The present work will examine the perpetuation of such
oppressive ideologies as patriarchy and heteronormativity in the aforementioned
Chick texts while also challenging their equation of femininity with commodity
consumption, childbearing, and ditziness.
v
INTRODUCING THE CHICKS
It was a calm, ordinary, sunny Sunday afternoon the day I went to the movies
with my friends to watch The Proposal (2009), one of many Chick-Flicks with Sandra
Bullock. In this movie, Bullock plays the role of Margaret Tate, an editor who lives
in, where else but, New York City. Margaret is the epitome of the New York woman.
She is the prototype that modern women aspire to be: attractive, stylish, professional,
successful, determined, and assertive. When we first meet Margaret, she is dressed all
in black, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, stilletos clacking as she makes her way
through her office. Margaret’s black suit inspires respect and her demeanor fear. Her
coworkers pretend to be busy when she walks by. They do not want to attract her
attention because they know the outcome will be bad.
You already know the kind of woman Margaret is. You have seen her in many
other movies and you have read about her in a myriad of novels: she is Miranda
Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Jenna Rink from 13 Going on 30
(2004), Andie from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Miranda Hobbes from Sex
and the City (2008), and Abby Richter from The Ugly Truth (2009). The
aforementioned characters are all representative of the common vilification of women
in film, especially in films produced for and marketed to a female audience. For
example, Andie Anderson is assigned to write an article on how to lose a guy
(referring to one romantically involved with) in ten days. She is forced to perform the
how-to-lose-a-guy-in-ten-days experiment on an unsuspecting man so as not to be
fired. In the process, she lies and ridicules him. In like manner, Andrea (Andy) Sachs
is portrayed in the popular summer blockbuster The Devil Wears Prada as a young,
single woman whose work obligations cause her relationship with boyfriend Nate to
fall apart. Like Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbes, she is portrayed as negligent
when she prioritizes her career over her romantic partner. The film 13 Going on 30
also presents the image of a cold-hearted, conniving working woman named Jenna
Rink, who completely disregards and abuses all of her friends and coworkers. This
way, the plots of the aforementioned movies portray young women (especially
working, professional, single women) as cold-hearted, selfish, cruel, and conniving.
Of course, in true Chick-Flick and romantic comedy fashion, the heroine and her love
reconcile by the conclusion of the narrative. The heroine recognizes her wrongdoing
and the couple either gets married or happily remains together.
1
The happy ending of romantic comedies and Chick-Flicks is a double edged
sword because within a resolution based on heterosexual union and romantic love lay
complex issues of representation that must be addressed. The formulaic ending of a
happy couple in love is standard in Chick-Flicks. It is very rare to find a Chick-Flick
in which the romantic relationship between the heroine and her boyfriend is not
consolidated. Customary endings of heterosexual happy love in said films leave little
room for alternate endings and their acceptance in the imagination of their audiences.
For example, the representation of the single, working woman as an inconsiderate,
coldhearted bitch who finds happiness and balance in her life only when she is in a
relationship with a man limits the possibilities for the conceptualization of the chance
for happiness in other circumstances that do not involve a heterosexual relationship,
such as singledom or being in a same sex relationship.
Chick-Flicks and the Chick-Lit novels from which many of them originate
need to be analyzed for their content. As popular, widely-consumed texts, they have
tremendous influence on their mostly female audience. Their content and its
implications should not be taken lightly and certainly should not be ignored. I have
chosen three Chick-Lit novels and their film adaptations to analyze the predominance
of an overall negative, derogatory, portrayal of women as ditzy, conniving,
materialistic, and overtly concerned with romantic, committed relationships. The
three novels I will be analyzing in this study are Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a
Shopaholic (2001), Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City (1997), and Helen Fielding’s
Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996). I will include the film adaptations of these novels as
examples of contemporary Chick-Flicks in which women are wrongly portrayed. I
have chosen the aforementioned Chick-Lit novels and their film adaptations for this
project because of their popularity as books and as films and because they are all great
examples of texts that put forward an inaccurate representation of young single
women.
The aforementioned novels are definitely not canonical literary works. In like
manner, their film adaptations do not figure as part of Hollywood’s best ever film
classics. Nevertheless, these cinematic and literary texts are certainly not banal or
irrelevant. They represent a good example of a myriad of popular texts that contain a
problematic representation of single, young woman at the turn of the 21st century. In
addition to examining the representation of young, single women and the perpetuation
of heteronormativity in the aforementioned Chick texts, I will address other equally
2
relevant issues such as the representation of the female body as a battleground, to
borrow Barbara Kruger’s phrase, where issues of health, image, objectification, and
consumption, just to name a few, are contested.1 I will also address issues of marriage
and reproduction put forth in Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sex and the City, and
Confessions of a Shopaholic, both the novels and their film adaptations. It is common
to find that Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit novels portray marriage as a holy grail of
sorts, one which the heroine must reach before it is too late, meaning before her egg
count drops due to her age, even if she is only in her 30s. I find terribly disturbing the
emphasis that Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit place on marriage and coupledom as
gateways to happiness. I will also examine closely the representation of women in
Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit novels in order to take a close look at issues of inclusion
and exclusion within the female community in popular culture. The following pages
will address the widespread urgency to marry and the emphasis on “compulsory
heterosexuality,” borrowing from Adrienne Rich, present in Chick-Lit and ChickFlicks from a feminist perspective so as to put forward a critique that challenges not
only traditional views of femininity but also of sexuality 2. It is also my aim to contest
the predominant definition of femininity as authentic, good, and valid only if maledependent and retail-obsessed. I strongly believe that heterosexual marriage, with the
aim of reproduction, and retail dependence are two of the most oppressive forces for
women in contemporary times.
I would like to go back now to my anecdote about watching The Proposal at
the movies that Sunday afternoon the summer of 2009. I remember savoring the salt
and sweetness of my super-sized Coke and popcorn combo when Margaret, Bullock’s
character, is kindly offered help with her heavy luggage by one of the male
characters. Andrew, her fake fiancé, who she has coerced to pass as her beau at the
risk of losing his job, quickly replies “Oh don’t worry. She can do it. She’s a
feminist.” Margaret throws a hard look in his direction, smirks and grabs her luggage
struggling all the while as she tries to get it into the awaiting boat. As I watched the
scene unfold before my eyes my most immediate reaction was to laugh. I was
stupefied by the inaccurate representation of feminists that said film puts forth. Sadly,
1
See Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground). 1989. Web. 28 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.barbarakruger.com/index.php>.
2
Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” U of Georgia, Dr. BennetAlexander. Web. 16 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.terry.uga.edu/~dawndba/4500compulsoryhet.htm>.
3
The Proposal is not the only film that makes use of the term “feminist” as derogatory
and that represents feminist women in a less than positive light. The image of the
feminist woman in the sphere of popular culture tends to be erroneous to the extreme.
Oftentimes, feminist women are thought of and represented as coldhearted, selfish,
man-hating, man-eaters who think they can have it all and do it all by themselves.
Allow me to pose a few rhetorical questions: What does being feminist have to do
with declining needed help from men or anyone else? In addition, why is being a
feminist woman equated with being a man-hater? Where does this equation come
from? These questions represent some of the most popular misconceptions about
feminists. The media distorts and manipulates the image of the feminist woman to the
extent that it casts her as an ogre of sorts or, to use a more common term, a bitch.
Watching this popular representation of a feminist in The Proposal made the need to
write this dissertation even more apparent. Not only are working women demonized
as heartless bitches but feminist women are demonized as well. bell hooks points out
that “most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media,” a clear example
being The Proposal (Feminism 1). It is our task then as feminists and as scholars to
challenge patriarchal mass media and any negative portrayal that it makes of women.
It is my aim to engage in challenging and critiquing “patriarchal mass media” by
analyzing such popular, widespread, accessible genres as Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit
novels.
The demonization and vilification of feminist ideals, especially independence
and self-sufficiency, and feminism in general are distinguishing features of what is
known as postfeminism. As Susan Faludi and many other feminist scholars argue,
postfeminism is characterized by the large role that the media plays in debasing the
many benefits and rights earned through activism by previous generations of
feminists. I will discuss the origins of postfeminism and its relationship to the media
in the first chapter of this project with hopes of providing the reader with a working
definition of said term and an understanding of the current issues in feminist theory
and practice. Having basic knowledge about postfeminism as a term and as a stage
within feminism will aid in the analysis of the representation of women in Sex and the
City, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Bridget Jones’s Diary, the novels and their
film adaptations.
This project came about as the need to challenge patriarchy through the
analysis of the representation of women in popular film and literature became more
4
and more evident. As I contest the representation (or mis-representation) of women in
Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks I hope to engage in what is called consciousness
raising. Sarah Gamble defines consciousness raising as “the move to transform what
is experienced as personal into analysis in political terms, with the accompanying
recognition that ‘the personal is political’, that the male power is exercised and
reinforced through ‘personal’ institutions such as marriage, child rearing and sexual
practices” (30). By turning my indignation over the inaccurate and derogatory
representation of women and feminists in the media into a challenge through the
written word I hope to create consciousness about this great problem of
misrepresentation in the field of popular culture. The personal is political and this
dissertation is certainly a political move.
bell hooks points out that “[feminism] became and remains a privileged
discourse available to those among us who are highly literate, well educated, and
usually materially privileged” (Feminism 5). hooks argues instead for a feminism that
is for everybody, not only for a select group of people in academia. Feminism is for
the single and the married woman, the working woman, the single and the married
mother, the childless woman, the divorced, the lesbian, the heterosexual woman, the
Caucasian woman, the African- American woman, the Latina, the Asian. Feminism is
for every woman as well as for every man because a true feminist will see men as
allies and comrades, to use hooks’ terms, in the struggle against sexism and
patriarchal oppression. Feminism needs to be conceptualized as a movement for
everyone, not only for scholars and theorists who spend their time in small rooms
reading dusty books and writing obscure, incomprehensible babble. Part of the reason
why I chose widely known, popular texts for this project is to bring feminism out of
academia and out of the literary and filmic canon. The need to make a feminist
analysis accessible is also part of the reason why I choose to start this project by
defining the main concepts that I will be discussing: gender, femininity, and woman.
It is always a good idea to define key terms because it allows for a certain degree of
uniformity in their interpretation. Once a basic definition is established it can be
challenged, contested, and modified.
5
CHAPTER ONE
DEFINING TERMS
PART 1
DOING GENDER: DEFINING FEMININITY
Sex and gender are different concepts, even if they are often conflated. The
most common conflation of sex and gender is the gendering of newborn babies as
feminine and masculine at hospitals around the world. As soon as a baby girl is born,
she is wrapped in a pink blanket and dressed in a pink onesie. Baby boys are wrapped
in blue blankets and exit the hospital in blue onesies. Every day hundreds of babies
are gendered as feminine or masculine according to their biological sex. Little girls
are gendered feminine because they have vaginas and little boys are gendered
masculine because they have penises.3 The colors pink and blue serve as socially
shared visual signifiers of their sex and corresponding gender. It is a very common
mistake to assume that the shape of sexual organs necessarily determines gender,
which is why people presuppose that a baby girl will automatically be feminine and a
baby boy automatically masculine and dress them in colors that western culture
associates with these genders. It is my purpose in this chapter to present theories that
challenge the categories sex and gender, paying special attention to femininity and its
conceptualization as the opposite of masculinity. It is my aim to analyze this binary in
order to contest it. Questioning habitual definitions of masculinity and femininity will
help in understanding the many flaws behind the representation of femininity in
Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks.
Before proceeding in my analysis some definitions are in order. According to
Michael S. Kimmel, sex refers to the biological component of our bodies “our
chromosomal, chemical, anatomical organization” (3). On the other hand, gender
refers to the meanings attributed to the body according to its sex. Thus, the categories
male and female refer to sex and masculine and feminine to gender. Needless to say,
masculinity is associated with males and femininity with females. The terms
masculine and feminine denote a set of behavioral patterns, characteristics, and shared
3
Not all babies are born with genitalia that can be categorized as female or male. Intersex incidence is
quite high. Studies suggest that statistics about the birth of intersex babies are not accurate because the
stigma that the condition bears, in conjunction with patient confidentiality laws, prevents parents and
doctors from reporting intersex births. In addition, there are many kinds of intersexuality and there is
no single accepted definition of intersexuality. Nevertheless, Chau and Herring point out that 17 babies
per thousand born could be labeled intersex.
6
social and cultural practices that distinguish one from the other. For example, traits
such as assertiveness, independence, and authority are most often associated with
masculinity. The opposite of the aforementioned traits are widely associated with
femininity. In like manner, everyday activities like tending the house, childcare, and
shopping are associated with the female sex and femininity whereas activities like
contact sports, home repair, and outdoor activities are associated with males and
masculinity. Simply defined, gender is “what it means to be a man or a woman,” a
boy or a girl, in society (3).
It is important to point out that the practices and behaviors associated with
femininity and masculinity are culturally specific. They vary “within any one culture
at any one time- by race, class, ethnicity, age, sexuality, education, region of the
country, etc” (Kimmel 95). Therefore, contrary to popular belief, gender is not static,
but fluid. Societal expectations related to gender change not only over time but also
within a particular culture as well as cross-culturally. The set of behaviors and traits
that constitute masculinity and femininity are shared and passed down from
generation to generation by the members of any one community. This way, the
members of a community all share the same notion of what it means to be a man and
what it means to be a woman. Shared, expected behaviors related to femininity and
masculinity give way to the prevalence of the concept of gender roles.
Closely related to gender roles is role theory. R. W. Connell defines role
theory as “the approach to social structure which locates its basic constraints in
stereotyped interpersonal expectations” (48). There are many formulations of role
theory and many applications of its basic tenets to the study of interpersonal relations.
According to Connell, all formulations of role theory share five points in common.
The first two of these points state the “essential metaphor” of an actor and a script and
the remaining three state “the means by which the social drama is set in motion and
held to its script” (47). The five points of role theory are
1. an analytic distinction between the person and the social
position she occupies
2. a set of actions or role behaviours which are assigned to the
position
3. role expectations or norms define which actions are appropriate
to a given position
7
4. [role expectations] are held by people occupying counterpositions […]
5. [those occupying counter positions] enforce them by means of
sactions- rewards, punishments, positive and negative
reinforcements (47, emphasis in original)
R.W. Connell notes that role theory can be applied to “almost any type of
human behaviour, and in either very general or very narrow terms” (48). He explains
that those who apply role theory to the study of human interactions as influenced by
sex and gender hold the idea that “being a man or a woman means enacting a general
role definitive of one’s sex –the ‘sex role.’” Connell states that there are “always two
sex roles in any given context, the ‘male role’ and the ‘female role’” which are “less
commonly but equivalently called ‘man’s role’ and ‘woman’s role,’ the ‘masculine’
or ‘feminine role,’ etc.” (48). His statement quickly points to the common conflation
of sex and gender in popular consciousness which associates roles with sex rather
than with gender. Roles refer not to a woman’s role or to a man’s role, as people
usually think. Rather, they refer to femininity and masculinity or the series of
behaviors and characteristics a man and a woman must comply with in order to be
considered as such by his/her community and fit in as “normal” gendered citizens.
Many experts (among which figure Connell and Kimmel) reject role theory as
an approach for the study of gender. Connell lists a series of virtues and flaws
inherent in role theory. He points out that the main virtue of role theory is that it
conceptualizes the subordination of women in relation to men as a product of role
expectations. Therefore, if what oppresses women are expectations then what must be
done to achieve a positive change is modify those expectations. He also argues that
role theory “offers principles for a politics of reform” because it pinpoints both the
problem and its solution; the problem being wrongly informed expectations and the
solution modifying those expectations (49). Certainly, modifying expectations is not
as daunting a task as changing mindsets completely. On the other hand, role theory
has several major flaws. Perhaps its most salient flaw is that it essentializes gender as
a matter of praised or sanctioned role playing. Role theory reduces sex and gender to
“an invariant biological base [sex] and a malleable social superstructure [role]” where
the two are juxtaposed in such a way that differences are conceptualized in terms of
“between” instead of “in relation to” (Connell 50). In other words, role theory
perpetuates the idea that differences exist between men and women instead of among
8
men and women, thus ascribing static, unchangeable roles for each as right and
biologically ordained. As Michael S. Kimmel points out, “sex role theory is unable to
account for the differences among men or among women because it always begins
from the normative prescriptions of sex roles rather than the experience of men and
women themselves” (91, emphasis in original). In addition, role theory allows for the
study of gender only in terms of masculinity and femininity. The idea of a “woman’s
role” and a “man’s role” leaves no space for anything other than traditional male and
female roles. Therefore, gender identities other than traditional masculinity and
femininity (or, as Connell denominates them, hegemonic masculinity and emphasized
femininity) are excluded from the role schema. As a result, gender identities such as
lesbian femininity and gay masculinity are deemed as abnormalities and, as a result,
rejected.
The word “role” in “role theory” and “sex role theory” indicates that there is
an element of theatricality involved in the performance of gender, as the phrases
“women’s role” and “men’s role” (often used in analysis involving role theory)
indicate. Curiously enough, the roles examined within an analytical frame informed
by role theory are very different from those played by actors and actresses in the
theater. Roles in theater fluctuate and are not sex-specific. Actors and actress can play
any role onstage, whether it is in accordance with the sex of the individual or not.
Think of Elizabethan theatre, for example, where males performed female roles
onstage. Role theory is not as fluid when it comes to offering a framework for
analyzing sex roles. It stipulates that sex roles are dictated by biological sex and are
performed in accordance with societal norms. An analysis informed by role theory
runs the risk of normalizing gender performance as two distinct genders (namely
masculinity and femininity) without offering space for the inclusion of fluidity in
terms of an individual’s gender identity and sexuality. Sex role theory, although
contradictory in its name and actual conceptual structure, serves as a segue into what
is arguably the leading conceptual perspective in gender studies: performativity.
Because roles based on sex are shared by the members of any given
community, they are expected within that particular group of people to be uniform
and static in nature. A man is expected to behave in a “manly” way and a woman in a
“womanly” way, whatever that might encompass according to the culture and time
period in question. The basic idea behind most role concepts is that “being a man or a
woman means enacting a general role definitive to one’s sex- the ‘sex role’” or the
9
“‘man’s role’ or ‘woman’s role’, the ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine role’, etc.” (Connell
48). These roles are acted out or performed by individuals on an every-day basis as
they carry out their daily activities and deal with the many situations that social
interaction brings. Newer perspectives in gender studies leave behind the concept of
sex roles and approach gender not as a “‘thing’ that one possesses” or, I would add, as
a given or assigned quality, but as a “set of activities that one does” (Kimmel 113,
emphasis in original). In other words, gender is a socially acted-out activity. It is “less
a property of the individual than it is the product of our interactions with others”
(Kimmel 113). We are all actors when it comes to gender. We act out our roles as
masculine or feminine individuals as we see fit according to the circumstances in
which we find ourselves. Feminist theorist Judith Butler is credited with expanding
the idea of gender and performance. She placed the theory of performativity at the
forefront of gender studies. Her theory has been adopted by a myriad of disciplines in
addition to literary and women’s studies, among which figure sociology and
psychology. But before Butler formulated her theory, Joan Riviere preceded her by
presenting one of the first perspectives that posits gender, in this case femininity, as a
performative act.
Parting from a psychoanalytic perspective, Joan Riviere studies gender in a
manner similar to Butler. Riviere’s essay “Womanliness as Masquerade,” published
in 1927, precedes Butler’s theory of gender as a performative act by 63 years. It
represents an early attempt at understanding gender (in this case femininity) as an act
of performance, a masquerade, dependent upon the circumstances that surround the
individual. Unlike Butler, Riviere conceptualizes gender strictly in terms of
masculinity and femininity and posits these as binary opposites. Riviere’s
configuration of gender in binary terms is exemplified in the distinction she makes
between feminine women and masculine women. Riviere explains that her subject for
the study of womanliness is an “overtly masculine type of woman” (128). With this
description, she makes a clear distinction between women who are traditionally
feminine and those who are not. Given the year in which Riviere published her essay,
it should not come as a surprise that her denomination of an “overtly masculine type
of women” refers to two types of women specifically: working women and
homosexual women. The underlying assumption in Riviere’s argument is that
working women are masculine or are more masculine than non-working women and
that lesbians are more masculine than heterosexual women. Unfortunately, not
10
withstanding the passing of time, these assumptions about working women and
lesbians are still prevalent in today’s society.
According to Riviere, the display of masculinity in women brings about a
negative reaction from men, which is why women who “wish for masculinity” often
“put on a mask of womanliness” to avoid a negative reaction from men (128).
Therefore, there is an element of performativity in gender, of pretending or acting in
order to achieve a desired goal. Riviere argues that womanliness or femininity can
assume the role of a “masquerade,” a disguise or costume of sorts, that some women
wear in order to conceal their masculinity. In every individual case that Riviere
describes, women adjust their display of womanliness (or femininity) in order to
cover-up their manliness. For example, she tells the story of a housewife who “can
herself attend to typically masculine matters” around the house but when she requires
the help of a male worker for a specific task she feels the need to hide all her
knowledge about it. I am assuming that the housework that Riviere refers to here
involves some sort of superior physical strength and is therefore more masculine than,
for example, washing dirty laundry, for her. Riviere explains that this woman “cannot
openly take up a firm straightforward stand.” Instead, the housewife acts in a
submissive and innocent manner. She quotes this woman as saying that she “feels
herself as ‘acting a part’” when she assumes a submissive and unknowing attitude.
The woman puts on the guise of a “rather uneducated, foolish, and bewildered
woman” in front of male workers so as not to seem as if she was imposing her
authority over them (132). In other words, the housewife feels that she is putting on
an act when carrying out a public display of traditional femininity or what Connell
calls emphasized femininity, a term I will discuss in detail later.
Although Riviere establishes a distinction between feminine women and
working women, she is quick to point out that not all working women are masculine.
She explains,
[o]f all the women engaged in professional work today, it would be
hard to say whether the greater number are more feminine than
masculine in their mode of life and character. In the university life, in
scientific professions and business, one constantly meets women who
seem to fulfill every criterion of complete feminine development.
(128)
11
Riviere’s attempt at clarifying that there are women in academia, business, and
the sciences (all fields still dominated by men) who are feminine is valid and
understandable given the historical context of her essay. Nevertheless, the formulation
of Riviere’s argument is problematic because of her use of the word “seem,” given its
underlying sense of uncertainty. For Riviere, the “complete feminine development” of
women in the aforementioned fields is dubious. The underlying assumption being that
work is unfeminine or that it impedes a woman’s ability to be traditionally feminine
and thus renders her as different.
The tendency to think about work and traditional emphasized femininity as
practically incompatible is very much a contemporary issue. Its resilience to change
throughout time points to a temporal continuity of gender binaries that not only
configures femininity and masculinity as opposites but also assigns specific cultural
and social arenas to these manifestations of gender. The resulting dichotomy places
femininity within the private sphere of the home and masculinity within the public
sphere of work. Riviere clearly points to this binary between genders when she states
that she “constantly meets women who seem to fulfill every criterion of complete
feminine development” as if she could not be completely sure that working women
could be feminine (128). The juxtaposition between femininity and work in Riviere’s
argument gains particular relevance within the analysis of Chick-Lit novels and
Chick-Flicks. It is a reason of great concern to realize the prevalence and popularity
of literary and filmic texts where lesbians and working women are portrayed in a
negative light. Riviere formulated her argument about the incompatibility of
womanliness and work in 1927. Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks perpetuate
the dichotomy between womanliness, or femininity, and work today, in the year
2011.
The existing binary between femininity and masculinity represented and
perpetuated in popular culture through literary works and films underscores the
importance of the study of gender not only as a human quality that influences
people’s behavior but also as a key element in the shaping of power structures within
any given community. These power structures shape social institutions such as the
school, the family, and work— all of which are “gendered institutions, organized to
reproduce the differences and the inequalities between women and men” (Kimmel
91). Within the education system, children are sometimes segregated because of their
sex, girls going to all-girl schools and boys to all-boy schools. Segregation is not the
12
only form of sex inequality in schools. Sex and gender inequality is also perpetuated
in the educational system at the ideological level through the individual and collective
practices of teachers who teach children differently based on prejudices informed by
gender stereotypes. According to Kimmel, teachers tend to “perceive boys as active,
capable of expressing anger, quarrelsome, punitive, alibi-building, and exhibitionistic,
and they perceive girls as affectionate, obedient, responsive, and tenacious.” He
points out that “[m]any teachers assume that girls are likely to ‘love’ reading and
‘hate’ mathematics and sciences, and they expect the opposite of boys.” Kimmel
observes that “teachers call on boys more often and spend more time with them” in
the classroom. They “ask boys more challenging questions than they do girls, and
wait longer for boys to answer (Kimmel 162). This way, gender differences among
the sexes are acted-out and both directly and indirectly learned, enforced, and
perpetuated in society through the education system.
Within the family, gender roles often dictate chores and tasks, women being
relegated to the home and childcare and men to labor outside the house. Kimmel
points out that the division of labor within the familial household was largely
influenced by the advent of paid labor. He explains that by the middle of the
nineteenth century “a gap between work and home grew dramatically, both in reality
and in ideology to create the separation of spheres,” the “workplace and the home”
were “clearly demarcated as his and hers” respectively (120, emphasis in original).
Men experienced a growing distance from household duties as “[p]aid work shifted
from home and farm to mill and factory, shop and office.” On the other hand, women
became “‘imprisoned’ in the home by the new ideology of feminine domesticity”
which reconceptualized housework “not as ‘work’ at all, but rather as a God given
mission” thus relegating the work done by women within the family to a lower status
than that of men (120). Children also experience gender inequality within the
institution of the family. According to Kimmel, “[p]arents possess a set of genderspecific ideas of what their children need” because “they were themselves socialized
to some belief in what girls and boys of various ages like” (129). Parents’ genderbased beliefs about the behavior, skills, and abilities of their children affect the way
they raise them. Parents are prone to treat their sons “as if they are ‘naturally’ sturdy
and active” and teach their daughters to “be more delicate and gentle” (Kimmel 130).
They also tend to reinforce gender stereotypes by buying gendered toys for their
children, like dolls for girls and trucks for boys.
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At work, gender inequality is manifested most notably in salary differences
between men and women. This inequality in salaries is referred to as the wage gap.
According to Kimmel, “[o]n average, working women bring home $192 a week less
than men.” He points out that salary differences between men and women are often
justified not as a gender or sex-inequality but simply as “paying people doing
different jobs” when in reality it is “paying different genders differently for doing
roughly the same jobs with the same skill levels” (193, emphasis in original). In
addition to facing wage differences, women encounter certain obstacles in common
when trying to get ahead in their jobs and land promotions. These difficulties are
popularly referred to as “the glass ceiling” and the “sticky floor.” What is known as
“the glass ceiling” consists of “those artificial barriers, based on attitudinal or
organizational bias, that prevent qualified individuals from advancing upward within
their organization into management level positions” (Martin qted. in Kimmel 195).
The “sticky floor” theory refers to the series of gender-based obstacles that keep
women “trapped in low wage positions, with little opportunity for upward mobility”
(195). Gender and sex inequality in the workplace manifested through wage
differences and restrictions in women’s ability to achieve progress in their jobs and
gain upward social mobility results in a grave societal problem as women are
relegated to a position of subordination in relation to men within the sphere of labor.
The differences between men and women in the workplace result in poorer living
conditions for women in relation to their male peers. According to Kimmel, “[d]uring
the course of her lifetime, the average working woman will lose about $420,000” in
relation to her male peers (193). Inequalities in the workplace are just another way in
which shared societal ideas about differences based on gender work to place women
in a subordinate position in relation to men within any given social institution.
Gender differences and the prevalence of gender roles affect every aspect of
our daily lives. Whether it is in the family, the workplace, or the school, gender and
sex play a crucial role in the way men and women are socialized. Gender and roles
associated with men and women are more often than not conceptualized as binaries
where the female and femininity are relegated to a position of subordination in
relation to males and masculinity. In order to improve our quality of life and lessen
differences between the sexes it is necessary to dispense with the tradition of thinking
about gender only in terms of masculinity and femininity and conceptualizing them as
binaries. The solution is to expand our horizons and consider the idea, predominant in
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the field of gender studies, that there are many kinds of femininities and many kinds
of masculinities. The cultural predominance of traditional masculinity and traditional
femininity is such that they obliterate variants to the point of rendering them invisible
and abnormal. Connell offers an analysis of gender in terms of hegemonic masculinity
and emphasized femininity, terms that he uses to refer to traditional masculinity and
femininity. Notice his use of the term “hegemonic” in relation only to masculinity.
The use of the Gramscian term “hegemony” points to predominance achieved through
ideology rather than that achieved by means of brute force. Connell justifies his use of
“hegemonic” only in relation to masculinity by stating that “there is no femininity that
is hegemonic in the sense that the dominant form of masculinity is hegemonic among
men” basically because femininity or “the feminine character,” in Viola Klein’s
words, is harder to define than masculinity (183; Klein qted. in Connell 183). Connell
defines hegemonic masculinity as a masculinity that is “always constructed in relation
to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women” (183). He
explains that it feeds “on the maintenance of practices that institutionalize men’s
dominance over women” (185). Without a doubt, one such practice is marriage. The
handing down of a bride to a groom clearly underscores the predominance of the
conceptualization of women as an object of trade. Another important characteristic of
hegemonic masculinity is that it relies on heterosexuality as a means of maintaining a
hegemonic relationship to femininity and other masculinities such as homosexual
masculinity and metrosexual masculinity, which have been marginalized for much
of western history.
R.W. Connell refers to traditional femininity as emphasized femininity. He
defines emphasized femininity as a form of femininity based on compliance with “the
global subordination of women to men” by allowing the “interests and desires of
men” to take a position of relevance over those of women (183). In other words,
emphasized femininity implies submission to any ideology, social structure or
practice informed by hegemonic masculinity. He explains that emphasized femininity
consists largely of “the display of sociability rather than technical competence,
fragility in mating scenes, compliance with men’s desire for titillation and egostroking in office relationships, [and the] acceptance of marriage and childcare as a
response to labourmarket discrimination against women” (187). Connell adds that
emphasized femininity is “specially linked with the private realm of the home and the
bedroom” leaving the opposite, the outside or public sphere, as realms of the
15
masculine (187). Femininities other than emphasized femininity are “defined centrally
by strategies of resistance or forms of non-compliance” or by “complex strategic
combinations of compliance, resistance and co-operation” (Connell 183). Therefore,
femininities such as those involving widowhood or those of single, childless adult
women are often believed to have an element of political resistance, which might or
might not be the case.
As previously stated, gender is not a thing but a process. It is socially
constructed, and dependent upon culture and historical context. Therefore, gender is
fluid and variable. For these reasons, it is only right to think of masculinity and
femininity in such terms and to think also of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized
femininity as only two of the many existing models of gender. The predominance of
hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity over other masculinities and
femininities serves only to render the experiences of individuals who do not adhere to
them as inexistent, deviant, abnormal, and/or wrong. In the case of women,
prostitutes, lesbians, and “spinsters,” just to name a few, are often left out at the
margins or looked down upon. They are seen as bad examples to other women
basically because they do not adhere to a model of gender based on the performance
of emphasized femininity. They do not wear the masque of (emphasized) femininity,
as Riviere would say. So-called spinsters are socially cast out because they opt out of
the patriarchal social ceremony of matrimony. Lesbians face rejection because they
do not adhere to the socially predominant heteronormative model of traditionally
romantic relationships. Prostitutes are not considered model citizens or model women
basically because they reject monogamy, a pillar of patriarchal society. This way,
emphasized femininity, like hegemonic masculinity, excludes femininities other than
itself from general social consciousness and renders them as deviations from the norm
when in reality they are not deviations but variations of a predominant model of
gender performance.
Judith Butler follows Riviere’s steps in formulating gender as a performative
act. According to Butler, gender is a “corporeal style” or an “act,” in the theatrical or
dramatic sense of the word (190, emphasis in original). It is “intentional and
performative” in that the individual has agency in choosing how to act out his/her
gender (190). Butler states that the performance of gender “is not a singular act, but a
repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization in the
context of a body” (xv). In other words, gender is performed or carried out through a
16
set of acts that signify in relation to each other, as opposed to individually. These acts
are culturally informed and repeated throughout time, like a ritual. The gender binary
relies on and requires the repetition of every-day gendered acts in order to exist.
Common and seemingly meaningless ordinary acts such as gestures, way of dress and
speech intonation are performative in the sense that they are carried out in a variety of
ways by individuals. As performative acts, they convey a message about the
individual’s gender. They work as “corporeal signs” that inform the body with
meaning and render it a text: an entity with interpretable meaning (Butler 185). Thus,
the femininity of a woman who dons a pixie haircut and whose wardrobe consists of
jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers might be interpreted as androgynous or even masculine
by some. In contrast, a woman who chooses to wear her hair long and dresses in skirts
and high heels is likely to be considered authentically feminine or more feminine than
the woman wearing short hair just because of her appearance.
Butler explains that the repetition of gendered acts constitutes a “reenactment
and reexperiencing of meanings already socially established” (191). Thus, they create
the “illusion” of what Butler calls “an interior and organizing gender core” that is
“maintained for the purposes of the regulation of sexuality within the obligatory
frame of reproductive heterosexuality.” Butler’s statement makes the relationship
between gender and sexuality apparent as she links gender performance with
sexuality. According to her, gender is coded in such a way that it works to maintain
“reproductive heterosexuality” (185). In turn, this coding of gender serves to
perpetuate ideas, social practices and traits characteristic of hegemonic masculinity.
The predominant working gender structure contributes to enable the subordination of
women in relation to men through the perpetuation of social institutions and practices
that are based on heterosexuality and patriarchal ideology. It is important to point out
that the perpetuation of current gender codes relies not only in performance and
repetition but also in representation. Butler explains that “[g]ender requires a
performance that is repeated” (191). I would add to her statement: and represented in
the cultural sphere in a consistent manner through texts such as movies, literature,
music, etc. For what better way is there to maintain the status quo and guarantee the
reproduction of ideological frameworks than through the use of popular media?
Butler’s theory of gender and performativity is much more complex than what
I have ventured to analyze and share so far. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this
work, it suffices to establish that gender is performative. Gender is an act, the acting17
out of a series of social rituals that code us as masculine or feminine. It is up to the
individual to negotiate his/her conception of his/her gender and sex and his/her
working out of these rituals in order to assume his/her gender how he/she wants to.
Gender is an act and we, like the actors on a stage, act it out everyday.
18
PART II
DEFINING FEMINISM/DEFINING POSTFEMINISM
Although defining feminism and postfeminism is not as daunting a task as
defining woman, it is by no means an easy feat. Within academia, the label “feminist”
denotes independence, progressive thinking and activism. Outside academia, the term
has very different connotations. For example, think of the use of the popular term
“feminazi” to refer to a feminist woman or the popular stereotype of feminists as
angry, violent man-haters. The reference to the German Nazi party makes “feminazi”
a pejorative term since it establishes a relationship between feminism and the
atrocities of the Nazi party during World War II. The difference between the
conceptualization of the term “feminist” in academic and non-academic environments
is abysmal. Scholars versed in the rich tradition of feminist theory are knowledgeable
about feminism, its origins, and general agenda whereas individuals who are not
involved in academia are more likely they not to be as versed in this tradition and are
therefore prone to make wrong assumptions about it. I find it necessary at this point to
define both terms, feminism and postfeminism, not only to foster a better
understanding of their meaning but to provide some uniformity to their use in the
following pages.
In general, feminism is mostly associated with the late 19th century votingrights movement. Ask a group of undergraduate college students to tell you when
feminism started and they will most likely say that it started when the suffragettes led
demonstrations demanding the right of women to vote both in Britain and the United
States. Attribute this misconception to what you may, high-school history classes or
popular films like Iron Jawed Angels (2004). The reality is that before being a
political movement, feminism started quietly as a private enterprise when women
started to assert their rights: their right to speak at the table, to receive an education, to
own property, to work, and to write and publish. The Women’s Suffrage Movement
and the Women’s Liberation Movement are credited with initiating and fueling the
modern feminist movement. Nevertheless, feminism started decades before the
aforementioned popular movements. Women like Queen Elizabeth I of England,
Mary Wollstonecraft and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz paved the way for women to
claim their rightful space in the public sphere. Even if the aforesaid women lived
during very different historical periods, they all shared a common goal, whether they
19
openly identified it or not. They sought to challenge patriarchal oppression and
sexism in their respective societies. For example, Queen Elizabeth (who reigned from
1558 to 1603) demanded and defended her control over her own body. She challenged
patriarchy and sexism by remaining unmarried and relentlessly carrying out her duties
as queen of England amid harsh opposition from those who believed women were not
able to rule a country. Years later, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of
the Rights of Women in 1792, thus challenging patriarchy by defending women’s
rationality and right to an education. In like manner, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a
prolific Mexican Baroque writer, defended women’s humanity and right to an
education; she criticized sexism, relied on science to understand and explain the world
around her, and openly talked about her erotic feelings. De la Cruz’s openness
brought her great criticism not only because she was a woman but also because she
was an ordained Catholic nun. Queen Elizabeth, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Sor Juana
Inés de la Cruz were women who challenged patriarchy and sexism by asserting their
abilities and, by extension, women’s ability to take an active role in society. They
were vocal about their needs and intruded in spheres dominated by men at the time,
such as politics and the literary arts. No matter how long ago the aforementioned
women lived, generations of feminists that came after them share the same goals as
their predecessors.
In essence, feminism is an ideology of resistance and opposition to oppressive
and limiting ideologies such as patriarchy and sexism. It is hard to define feminism as
theory or ideology because its definition varies across disciplines and cultures.
Nevertheless, Maggie Humm’s definition for said term is a good starting point. She
defines feminism as “an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for
women beyond simple social equality.” Humm goes on to add that “feminism is the
ideology of women’s liberation since intrinsic in all its approaches is the belief that
women suffer injustice because of our sex” (74). Nevertheless, she quickly points out
the differences in objectives and focus according to the many branches of this theory.
For example, Marxist and Socialist feminists “stress the interaction within feminism
of class with gender and focus on social distinctions between men and women” while
black feminists “argue much more for an integrated analysis which can unlock the
multiple systems of oppression” (Humm 75, emphasis in original). bell hooks expands
Humm’s definition by stating that feminism is “a commitment to reorganize society
so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism,
20
economic expansion, and material desires” (hooks qtd. in Dicker, 8). This definition is
unique because of the use of the word “commitment,” which stresses the importance
of action within feminism. Her definition positions social responsibility as a central
aim of feminism. For hooks, feminism is not only a theory or movement, but a
commitment with society at large aimed towards liberation from any kind of
oppression, be it racism, imperialism, or consumerism, to name a few.
Barbara Smith offers a definition of feminism that is very similar to hook’s
definition in that it emphasizes a feminist agenda based on inclusion, freedom, and
liberation. Both definitions stress the element of social commitment involved in the
action of helping an oppressed group (in this case women) overcome its position of
powerlessness. Smith defines feminism as
the political theory and practice that struggles to free all women:
women of color, working class women, poor women, disabled women,
Jewish women, lesbians, old women- as well as white, economically
privileged, heterosexual women, anything less than this vision of total
freedom is not feminism, but merely self-aggrandizement. (Smith qtd.
in Dicker 7, emphasis in original)
Many more definitions could be added to those aforementioned. Nevertheless,
a great number of these is not necessary in order to emphasize the fact that a
definition of feminism necessarily includes an agenda of intellectual resistance and
political activism. The purpose to which this agenda is applied changes according to
the feminist who employs it, whether it is demanding equal pay for women, posing a
challenge to heteronormativity, fighting for reproductive rights, contesting unequal
race relations, or the like. Smith’s definition of feminism will serve as a starting point
for the purposes of this work because of its emphasis on equality and inclusion among
women. In the spirit of inclusion and equality, I would like to further expand Smith’s
definition to include not only all women but also all men, all genders, and all sexes
because it is necessary to explode the male/female binary in order to achieve true
equality and true freedom from every kind of oppression.
The phrase “total freedom” in Barbara Smith’s definition will resound
throughout this project as I analyze images of women in popular culture while
criticizing and contesting dominating ideologies such as materialism, consumerism,
patriarchy, sexism, and heteronormativity. It is my aim to offer an analysis aimed at
liberation so as to give the reader a critical insight with hopes of inciting in him/her a
21
desire to challenge the many manifestations of patriarchal ideology operating in
today’s society. Patriarchal ideology is noticeable in a myriad of ways in present
times, which range from heteronormativity, to homophobia, to the constant regulation
and objectification of the female body in popular culture. Smith’s definition also
proves quite useful for this project because it emphasizes feminism’s duality as theory
and practice. I hope to engage in this duality by offering my analysis as a starting
point for readers to actively challenge oppression in their daily lives whether it is
through the printed word, the spoken word or the small but greatly significant actions
that fill the many days of our quotidian lives. Engaging in this resistance to
oppression will position us, you the reader and me, within the larger feminist struggle
to improve the living conditions of men and women all over the world. But we cannot
call ourselves feminists and engage in a feminist analysis without knowing how
feminism as “political theory and practice,” in Smith’s words, has evolved through
time and where it stands nowadays. I will offer a brief history of feminism in an effort
to situate this work within feminist discourse.
Stephanie Hodgson-Wright defines early feminism as “any attempt to contend
with patriarchy in its many manifestations between 1550-1700” (3). According to
Hodgson-Wright, and many other feminist scholars, first wave feminism started with
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication if the Rights of Women. After Wollstonecraft, the
feminist movement is divided into waves. Rory Dicker explains that the division of
the movement into waves facilitates the study of feminism by historians and scholars
alike. According to Dicker, the division of feminism into waves “seems to have first
appeared in March 1968, when Martha Lear wrote an article for The New York Times
in which she referred to a ‘second feminist wave.’” She points out that the terms first
wave and second wave became more popular during the 1960s and 1970s when
“women’s history developed as an academic specialty” and “feminists began to trace
their connections to the activists who preceded them referring to their precursors as
the first wave and themselves as the second” (5).
Wollstonecraft’s publication of Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792
gave way to the transformation of feminism into a political, public affair. It was in the
following century, the 1800s, that women started to mobilize and fight for their rights
collectively and politically. Feminism came out of the books and was thrust into the
streets as women openly and actively voiced their demand to be recognized as equal
citizens by being granted the right to vote. First wave feminist activists were fighting
22
for the right to be recognized as rational beings equal to men, for the right to receive
an education, the right to vote, and the right to own property. They achieved many
accomplishments in the three most important areas of concern for the newborn
movement: women’s suffrage, education, and the right to own property. One of these
accomplishments was England’s 1870 act, which granted protection to married
women by allowing them to “keep their earnings, and to inherit personal property,
with everything else going to their husbands” (Sanders 21). First wave feminists also
voiced their concerns about the exclusion of women from the law and governmental
decisions in general. In 1848 a group of American feminists held the Seneca Falls
Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, leaders of the American
suffrage movement, drafted the Declaration of Sentiments, a foundational document
of American feminism. The Declaration of Sentiments was outlined in the fashion of
the Declaration of Independence. It relied on Enlightenment principles of rationality,
individuality and equality to demand equal rights for women. Wollstonecraft’s
Vindication, the act of 1870, and the Seneca Falls Convention mark the beginning of
women’s efforts to exit the private realm of the home and enter the public realm of
politics in search of fair treatment from the state, the law, and their peers.
The biggest achievement of first wave feminism as a movement of political
activism was the enfranchisement of women. In the United States, laws granting
women the right to vote began to be passed as early as 1869 when women in
Wyoming were granted the vote. Nevertheless, it was not until 1920 that all American
women had the right to cast their votes. In England, women “were enfranchised on
the same terms as men” by 1928 (Sanders 27). Another major achievement was the
inclusion of women in schools and colleges, which was mainly achieved during the
1860s and 1870s (Sanders 25). Feminism began to lose steam shortly after women
gained the vote. Major historical events like World War II and the Great Depression
brought about dramatic societal changes. As a result, the focus shifted from the fight
for equal rights to the struggle to keep alive. Dicker explains that “out of necessity,
most American women turned away from women’s rights activism and devoted their
energies to physical survival” (61). During World War II many women had to go out
to work and be a part of the national war effort by helping to manufacture guns and
serving as nurses. After the war, when soldiers came home, many women willingly
“left the workforce and returned to lives of domesticity” while others “were fired
from their manufacturing jobs to make room for veterans who needed work” (Dicker
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64). The ensuing post-war celebration of domesticity placed women back in their
traditional role as a homemakers. The Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and
early 1960s brought about new energies and opened the way for a new generation of
feminist activists to take the lead. This new generation of feminists, the daughters of
first wave feminists, championed what is known as second wave feminism.
Second wave feminism is closely associated with the Women’s Liberation
Movement or “Women’s Lib,” as it is often referred to in a derogatory manner. The
Women’s Liberation movement helped conceptualize the female body as a site of
struggle and political contestation. Following the example of first wave feminists,
second wave feminists demanded equal rights and equal legal treatment, but they also
raised a number of new issues particular to their experience. Some of the issues
second wave feminists dealt with include the impending need of accessibility to birth
control methods and comprehensive health care for women, the fight for abortion
rights and rape protection laws, the quest for female sexual freedom, the need for
government-funded affordable childcare, and the fight against the objectification of
women in the media. The motto of second wave feminists was the slogan “the
personal is political.” Dicker explains that the phrase “the personal is political” was
coined by Carol Hanisch, a member of the group New York Revolutionary Women,
to mean that “the private arenas of home, marriage, and family reflected the power
dynamics of society at large” (81). It first appeared in Hanish’s Notes from the
Second Year when it was published in 1970. The slogan was meant to create
community between women and to inspire activism out of the sharing of common
experiences. The idea behind it was that “women’s personal experience…could
provide the inspiration and basis for a new politics” (Humm 162). With the slogan
“the personal is political,” second wave feminists erased the line between the private
and public spheres by arguing that whatever silently affects a woman in a private way
also affects many other women and can be used as a starting point for activism. In
other words, a woman’s private and individual struggles with “personal institutions
such as marriage, child-rearing and sexual practices” are also the struggles of many
women. They should be given utmost importance and should be voiced en masse in
order to achieve change (Thornham 30).
Closely linked to the concept of personal experience as a source for political
action is the practice of consciousness raising. Second wave feminists relied on this
method as a way to mobilize and rally women in the fight against oppression.
24
Consciousness raising is the act of women getting together in groups and sharing their
experiences with other women. Humm explains that it “relies on the idea that theory
must grow out of feelings and experience and that women speaking together can
generate collective political change.” The importance of consciousness raising is that
it “proves that individual experiences fit into a pattern which reflects a structure of
oppression” and “de-emphasizes women’s differences by focusing on experiences
women have in common” (Humm 36). Through consciousness raising groups, second
wave feminist activists fostered a sense of solidarity in the female community and
made even more evident the importance of this method in women’s fight against
oppression as a united group.
Even if consciousness raising proved effective in creating a sense of unity and
solidarity among women, it received strong criticism on the grounds that it
generalized women’s experiences by focusing on the experiences of white middleclass heterosexual women. African American women, Latinas, and lesbians were
among the first to voice their concern about the exclusion of their experiences from
mainstream feminism. They were, and still are, very vocal about the need to recognize
the particularities of their experiences as women who are members of a minority
group within society in general and, especially, the feminist community. For example,
lesbians organized in goal-specific groups with defined political agendas. One such
group was the short lived Radicalesbians. Political agendas within lesbian feminism
were based on the conceptualization of lesbianism as an act of rebellion and resistance
by identifying exclusive female companionship as a major blow to patriarchy. African
American women also voiced their concern about the disregard of their experience as
black women. Famed African American novelist Alice Walker coined the term
womanism to refer to a space within feminist discourse dedicated solely to the
experiences of African American women. Walker warns that womanism is “Black
feminism” but not separatism (Walker qted. in Humm 241). African American,
lesbian and Chicana feminists do not call for a complete separation from the larger
feminist community but for a space where they can voice the particularities of their
experiences so that their needs can be addressed accordingly.
The realization that feminism gave preference to the experiences of middleclass, heterosexual white women over those of women of other cultures, ethnicities
and/or sexual orientations brought about a sense of division or separation within
feminism because it placed difference at the forefront of a movement that relied on
25
the conceptualization of women as a unified, homogenous mass of people for the
purpose of successful political mobilization and action. Separatism within second
wave feminism gave way to what Rory Dicker calls a “theoretical breakthrough”
within the movement. According to Dicker, this breakthrough consists mainly in the
realization that “oppressions interconnect” (92). Feminists were able to work together
to make feminism a more inclusive social movement and theoretical school within
academia after recognizing the interconnectivity between different kinds of
oppression and the many dimensions that make up a subject’s always multifaceted
identity. Lesbian, African-American, Chicana, and Hispanic feminists (to name a few)
began working towards the creation of spaces and forums within feminist discourse
where they could voice their concerns and make known the particularities of their
experiences as women who endured oppression differently from middle-class white
heterosexual women. Throughout time, the face of feminism as a movement and as
theory has changed from one dominated by white, heterosexual women to one
wherein diversity and difference are embraced and celebrated thanks to the efforts of
women from various backgrounds who participate in current feminist debates.
Postfeminism is a widely popular term within current feminist discourse. It is
a much contested and difficult to define concept mainly because every scholar that
tackles this task adds a new dimension to its definition. Nevertheless, there are a
series of common elements among the many existing definitions of “postfeminism.”
These include the dismissal of feminism as obsolete and unnecessary, a general
disregard of the many accomplishments of previous generations of feminists and an
emphasis on the media’s role in shaping popular consciousness about current feminist
issues. Sarah Gamble offers one of the definitions that best captures the most salient
characteristics of postfeminism. According to Gamble, postfeminism has been used as
indicatory of a celebration of “the joyous liberation from the ideological shackles of a
hopelessly outdated feminist movement.” She goes on to add that postfeminism is “a
betrayal of a history of feminist struggle, and rejection of all that it has gained” (44).
In like manner, Angela McRobbie defines postfeminism as “an active process by
which feminist gains of the 1970s and 80s come to be undermined.” She explains that
“feminism is decisively aged and made to seem redundant” within postfeminist
discourse (255). The current disregard and undermining of so many past feminist
accomplishments as outdated and unnecessary is problematic and alarming because it
indicates a return to patriarchal values and a pre-feminist mentality that refuses to
26
acknowledge the many limitations women still face every day in areas such as the
workplace and healthcare.
The prefix “post” in postfeminism stands out at first glance. The MerriamWebster English dictionary defines “post” as indicative of causality. It means “after;
subsequent; later; behind; posterior’after” (www.m-w.com). For obvious reasons, the
presence of this prefix in the term postfeminism brings up issues of chronology and
relevance. If “post” means after, what does postfeminism follow? And if it follows
something, is it an improved version or does it depart completely from its precedent?
Postfeminism follows feminism. If this is so, does the term imply feminism is over?
Does it mean that feminism is old, obsolete or passé? Feminist scholars are well
aware of the etymology of the term and its relationship to the current state of
feminism and therefore frequently address this issue in their works. One of the most
notable interpretations of postfeminism as a stage of turning-back and returning-to a
previous state is Susan Faludi’s study of what she calls the backlash. Faludi’s concept
is indispensable in any discussion about postfeminism. In fact, it constitutes another
definition of postfeminism all by itself because, as Gamble states, “for Faludi,
postfeminism is the backlash” since it represents the “reference to a rhetoric of
relapse” of embracing the many pre-second wave ideals that make up postfeminist
ideology (45, emphasis in original).
Backlash does not only refer to a strong adverse reaction but also to a violent
backward movement. Much like the definition of the prefix “post,” the definition of
backlash indicates a relationship between the past and the present where the two are
in oppositional struggle as the present threatens to overpower the past. Within the
backlash, feminism is portrayed as antiquated, useless and, most importantly, a
dangerous force. According to Lynne Alice, it is represented as an ideology that
“corrupts and masculinises women,” which in turn “makes society a dangerous place”
presumably because this change in women emasculates men (22). The belief that
feminism is dangerous for society manifests itself most notably in a general “cultural
resistance” towards it, the true driving force behind the backlash against women
(Faludi 69). This anxiety is reflected in the undeniable fact that “whenever feminism
has appeared to be gaining ground a whole series of repressive political, social,
economic, and ideological forces are mobilized in direct response” (Coppock et all 6).
This way, political progress for women is often followed by ideological regression.
McRobbie observes that this regression has been most noticeable in our postfeminist
27
society through the “the coexistence of neo-conservative values in relation to gender,
sexuality and family life… with processes of liberalization” (256). A shining example
of regression following progression is the recent repeal of gay marriage legality in
California and Maine, a blow for any feminist activist who recognizes in this act the
prevalence of conservative ideologies that uphold and seek for the implementation of
heteronormativity and traditional oppressive gender roles in today’s society.4 Central
to the conflict lying in the coexistence of conventional, conservative gender norms
and more liberal postulations of gender performance is the prevalence of emphasized
femininity as the normative performance of femininity, which in turn leads to the
equation of both femininity and womanhood with familial duties and the domestic
private sphere, in general.
The outstanding achievements of previous generations of feminist activists in
opening a space for women in the male-dominated workplace and in passing
groundbreaking laws advocating for the equality of the sexes in general has been
accompanied by a backlash that renders the ideas of independence, enterprise, selfimprovement, and self-sufficiency not as liberating or empowering but as the
complete opposite, as oppressive, restrictive, and overburdening for women. These
aforementioned feminist ideals have been reformulated, especially in the realm of
popular culture, as a holy grail of sorts for women, only to be reached by succeeding
at every professional and personal endeavor through any means and at any cost. This
extremely egocentric and unrealistic ambition of being and having the best no matter
what it entails gives way to the popular concept of “making it.” According to Vicki
Coppock, Dena Haydon and Ingrid Richter, “if the claim to a ‘post-feminist’ society
is underpinned by any one principle is that women have ‘made it,’ or they have the
opportunity to ‘make it’” in any given arena (4). The possibility of “making it” for
women has given rise to the concept of the “superwoman.” The superwoman is the
woman who can balance everything she sets her mind to successfully, smoothly and
by herself. Unfortunately, “everything” is often reduced to work and family. The
widespread expectation to juggle work and family flawlessly and individually
(without help) is unrealistic. For example, it causes unhappiness and restlessness in
women who try to fit the mold of the perfect, self-sufficient working mother and wife.
Feminism is popularly thought of as culprit of the pressure to “make it” and of the
4
For information on California’s Proposition 8 see
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06ballot.html
28
anxiety that this goal brings to women. Postfeminism then emerges as its opposite: a
re-formulation of neoconservative ideals that stresses the importance of traditional
gender roles for women (in this case domesticity) over those that are thought to bring
unnecessary stress (such as out-of-home work). According to Alice, postfeminismm
represents a “return to breasts, femininity and motherhood” as well as a disregard of
feminism as “overly preoccupied with escaping domesticity to achieve equality with
men in the workplace” (9).
Coppok, Haydon and Richter describe two groups of postfeminist women who
“denounce the ‘achievements’ of feminist struggle” (5). The first group is comprised
of the women who try to “combine work and domesticity but feel that both love and
their families have suffered ‘because they [women] set too high a priority on selfsatisfaction.’” The second group is made up of women who “decided to follow the
career path only to discover that work wasn’t so great after all’” (Overholser qted. in
Coppok et al. 5). The idea that family life and work are incompatible for women is
widespread in today’s society. The prevalent misconception is that something has to
give for an effective balance between work and family to take place. Of the two, work
is commonly represented as expendable since it is conceptualized as a major obstacle
for women’s performance of their family duties. This misconceptualization continues
to gender the public sphere as masculine and the domestic as feminine. The gendering
and juxtaposition of the public and private spheres as male and female, respectively,
is especially evident in the realm of popular culture. I will return to this issue in the
analysis of Chick-Lit novels and their adaptations into film.
Susan Faludi’s list of myths of the backlash is indispensable for the purposes
of this work because they shape the markedly postfeminist ideological trends that
inform Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks. Notice how all the myths in the list
revolve around what Faludi calls the “two arrows” or “two pressure points” upon
which cultural resistance rests on “a woman’s claim to her own paycheck” and “a
woman’s control over her own fertility.” When women work and claim monetary
remuneration, cultural resistance manifests itself by “making the hours spent away
from [women’s] stoves as inequitable and intolerable as possible” (69). This
intolerability works by way of the many obstacles that working women face every day
such as lower wages in respect to their male peers, the general unavailability of
affordable child daycare, and low chances of promotions in comparison to their male
peers.
29
The myths of the backlash are worthy of being mentioned in detail since they
are visibly at work in today’s society and are especially evident in Chick culture.
Susan Faludi explains that these myths represent the “fundamental arguments that
have supported the backlash against women’s quest for equality” (20). Backlash
myths suggest that there is
A “man shortage” endangering women’s opportunities for marriage.
A “devastating” plunge in economic status afflicting women who
divorce under the new no-fault laws.
An “infertility epidemic” striking professional women who postpone
childbearing.
A “great emotional depression” and “burnout” attacking, respectively,
single and career women. (Faludi 19)
Faludi’s analysis of the backlash against women will be of great aid for the
study of Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit novels because these texts are greatly informed
by the myths that she lists. Therefore, Faludi’s definition of postfeminism as a
reactionary backlash “characterized by a reference to a rhetoric of relapse” into
traditional formulations of femininity that highlight motherhood as necessary and
central to the fulfillment of females as exemplary women will be of great aid (Gamble
45). Every definition offered here is useful and relevant but Faludi’s coinage of the
term backlash as essentially retrograde and arguably anti-feminist will inevitably take
a central role in the analysis of Chick culture.
As feminists it is our duty to be critical of any and all representations of
women in the sphere of popular culture. This exercise should not stop at being a mere
ideological exercise. It should have a goal. Ideally, this goal would be aimed at
creating some sort of change. Now, change does not have to be of mammoth
proportions to be of relevance. Raising consciousness is just as noble and
commendable a goal as raiding offices of CEOs. The work you hold in your hands is
aimed at raising consciousness. Unlike those who think popular culture is a series of
empty texts devoid of meaning created only with the purpose of consumption,
entertainment, and money making, I believe that any text, no matter how irrelevant it
might seem, holds a place within the larger discourse it is a part of and is therefore
worthy of conscientious analysis. Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit novels are genres often
regarded as banal and superficial. This assumption is erroneous in its entirety. The
representation of women and of femininity in these aforementioned literary and
30
filmic texts is problematic enough to deserve analysis. It is my aim to present such
analysis to you my reader as a way to motivate you to think about the significance of
the movies you watch and novels you read. The images they expose us to, the
representation of men and women we see in them, play a big role in the shaping of
our consciousness. How many times have you watched a movie and projected
yourself onto the main character? How many times has a movie or novel prompted
you to do something or change an aspect of your life? How many times have you
wished you lived the life you saw onscreen or read about in a novel? Maybe you
uttered a “many” or an “uh huh” or nodded or opened your eyes real big. This is the
power of representation and this is why all texts, especially those we are surrounded
by everyday, need to be approached from a critical perspective. It is my hope this
work will raise consciousness about the power of representation and will help awake
in its readers a sense of critical awareness so that the “many” or “uh huh”s
uttered will be followed by an evaluative “but.”
31
PART III
“AIN’T I A WOMAN”: DEFINING THE UNDEFINABLE
How do you define “woman”? Who falls under the category woman and who
does not? What factors or characteristics do you take into account when you refer to
someone as a woman? A person’s biological sex? Their gender? Race? The category
woman has been criticized as being more exclusive than inclusive. Woman can be
inclusive in the sense that it is a term used to refer to a very big group of individuals.
Nevertheless, not every woman or everyone who identifies as woman finds herself
included in said category. Many individuals who identify as woman have had and still
have to argue for their inclusion in this category. Consider, for example, transgender
and transsexual individuals who identify as woman but are not considered as such by
a great part of the population because of what is perceived to be an incongruence
between their biological sex and their gender. The category woman is exclusive
because its definition, like that of man, in popular consciousness refers to an
individual who not only fits the definition of said term biologically by means of
his/her reproductive organs and physical build, but is also white, middle-class, able
bodied (as opposed to disabled), and heterosexual. All deviations from these
characteristics are differentiated from “woman” by means of hyphenation or the
designation of a different term altogether to refer to the individual who does not
follow the norm. Hence, the use of categories such as lesbian, woman of color,
disabled woman, etc. to differentiate these women from the universal: white, able,
heterosexual women.
Proof of the exclusionary nature of the category woman are the many voices
that have challenged it in the last half century. Among these voices Simone
DeBeauvoir, Monique Wittig, and bell hooks stand out as some of the best known
within academia. It is my aim to offer a brief account of some of the many
epistemological challenges that the category woman faces in order to position my
own challenging of the term within this discourse. I will define woman and at the
same time openly challenge popular definitions of said category that do nothing more
than attempt to homogenize the diverse group of individuals that make it up.
Unfortunately, the definition of woman that is most represented in the media is that of
a white, heterosexual, able, middle class biological female. Chick-Flicks and ChickLit take part in the perpetuation of said definition and image of woman as the
32
universal. The lack of space for a more inclusive definition of woman in popular
culture needs to be addressed in order to make it more inclusive and welcoming of
diversity. This would help the category woman to better represent the population that
it stands for.
One of the early voices that posited a direct challenge to the category woman
is the American slave Sojourner Truth. In her 1851 speech titled “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Truth fearlessly questions her peers’ doubts about her validity as a woman. She
understood that they did not think of her as a woman because of the color of her skin
and her status as a freed slave. In “Ain’t I a Woman?,” Truth compares herself to her
predominantly white female audience and argues for her humanity and right to be
considered a woman, like them. She speaks up not only for her individual right to be
included in the categories human and woman but also for the right of all African
American women to be considered as such. To make her point, Truth presents a series
of facts to her audience emphasizing her strength and comparing it to a man’s. She
states “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any
best place!” and bravely asks “And ain’t I a woman?” She continues her argument by
stating “I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head
me!” and once again asks “And ain’t I a woman?” Declaring herself a self-sufficient,
strong hard worker, Truth challenges the still prevailing idea of women as frail, weak
and dependent. She understands that her audience might find her a contradiction. In
order to end her audience’s incredulity, Truth closes her appeal to womanliness by
relying on the one characteristic that for millions of people best distinguishes males
from females and, by association, men from women: the ability to reproduce. Before
the last “Ain’t I a woman?,” Truth exclaims “I have born thirteen children, and seen
most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but
Jesus heard me!” For Truth, if her ability to have children does not categorize her as
woman nothing will. Truth delivered her speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights
Convention in 1851. It marked a turning point in the understanding of the term
woman in American consciousness because she opened the door for the inclusion of
African American women under the category woman, thus paving the way for human
and women’s rights campaigns that transcend the concept of race.
Two years shy of the 100th year anniversary of Truth’s speech, Simone
DeBeauvior asked a very similar question to her predecessor. In her seminal work Le
Deuxieme Sexe, translated as The Second Sex in English, Beauvoir asks “What is a
33
woman?” (XIX). While Truth based her argument on the visible, her body, Beauvoir
builds her argument on Freudian psycholanalysis and Hegelian and Sartrerian
existentialism. Like Truth, Beauvior recognizes the crucial role that biology and the
physical play in the definition of woman. Being of a more recent generation of
feminists, Beauvoir takes Truth’s argument of physique as determining factor of
womanhood a step further and actually challenges it by pointing out that not all those
who are female are considered woman. Beauvoir observes that the individual has to
have another quality, a decisive quality, in order to be considered woman. That
quality is what Butlerians would call the ability to perform traditional or emphasized
femininity. She states that “every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to
be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as
femininity” (XIX). For Beauvoir, the category woman is limiting in a twofold way.
To belong to it, you have not only to be female but you also have to “share” in the
“mysterious” quality of femininity.
Beauvoir leaves aside biology as the decisive factor of authentic womanhood
and proceeds to define woman in existentialist terms. Her main argument is that
woman is conceptualized as an Other, as existing in a state of otherness, foreigness or
alterity, in relation to man. The alterity and Otherness of woman emerges as a
consequence of man’s position of privilege as the One, “the absolute human type,” the
universal against which woman is defined (Beauvoir XXI). Beauvoir explains that the
universality of man is most evident in the use of the term man to refer to the whole of
human kind. She discusses the conceptualization of woman as oppositional to that of
man by explaining the process of subject formation through the use of the concepts
One and Other. Beauvoir argues that woman does not exist all by herself or by
making use of her own agency to define herself. Instead, she is defined in relation to
man, as his subordinate. In her own words, woman “is the incidental, the inessential
as opposed to the essential [man]” who is “the Subject…the Absolute” (XXII).
Beauvoir explains that the Other relies on the One for definition. She states “[t]he
Other is posed as such by the One in defining himself as the One” (XXIV). In other
words, woman relies on man for definition. Identity is dependent on power relations.
In the power relation between man and woman, woman is at a disadvantage because
she is positioned as the object that is defined by the subject of man. According to
Beauvoir “[t]o pose Woman is to pose the absolute Other, without reciprocity”
because man is the universal subject who has maintained cultural dominance by
34
creating myths, laws and social systems that subordinate and exclude woman from the
formational activities of definition and recognition (253). Woman stands no chance
against the universal, dominant man One. There is no reciprocity. She is and will be
the incidental Other.
Beauvoir rejects various theories when trying to find an answer to the question
that she asks numerous times throughout The Second Sex: “Why is woman the
Other?” As previously stated, Beauvoir rejects the conceptualization of woman as
Other because of her body. After a detailed discussion about the biological factors
that make men and women different, among which stand out reproduction and
differences in bodily strength, Beauvoir concludes that “biology is simply not enough
to give an answer to the question before us” (that of woman as Other) because a
woman’s body does not predispose or dictate her existence (37). Beauvoir’s views on
existentialism would not enable her to make said assumption because for her, as well
as for other Sartrerian existentialists, the subject makes his/her meaning through
his/her relation to the world which is at the same time influenced by a series of
systems of interrelated meanings in which the subject has agency. Therefore, a
woman’s muscular make-up, for example, is not a valid explanation for her condition
as an Other. This factor is contingent upon the woman’s actions, their relationship to
her place in society and the meaning that she creates for herself. In conclusion, a
woman’s body is not enough to define her as woman because “there is no true living
reality except as manifested by the conscious individual through activities and in the
bosom of society” (Beauvoir 37).
In addition to biology, Beauvoir also dismisses Freudian psychoanalysis as an
explanation of woman’s conceptualization as Other in relation to man. According to
Sigmund Freud, young girls start to feel the castration complex as soon as they see the
genitals of the opposite sex. They “feel seriously wronged, and often declare that they
want ‘to have something like it too’” thus falling into the “envy for the penis.”
Woman’s desire to have a penis is not fleeting, according to Freud’s theory, but
“persists in the unconscious and retains a considerable cathexis of energy” long after
the young girl realizes that she will not be able to have a penis. The desire to have a
penis remains forever a “repressed wish” for a woman (125). The young girl’s
realization and acceptance of her castration (her lack of a penis) has adverse
consequences in her development and formation. Her “self-love is mortified.” She
“renounces her masturbatory satisfaction from her clitoris, repudiates her love for her
35
mother and at the same time not infrequently represses a good part of her sexual
trends in general” (Freud 126). Furthermore, her super-ego remains underdeveloped
as the result of an Oedipal complex that remains with her for an “indeterminable
length of time” (129). In a nutshell, Freudian psychoanalysis differentiates man from
woman departing from the concept of lack. It defines woman as an Other in relation
to man because of her lack both of a penis and a fully developed super-ego. Freud
asserts that these lacks never fully disappear. He argues that the penis envy that a
woman feels can only be temporarily satisfied through vaginal penetration and the
bearing of a male baby. He also states that a woman’s super-ego will forever be
inferior to man’s because “it cannot attain the strength and independence which give
it its cultural significance” (129). According to Freud, the lacks that a woman has can
never be turned into “havings” for she does not have the necessary discipline and
conscience development. Their fulfillment is thus temporary. It is a woman’s burden
to constantly strive to satiate her bodily and mental lacks.
Psychoanalytic theory is based on a series of complex postulations that
outnumber the few that I have explained here. Nevertheless, this brief overview of
Freudian psychoanalysis will suffice for the purpose of understanding Simone
DeBeauvoir’s definition of woman as Other and her dismissal of the answer offered
by psychoanalytic theory as reason for this postulation. According to Freudian
psychoanalysis, woman is an Other in relation to man because of her lack of a penis
and of a fully developed super-ego. Beauvoir takes special care to counter the penis
envy and castration anxiety arguments. She contends that these concepts are based on
nature, on the corporeal, and, as I have previously explained, Beauvoir does not
conceptualize the body as sole factor responsible for an individual’s existence and
social position. For Beauvoir, the individual gains subjectivity not through the body
but through the execution of actions. She states “…life is a relation to the world, and
the individual defines himself by making his own choices through the world around
him” (49). The body does play an important role in the consciousness of an
individual, but it is the individual, the subject, who gives meaning to the body, not the
other way around.
Beauvoir’s theory of subject formation transcends the body, the biological,
and focuses more on the subject and her/his relationship to the surrounding
environment. As Juliet Mitchell explains “the core of de Beauvior’s existentialism is
the notion that the human being takes on the meaning of his or her existence in the
36
actions and projects formed” (306). Therefore, for Beauvoir, the penis envy argument
is not valid. To say that woman gains her consciousness as Other because of a
physical lack is not a legitimate claim. According to Mitchell, “what [Beauvoir] is
contending is that Freud’s thesis assumes that there is an original superiority to the
male whereas to her this is only socially constructed” (308). Beauvoir argues that if
the simple acquisition of a penis would pose woman as an equal to man then woman
would simply “invent equivalents of the phallus” to overcome her Otherness.
Nevertheless, she goes on to explain that this would not suffice because the phallus
“symbolizes a dominance that is exercised in other domains” (48). This dominance is
not confined to the physical. It is symbolically, culturally, historically, and
contextually specific. What is left to do then, following Beauvior’s argument, is to
contest male dominance in the realm of cultural representation, which is what she
does in The Second Sex through the discussion of literary canonical works by male
authors among which figure such heavy-weights as Montaigne, Tolstoy, and Aristotle.
Through the critique of works by men, Beauvoir contests the same “patriarchal
culture that endows the girl with an awareness of her real social inferiority and the
boy with his superiority” (Mitchell 318).
Following Beauvoir’s steps, French feminist scholar Monique Wittig takes
issue with the concept of woman and man as natural categories. In other words, like
Beauvoir, Wittig strongly opposes any argument that suggests biological determinism
as sole reason and justification for inequality between men and women. For Wittig
too “one is not born a woman” (Beauvoir’s famous phrase is also the title of one of
Wittig’s essays) but is rather made a woman through social interaction. Wittig defines
the task of materialist feminism as an endeavor to make clear that “man” and
“woman” are “political and economic categories not eternal ones” (“Woman” 15).
Therefore, to assume that woman is a natural category (or “natural group” as she calls
it) is incompatible with her project. In fact, she believes that the aim of a materialist
feminist approach, like hers, should be to destroy “the idea that women are a ‘natural
group’” (“Woman” 9). Woman, for Wittig, is a social and political category that must
be done away with in order for women to be free: free from the normative
heterosexual assumption, free from oppressive patriarchal ideology, free from
traditional gender roles, free from the category woman itself.
According to Wittig, the categories man and woman are loaded with
heterosexual assumptions and contribute to the perpetuation of heteronormativity
37
because they both are socially constructed and informed by patriarchal ideology
meant to preserve the dominance of men over women through traditional gender
roles. Wittig rejects the category woman especially because it “founds society as
heterosexual” (“Category” 5). She takes special issue with the implication of
heterosexuality this category bears because it is “a political regime which rests on the
submission and the appropriation of woman” (Preface XIII). Heteronormativity acts
ideologically and pragmatically through the assignment of labels and terms that carry
with them assumptions about the sexuality, race, class, etc. of the individual it
designates. Wittig states that to overcome the oppressiveness that heterosexuality and
heteronormativity enforce “one must destroy politically, philosophically, and
symbolically the categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’” because of their tight ideological
relationship (XIII).
Wittig takes Beauvoir’s concept of woman as Other in relation to man a step
further and suggests that the relationship between woman and man resembles that of
slave and master. She argues that sex is to blame for woman’s position as subordinate
in relation to man. For Wittig, male dominance based on sex is not natural. It is
socially constructed and stems from differences that “always belong to an economic,
political, ideological order” (“Category” 2). Therefore, oppression is not founded on
sex itself but rather creates the category of sex. Sex positions women as subordinates
of men because it “founds society as heterosexual” (5). It “is the product of a
heterosexual society which imposes on women the rigid obligation of the
reproduction of the ‘species,’ that is, the reproduction of heterosexual society” as well
as reproduction in terms of work, which is appropriated by the ruling class: man (6).
In other words, man is the universal One and woman the subordinate Other that is
defined as such because of a sex that is different from that of the One. Wittig’s
argument is relevant to this project because it elaborates on the limiting quality of the
category woman by examining the effect that it has on a subject’s identity from a
perspective aimed at analyzing the role of the individual’s sex and sexual orientation
in the categorization process. She states “we must destroy it [sex] and start thinking
beyond it if we want to start thinking at all” (8). Consequently, by doing away with
sex, we would also be doing away with heteronormativity, for it is sex that informs
this ideology. Destroying sex and the category woman would result in the
emancipation from heteronormativity, which in turn would enable woman’s
emancipation from oppressive patriarchal ideology which dictates her main role
38
in society as agent of reproduction.
Sex immediately links ideas of who and what a woman is with reproduction
and therefore with ideas about sexual orientation. In Wittig’s words, sex “founds
society as heterosexual,” the assumption being that if a woman is female and the
distinctive quality and main goal in life of a female individual is the ability to give
birth, then she must be heterosexual. As a result, when the modern individual thinks
about a woman she/he more often that not thinks of her as heterosexual. This limited
common conceptualization of woman adversely influences female representation in
all forms of cultural manifestations including films and literature. Consequently, it is
rare to find femininities other than traditional emphasized femininity represented in
texts marketed primarily to female audiences such as Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit
novels. If this were the case, the text in question would not be mainstream. For
example, a Chick-Flick with a lesbian main character would be categorized as a Gay
and Lesbian film and would likely be screened (if at all) in independent or fine arts
cinemas, not the multiplex at the local mall. By the same token, it is extremely rare to
find a mainstream Chick-Lit novel with a lesbian character as heroine. You may of
course find a novel aimed at a female audience with a lesbian main character, but this
novel would most likely not be categorized as Chick-Lit and would not be placed next
to the latest sequel to Confessions of a Shopaholic. You would most likely find it in
the Gay and Lesbian literature section of the bookstore. It is my belief that the
absence of lesbians in Chick-Lit has everything to do with the concept of romance,
which is heavily based on traditional patriarchal ideology. This I will discuss in the
next chapter, along with the extremely exclusionary nature of the Chick texts which
exclude not only lesbians but also African American women, Latina women, and
disabled women among many others.
Joining the group of feminists that seek to expand the meaning of the category
woman is Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, who focuses on feminist disability studies, a
relatively newer discipline within feminist theory. Feminist disability studies is
relevant to our discussion because, like perspectives that focus on race, gender, and
sexuality, it challenges the limitations and exclusionary quality of the label woman. In
the words of Garland-Thompson, the importance of feminist disability studies lies in
its quest to address “such broad feminist concerns as the unity of the category woman,
the status of the lived body, the politics of appearance, the medicalization of the body,
the privilege of normalcy, multiculturalism, sexuality, the social construction of
39
identity, and the commitment to integration” (4). The basic premise of feminist
disability theory rests on the belief that “disability, like femaleness, is not a natural
state of corporeal inferiority, inadequacy, excess, or a stroke of misfortune.” Rather,
like sex, race and gender, physical disability is a “culturally fabricated narrative of the
body” that categorizes people and serves as an indicator of inclusion and exclusion
within a discourse and, as such, it must also be addressed (5).
Notions about how the “normal” female body should be and look like inform
the category woman, creating parameters of exclusion and inclusion. Like Latinas and
lesbians, disabled women are excluded from the category woman. In this case, the
reason of exclusion is bodily appearance and functionality. Disabled women are
excluded because their bodies do not conform to the standards of exemplary, normal
female bodies. Beauty and normalcy standards are informed by systems of beliefs and
assumptions about the human body. These assumptions and beliefs are in turn
informed by systems of meaning which function, more often than not, by dividing
subjects into groups where one gains precedence over the other. In the case of
disability, subjects are divided into able and disabled, where able is the norm and
disabled an anomaly. In the able/disabled binary, able is the universal and disabled the
deviant, different Other. This system of classification “functions to preserve and
validate such privileged designations as beautiful, healthy, normal, fit, competent,
intelligent—all of which provide cultural capital to those who can claim such
statuses” (6). Because cultural capital is dominated by those who can claim to be ablebodied, disabled women are often excluded from the general discourse and from
representation in the sphere of popular culture. They are not part of the “beautiful,
healthy, normal, fit, competent, intelligent” community that makes up the category
woman. As a result, “[t]he relative privileges of normative femininity are often denied
to disabled women” (Fine and Asch qted. in Garland-Thomson 17). For this reason,
one seldom finds disabled women as main characters in popular literary works,
commercials, movies, etc. And, most importantly, one rarely thinks of the average
woman as someone who has a disability. The average woman can have a disability
and she is just as much a woman as one who does not.
Being disabled for three months because of a foot injury certainly puts things
in perspective. Now, at 29, with an orthopedic boot on my left leg again after 16
years, I can understand what it is like to have a disability. Pity looks, smiles and the
occasional kindness from a stranger do not compensate for the feeling of not fitting in
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and not being normal I experience when it becomes apparent that the world we live in
is not made to accommodate someone with a disability. Every time an elevator is out
of service, a door is hard to open, or there are no available parking spaces for people
with disabilities I notice that the world we live in is made for the able-bodied. When I
open a magazine and watch a movie and notice the absence of disabled bodies I grow
more and more determined to criticize the limited representation of the human body in
popular culture. Ask yourself, when was the last time you opened a Glamour or a
Vogue and saw a woman with a disability gracing its pages? It is time to broaden our
definition of woman and our image of a beautiful, normal human body. It is time to
include those who are disabled.
bell hooks has also written extensively about the role that the human body
plays in the definition of the category woman. While Garland-Thomson addresses
issues of disability, hooks focuses on race. She dedicates a large part of her work to
discuss the relationship between African American and white Anglo-Saxon American
women in terms of class and sexuality as informed by notions of race. One of the
most important observations she makes is the dichotomy between the all too common
stereotypical binary of the black woman as sexually “easy” and the white woman as
the demure, respectable lady. This dichotomy is informed by the images of the jezebel
and the mammy. Patricia Collins defines these aforementioned stereotypes as the
“whore or ‘hoochie’” jezebel and the “faithful, obedient, domestic servant” mammy
(72, 81). These images date back to the times of slavery and are still present in
today’s culture. They inform the relationship between black women and white
women. A jezebel figure opposite a white woman renders the African American
woman as “easy” and sluttish while the white woman emerges as the opposite. In like
manner, the mammy opposite a white woman renders the last one as superior and the
African American woman as her inferior servant. Needless to say, these stereotypes
are informed by racist beliefs. They are important to have in mind when discussing
not only their effect on relationships between women but also on the representation of
such in the sphere of popular culture. Take for example the case of Sex and the City:
The Movie where the stereotype of the mammy makes an appearance in the character
of Louise, Carrie’s assistant. I will address these characters in the chapter on ChickFlicks.
According to hooks, racism informs the category woman so deeply that it
results in exclusionary practices. It contributes to the homogenization of women’s
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individual experiences and the exclusion of all those who are not white. She explains,
“[i]n America, white racist ideology has always allowed white women to assume that
the word woman is synonymous with white woman, for women of other races are
always perceived as Others, as de-humanized beings who do not fall under the
heading woman” (Woman 138). The term “woman” has historically been understood
as referring to white women the same way that “man” has been understood as
referring to white men. These exclusionary assumptions are none other than a result
of racist beliefs, for racism goes beyond conscious, target-specific racist crimes.
Racism operates on a broader ideological level, where it influences an individual’s
decisions, actions, and core beliefs sometimes without actual consciousness of the
ways that it operates in daily life.
As hooks explains, representation under the category woman has historically
been limited to Caucasian women. This exclusionary, homogenizing quality of
woman as a category in regards to race is informed by racism, which in turn informs
the many discourses of which women are part. Racist assumptions affect women’s
chances of representation, visibility and inclusion in any discourse, whether it pertains
exclusively to the realm of language or not. Two of such discourses affected by
racism are feminism and all disciplines pertaining to women’s studies, even if the
participants of said discourses or disciplines pride themselves on welcoming diversity
and being inclusive. Women of racial minorities in the United States have been
historically excluded from the general American feminist discourse and feminist
activities such as women’s rights rallies and conferences. Take, for example, the case
of Sojourner Truth, who delivered her speech amidst great opposition.
hooks includes Truth’s famous question in the title of her book Ain’t I a
Woman: Black Women and Feminism to point to the exclusionary nature not only of
the category woman but also of the discourse most associated with women and
women’s rights: feminism. hooks pays special attention to feminist literary studies
noting the relationship between feminism, racism, and female representation in
literature. According to hooks, racism is the force that “allows white feminist authors
to make no reference to racial identity in their books about ‘women’ that are in
actuality about white women.” She goes on to state that racism is the same force that
“would compel any author writing exclusively on black women to refer explicitly to
their racial identity” (Woman 138). This way, literature by and about women as well
as accounts of women’s experiences are most often about white women’s
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experiences. The woman of color remains silent, overshadowed by the voices of white
women and the prevailing assumption that women’s experiences are universal, the
universal being defined by white Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon women. In order for a nonwhite woman to have a voice within the discourse and avoid being homogenized, she
has to distinguish herself from women in general by making reference to her race,
thus Othering and differentiating herself from the dominant group.
Mariana Ortega writes about the prevalence of exclusion and racism within
contemporary feminist discourse. Ortega criticizes the inclusion of non-Caucasian
women in feminist discourse only as tokens. She indicts white feminists’ common
practice of quoting in their talks and works only those non-Caucasian writers who are
most popular while ignoring all others, thus homogenizing women’s experiences by
presenting a few experiences as representative of the whole. She points out that
including “the token women of color in conferences, to quote the most known
citations from books by famous women of color” is not necessarily an example of
inclusion and diversity. It is merely an act of tokenism. Ortega also mentions white
feminists’ use and systematizing of their findings about the experiences of nonCaucasian women to further their own projects as a kind of academic arrogance that
borders on racism within feminist discourse. According to Ortega, the aforementioned
practices are “still tied to conquest, domination, and erasure” because they contribute
to the homogenization of women’s experiences as well as to their tokenizing (69).
Women of color remain as Others within feminist discourse because they are
tokenized and thus not fully integrated within it. Ortega categorizes the
aforementioned limited efforts of inclusion as instances of “loving, knowing
ignorance.” She defines “loving, knowing ignorance” as “a stance in which the
perceiver and the knower are actually involved in the production of knowledge about
women of color—whether by citing their work, reading and writing about them, or
classifying them—while at the same time using women of color to the perceiver’s
own ends” (61). It is a kind of “ignorance of the thought and experience of women of
color that is accompanied by both alleged loved for and alleged knowledge about
them” because it is based on generalizations and thus renders unreliable information
(57). Ortega suggests Lugones’ concept of “world”-traveling as a way to counteract
loving, knowing ignorance. “World”-traveling is “a practice in which we are able to
get to know others in their differences, to understand ourselves and others, and to be
open to construction and reconstruction as oppressors or oppressed” (67). I agree with
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Ortega in suggesting “world”-traveling as a way to fight racism within academia and
feminist discourse because knowledge, acceptance and the celebration of difference
within women’s experiences is antagonistic to racism, be it of the intended or
unintended “loving” kind.
Ortega’s suggestion of “world”-traveling as a way to put an end to racism in
feminist discourse echoes hooks’ own advice. hooks proposes action, cooperation,
and a conscious refusal of predominant “myths, stereotypes, and false assumptions
that deny the shared commonness of [women’s] experiences” in order to make
feminism more inclusive. This, hooks explains, is a process that “begins with the
individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are
socialized to be racist, classicist, and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling
ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid
ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization” (Woman 157). Therefore, labeling
ourselves feminists does not automatically exempt us from complying in racist
practices or in making racist assumptions. It also does not by any means prevent us
from homogenizing and making generalizations about women and their experiences.
Only a deeper understanding of the category woman as one made-up of diverse
groups of individuals each one with unique experiences and lives that deserve to be
recognized, voiced, shared and represented as such can prevent us from “loving
knowing ignorance.”
A better understanding of the meaning of the category woman and of the
criticism surrounding it will be crucial in the analysis of Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit
novels because it will facilitate the critical study of the predominant image of women
that these genres put forth. It will also be especially helpful to engage in the
interrogation of the category “woman” having in mind the concept of “world
traveling,” hooks’ criticism of “woman” from a perspective concerned with issues of
race, Wittig’s insightful commentary from a materialist perspective focused on gender
and sexuality, and Garland-Thomsons’ important contribution about bodily disability
because they will help build a more inclusive framework for said interrogation and the
following analysis. An informed understanding of the category “woman” will aid in
addressing such important questions as: What is the predominant image of women in
Chick-Lit and Chick-Flicks? What group/s of women are represented and how? What
group/s is/are excluded and why? Is this representation accurate and fair or is it
problematic in any way? How are the problems that women face nowadays (such as
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unemployment and lower pay rates) negotiated in Chick-Lit and Chick-Flicks? How
is woman as a category defined in Chick-Lit and Chick Flicks? What is the emergent
image and definition of woman in the 21st century? Is woman still defined as an
Other? And perhaps most importantly, is woman still a homogenizing, limiting label?
These are some of the questions that I hope to address in the following chapters. In
order to do this I will examine Bridget Jones’s Diary, Confessions of a Shopaholic
and Sex and the City as representative works of Chick-Lit and Chick-Flicks. Looking
at such popular works will help us gain an idea of how woman is defined in the realm
of contemporary popular culture. The fact that the aforementioned genres are so
popular among women (their primary audience, hence the use of the word Chick to
differentiate them from other literary and film genres) will help us analyze what we,
as women, are consuming.
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CHAPTER TWO
SO, WHAT IS CHICK-LIT?:
HISTORY, MARKET, AND CRITICS
Before exploring the cultural phenomena that are Helen Fielding’s Bridget
Jones’s Diary, Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City and Sophie Kinsella’s
Confessions of a Shopaholic, it is important to understand, as best we can, the elusive
category that is Chick-Lit, the literary genre that Bridget Jones’s Diary is credited
with initiating (Ferris and Young 4). Defining Chick-Lit is close to impossible. Every
critic, scholar and writer offers a particular definition of said term. Establishing a birth
date for Chick-Lit is also an extremely difficult task because while most sources
indicate it was born in 1996 with the publication of Fielding’s novel it is not
uncommon to find previous literary works by women positioned within the Chick-Lit
tradition. ShaunAnne Tangney claims “Chick Lit has existed in America for well over
two hundred years” (54). According to Tangney’s statement, the majority of novels
published in the U.S. by women fall under the Chick-Lit label. Reasons for this
classification are many and varied, the most apparent one being that older novels by
women, like contemporary Chick-Lit novels, were written by female authors with a
female audience in mind. But, perhaps more importantly, the reason behind this
classification is that many of the aforementioned novels’ plots can be reduced to a
love story about a young, single woman and her male love interest. Nevertheless,
Chick-Lit is not only literature by women for women. As I will explain in the
following pages, there is an identifiable set of characteristics and properties
distinctive of Chick-Lit novels.
Chick-Lit’s closest relative is not the Victorian novel but the popular
romance novel, which follows and perpetuates many of its tropes, conventions, and
predominant ideology concerning the representation of the genders and interaction
between the sexes. Chick-Lit is also, like the romance novel, written by and for
women and marketed to a predominantly female audience. With this in mind, I will
offer a brief analysis of the popular romance novel as a literary genre so as to better
understand the predecessor of Chick-Lit, which in turn will help us gain a better
perspective on the state of Chick-Lit, what it is and where it is headed as a literary
genre. For this purpose, I will focus on Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance:
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Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature, the most cited and authoritative critical
work on the popular romance novel.
The romance novel, having been around longer than Chick-Lit, has attracted
much attention from feminist scholars and literary critics. Issues of special concern in
this area of study include the role of the romance novel in the perpetuation of
patriarchal ideology and traditional gender roles, its emphasis on heterosexual
monogamous relationships and romantic love, and its use of violence in the
description of sexual acts between men and women. Most articles and books written
about the romance novel were published in the mid to late 1970s and the 1980s,
perhaps because it was then when the genre gained popularity. Radway’s Reading the
Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature stands out as a seminal work
about the popular romance novel, or the Harlequin novel as it is also known thanks to
publishing giant Harlequin Enterprises Limited. Radway conducted an extensive field
study in which she surveyed and interviewed a group of avid romance-reading women
from Smithton, a fictional name for a small town “nearly two thousand miles away”
from New York City (46).
One of Radway’s most salient observations about the popular romance
novel is that it functions as a means of escapism for its female audience. She argues
that reading romance novels is a way for women to escape the problems, pressures
and obligations they face every day as mothers and wives. Reading romance novels
represents an opportunity to suspend their daily activities and spend some alone time
carrying out the pleasurable activity of reading a familiar story. According to
Radway, the charm of the romance novel depends on the feelings of pleasure,
“emotional well-being and visceral contentment” that it gives its readers. She explains
that these pleasurable feelings are brought on by “the opportunity to participate
vicariously in a relationship characterized by mutual love and by the hero’s quite
unusual ability to express his devotion gently and with concern for his heroine’s
pleasure” (70, emphasis in original). Romance readers also find a sense of pleasure in
their ability to relate to and identify with the heroine of the novel. By projecting
herself onto the heroine, the reader of romance novels escapes the real world if only
for a while and is able to live through her a desired romantic fantasy.
The sense of familiarity that the Harlequin romance provides to its audience
contributes enormously to the experience of escapism they seek. This sense of
familiarity is largely due to its reliance on formulaic storylines and characters,
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formulaic indicating a “standard reliance on a recipe that dictates the essential
ingredients to be included in each new version of the form” (Radway 29). Readers of
romance novels expect them to include a certain group of common characteristics or
“ingredients” that make it possible for them as readers to experience the desired
feelings of familiarity, escapism and well-being sought when reading novels that
belong to said genre. As specified by the Smithton women in Radway’s survey, the
inclusion of these “ingredients” in the plot of a novel help it gain acceptance from its
audience. One such ingredient is a “‘slowly but consistently developing love
between hero and heroine’” (Radway 66).
In romance novels, the “slowly but consistently developing love between hero
and heroine” referred to by the Smithton women Radway surveyed culminates in and
is validated by what Brenda Novak calls the “HEA,” or Happily Ever After ending.
According to Novak, the HEA is the “one hard and fast convention of the [romance
novel] genre.” It has been a staple of the genre since its very beginnings. She clarifies
that the HEA does not necessarily have to include marriage between the hero and
heroine but should include “some indication they’ll continue happily as a couple.” In
other words, every novel has to have a “hopeful outcome” in order to be attractive to
its audience (Novak 23). The Smithton women interviewed by Radway categorized
the “HEA” ending as an “indispensable,” “essential ingredient” in a good romance
novel (Radway 66). Awareness of the HEA in romance novels is of great importance
for the purposes of this work because its permanence in the plots of so many and
varied romance narratives (literary or otherwise) throughout time indicates that said
genre must perpetuate heterosexual monogamous relationships in order to be
categorized as good by its audience and thus be successful as a sellable commodity.
The HEA also contributes to the sense of familiarity and well being sought after by
romance readers who are certain their hours of reading will be compensated with a
happy, comforting ending.
Within the collective consciousness of romance readers as well as in the
general sphere of popular culture, happily ever after does not exist without a plot that
relies on traditional romance—the courtship of a woman by a man that endures perils
and misunderstandings, culminates in love and union, and eventually leads to
marriage. Feminist scholars have taken issue with the fact that romantic love and
relationships are issues popularly gendered as feminine and represented as being of
special concern for women. Testament to the gendering of human relationships as a
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particularly feminine issue is the many dating manuals, articles and advice columns
on dating and relationships that fill the pages of women’s magazines. Said texts
inform and help shape what Susan Ostrov Weisser calls the “cultural economy” of
romantic love and the different roles that it ascribes for men and for women, both
equally oppressive for the corresponding gender it attempts to normalize (3).
Women’s traditional role within the discourse of romantic love portrays them as
controllers and manipulators of men. They are often shown in many popular
narratives (such as novels, movies, songs, etc.) as relationship-obsessed beings who
use their so-called feminine wiles and sexual allure to trap men into relationships.
They are demonized as their demands of commitment and “secure attachment” entail
“impossible promises and expectations” that act as a burden to both parties. The idea
of romantic love also places a tremendous amount of pressure on women, for while
they long to see their love stories end in happily ever after fashion, they also fear
being in a relationship where they could be overpowered and/or abused by a man. Not
being in a relationship at all could seem to be the solution to this conundrum, but
societal pressures do not make this option viable. Instead, single women are advised
against exposing themselves to “loneliness, social ostracism, and exploitation, sexual
or otherwise” (Ostrov Weisser 5).
Men’s narrative role within the discourse of romantic love is also oppressive.
While it portrays men as strong heroes willing to do anything for the love of a
woman, it also represents them as beings almost devoid of feelings and “constantly
and infinitely sexual, not needy of love themselves” (Ostrov Weisser 5). The
consequences of not partaking in a romantic relationship are also brutal for men.
Perhaps the most common consequence is the assumption that not being in a
relationship equals homosexuality, which for many men translates into a grave
menace to their masculinity. While the same assumption applies to women, the
pressure is not as strong as for men mainly because femininity is more flexible than
masculinity in terms of socialization patterns. In addition, the implied passivity of the
Snow White-like “some day my prince will come” mentality (which is still very much
alive in our culture) takes some of the pressure off women in the quest for a mate
because while the man is encouraged to be the hunter and find a woman, the woman
is expected to wait for the man. Following this fairy-tale trend, all she has to do is
wait for her “prince” to show up and to fall in love with him. The perpetually popular
concept of “falling in love” is commonly used to describe the experience of loving
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and being loved in a romantic manner. Few people are aware of the underlying
implications of vulnerability and helplessness of said phrase.
Crystal Kile explains that the cultural phenomenon that is the myth of
romantic love is unlike any other myth because it requires the suspension of intellect.
In fact, you cannot voluntarily fall in love, hence the use of the word “fall” as
indicative of an accidental or involuntary occurrence and lack of logic. The concept of
romantic love can be traced back to the Medieval Ages. According to Kile, romantic
love began first as courtly love where a woman of high social class was courted by a
knight. Later, during the Renaissance, romantic love began to “come out of the
aristocratic court and into the popular mainstream” (416). Nevertheless, love and lust
were not considered reason enough for marriage. Most marriages were arranged so as
to preserve the social status of the families involved as well as aristocratic bloodlines.
Kile explains that the emergence of the idea of romantic love as “a socially and
culturally approved rationale for choice of a life-partner” is fairly recent and can be
traced back to the “continental Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th
century.” She adds that the “acceptance of the ideas of ‘falling in love’ and ‘marrying
for love’ was only fully accepted in much of Europe in the early twentieth century”
(417). Since then, the myth of romantic love has saturated our culture. Nearly all
manifestations of popular culture approach the concept of romantic love to some
capacity. Movies, novels, songs, advertisements, commercials, and even the fashion
industry all cash-in on romance and love thus making these concepts two of the most
common tropes in narratives and texts of all kinds. Chic-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks
are particularly notorious for relying on love and romance as plot framing devices. As
such, these genres participate in spreading and perpetuating the notion of heterosexual
romantic love as the absolute key to happiness. In doing this, they not only exclude
non-heterosexual women from the grand narrative they constitute but they also rely
on antiquated patriarchal, oppressive ideas of love and happiness by ascribing limiting
gender roles to men and women and setting rigid, normalizing parameters for the
relationships between them.
In addition to relying on the myth of romantic love and the HEA ending as
driving forces, the romance novel also relies on the construction of formulaic
characters in order to secure its appeal to its audience. Formulaic characters contribute
to the sense of familiarity sought after by romance readers, for the reader knows
beforehand what kinds of characters to expect even before turning the first page of the
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novel. The most salient formulaic character in romance novels is their main character:
the heroine. Janice Radway explains that the heroine of romance novels tends to be
fiery, spunky, intelligent, independent, and rebellious. She points out that it is not
unusual to find she is also tomboyish. The romantic heroine is often beautiful (in a
quiet, modest way), nurturing, and unaware of her sexual attractiveness. This last
characteristic is significant because it reassures the reader that the heroine is feminine.
She is “a ‘true’ woman, one who possesses all the nurturing skills associated by
patriarchal culture with the feminine character” (Radway 127). Like the Harlequin
romance, Chick-Lit novels also rely on formulaic characters. Nevertheless, the
heroine of this more recent genre is a little bit of a departure from her predecessor.
While they both are attractive, young, independent, and rebellious women, the ChickLit heroine is more sarcastic and skeptical about romantic love than the Harlequin
heroine. Regardless of her skepticism and seeming disbelief about true love, the
Chick-Lit heroine more often than not ends up falling in love with the hero and
having an HEA ending to her story. Not all Chick-Lit novels end in marriage, though.
In fact, some do not include marriage at all in their plots. Nevertheless, these stories
often end in reconciliation and friendship (often with undertones of Platonic love)
between the hero and heroine. The HEA ending of Chick-Lit novels differs a little
from that of the popular romance novel. However, it is in essence very similar since
both genres rely on and perpetuate heteronormativity.
The hero of the popular romance novel is also developed in formulaic
manner. The Smithton women define the hero of the romance as “the man who the
writer gets you to like and want the heroine to have” (Radway 161). The romance
writer wants the reader and heroine to like the hero because he is, at first glance,
definitely not a likeable man. Radway states that he is “always characterized by
spectacular masculinity,” meaning he exhibits an aggressive demeanor and is often
described as “hard, angular and dark,” a scary figure indeed (128). The hero’s image
changes as readers and heroine discover that his aggressiveness and “preoccupation
with [women] as tools for achieving sexual release” are not a product of his
insensitivity or coldness but of his “fear of emotional involvement with calculating
women” (130). This way, “[t]he romantic narrative demonstrates that a woman must
learn to trust her man and to believe that he loves her deeply even in the face of
massive evidence to the contrary” (149). The romantic hero is finally redeemed when
he confesses his love for the heroine as the plot approaches its resolution and the
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expected HEA ending takes place.
The formulaic redemption of the hero and his union with the heroine are
problematic because they imply the acceptance and celebration of an extremely
misogynist masculinity characterized by aggressiveness and violence. According to
Radway, the celebration and acceptance of hegemonic masculinity is a characteristic
shared by all romance novels because it suggests that “masculinity implies only good
things for women” (168). Among these “good things for women” is the chance the
hero’s masculinity gives the heroine to shine as his opposite. As a result, the hero’s
performance of traditional masculinity allows for the full display and validation of the
heroine’s equally traditional femininity. I address the interrelation between
masculinity and femininity in Sex and the City, Bridget Jones’s Diary and
Confessions of a Shopaholic in the following pages. This issue is especially salient in
Bridget Jones’s Diary where Mark Darcy’s (Bridget’s love interest) entrance into her
life brings as a result the exit of her mother, a clear example of “machismo” or the
social predominance of the male. Sex and the City: The Movie will also serve as an
example of submissive feminine performance, where the heroine trusts the hero and
shows unwavering love for him in spite of emotional abuse and a clear lack of
reciprocity of feelings.
It is unsettling that romance and Chick-Lit readers rely on characters that are
anything but progressive for their entertainment. Even more disturbing is the fact that
misogynist characters and plot lines provide readers with a sense of relaxation and
escapism. The perpetuation of traditional gender roles in romance and Chick-Lit
novels is also a reason of concern. For example, the romantic hero is rendered
likeable because of his characteristically hegemonic masculine traits such as
aggressiveness, possessiveness, and emotional unavailability. In like manner, plots
favor heroines who perform traditional emphasized femininity and allow them to rise
triumphantly as likeable foils of the hero. The hero’s masculinity allows the heroine
to perform emphasized femininity through her ability to act as nurturer and caretaker.
It is worth mentioning that in some cases the hero might not be aggressive towards the
heroine. Nevertheless, it is common to find that the romantic hero is in some way
aggressive towards the heroine to the point where his actions suggest rape or what is
called romantic rape, a form of rape in which it is not clear whether the heroine wants
to engage in the sexual act or not.
It has been 26 years since Radway published Reading the Romance in 1984.
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Nevertheless, her observations about the romance novel and its readers are anything
but outdated given the facts that this genre is still as popular as it was when she
published her study and has influenced other literary genres and subgenres. Massedproduced romance novels, such as Harlequin novels, are currently a well-received
literary genre among female readers. According to the 2008 ROMStat Report
published by Romance Writers of America (the most recent report said
oraginizations’ website offers), romance fiction generated $1.3 billion in sales that
year alone, a significant figure compared to the $446 million of classic literary fiction.
Out of 275,232 romance titles in total, 7,311 were published in one year in the United
States alone. Further attesting to the genre’s popularity, Romance Writer’s of
America’s ROMStat report indicates that “74.8 million Americans read at least one
romance novel in 2008” (www.rwanational.org). Romance Writers of America
(henceforth RWA) categorizes Chick-Lit as a sub-genre of the popular romance
novel. Said organization places Chick-Lit sales in a separate group titled “Other,”
alongside erotic romance and other unspecified genres. This “Other” category
accounts for 3.78% of the romance sub-genres published in 2008. The first three spots
of romance book sales are occupied by the contemporary serial romance, the
contemporary romance, and the historical romance with 25.84%, 18.37% and 15.91%
of all romance novels published in 2008, respectively (www.rwa-national.org). The
figures offered by RWA indicate Chick-Lit represents only a very small fraction of all
romance publishing. A possible reason for these low figures could be that there is no
single definition of Chick-Lit and therefore the novels taken in account for the report
might not be representative of the genre as a whole, only of those novels categorized
as Chick-Lit by RWA. In addition, Chick-Lit often falls under the umbrella label
“literary fiction,” as a quick visit to the local bookstore will attest. RWA’s website
offers short definitions for some sub-genres of the romance such as the contemporary
series romance, inspirational romance and paranormal romance, but does not offer a
definition for Chick-Lit; this I will attempt to do in the following pages. The website
also does not offer a list of criteria for the classification of romance novels according
to the sub-genres it mentions. A second possible reason behind the conflation of
Chick-Lit with other romantic literary sub-genres is its similarity to the popular
romance novel. For purposes of this work, the most important similarities between
Chick-Lit and the traditional Harlequin romance novel are the reliance on
heterosexual love and a heterosexual, monogamous love story as the propelling force
53
of the plot, an emphasis on and perpetuation of traditional gender roles within and
outside the relationship between the romantic hero and heroine, and the dependence
on formulaic plots and characters as a method to grant the genre uniformity and
guarantee its success as a commodity.
Evidence of the use of formulaic plots and characters in Chick-Lit novels is
the availability of guides dedicated solely to instructing aspiring writers on how to
become successful Chick-Lit authors in today’s book market. One such guide is Sarah
Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs’s See Jane Write: A Girl’s Guide to Writing Chick-Lit.
If Chick-Lit writers are following how-to guides like Mlynowski and Jacobs’s, then it
is no surprise that Chick-Lit novels are similar in themes, topics, plots, and characters.
It only takes a quick look at See Jane Write: A Girl’s Guide to Writing Chick-Lit to
determine the main characteristics that distinguish Chick-Lit from other literary
genres and contribute to its formulaic conventions. Commonalities among Chick-Lit
novels include an emphasis on dating and romantic relationships as well as the pursuit
and enjoyment of leisure activities, specifically shopping (the acquisition of designer
goods is encouraged), traveling and partaking in trendy nightlife at fashionable clubs
in big cities. Although Mlynowski and Jacobs state Chick-Lit “is not all about shoes.
Or clothes. Or purses… [or] about getting a guy” they fall in the crass mistake of
emphasizing these pursuits by means of comparing and equating them to other
activities, especially writing. The authors advise that “[l]ike choosing the right shoes
to go with that cute skirt, you’ve got to match your style to your story” (92).
Mlynowski and Jacobs also establish a relationship between the writing process and
dating. In a tone that resembles that of a self-help manual, they equate writing with
dating by telling aspiring authors “[y]ou want to charm your reader. You want to put
your best face forward. You want to be lovable and entertaining, but you also want to
be taken seriously. Basically, writing chick lit is like dating… Who knows— while
helping you turn your great idea into a fantastic chick lit novel, we might just help
you turn your next date into a spectacular one” (39). One can only wonder how a
guide about writing Chick-Lit can be of help with dating unless, of course, it is
about writing novels about dating.
If Mlynowski and Jacobs’s method and advice for writing are followed by
Chick-Lit authors, then it is no surprise these novels are similar in content and their
plots emphasize two of the main oppressive forces that are so unfortunately common
in women’s lives nowadays: commodity consumption and the pursuit of a romantic
54
relationship. Similarities among the plots of Chick-Lit novels can be traced back to its
beginnings. Mlynowski and Jacobs agree with critics and scholars on the subject in
crediting Helen Fielding with kick-starting the Chick-Lit craze in 1996, when she
published Bridget Jones’s Diary. If Fielding’s novel is the model to follow, then the
reason for the formulaic nature of Chick-Lit novels is evident: emulate the bestseller
to secure success of the genre. Why change something that works? Securing success
is in fact the purpose of following a formula, doing so “permits an editor to direct and
control book creation in highly specific ways.” It also guarantees the genre’s success
by consistently appealing to a “regular audience” (Mlynowsky and Jacobs 29).
Chick-Lit novels are stories of young women, often in search of love, going
through life and learning lessons along the way. Mlynowski and Jacobs define ChickLit as being about “the main character’s road to self-discovery” (10). They further
explain Chick-Lit is
often upbeat, always funny fiction about contemporary female
characters and their everyday struggles with work, home, friendship,
family or love. It’s about women growing up and figuring out who
they are and what they need versus what they think they want. It’s
about observing life and finding humor in a variety of situations,
exchanges and people. It’s about coming of age (no matter how old the
woman is—chick lit heroines can be anywhere from teenaged to
beyond middle-aged). It’s generally written by women for women. It’s
honest, it reflects women’s lives today—their hopes and dreams as
well as their trials and tribulations... (10)
Chick-Lit as defined by Mlynowski and Jacobs is a bildungsroman of sorts for
women. It strays away from the traditional buildungsroman narrative to trace a new
genre for young woman. According to Edward Quinn, bildungsroman is “a type of
novel that focuses on the development of a character moving from childhood to
maturity.” It usually “charts a movement from innocence to knowledge” (36). ChickLit novels only partially fit the definition of bildungsroman because they rarely chart
the interior voyage of its main character chronologically from childhood to maturity.
Rather, these novels tend to focus on the life of the already grown-up heroine, who is
usually in her 30s or approaching said age. Nevertheless, like the traditional
bildungsroman narrative, they chart the main character’s personal journey of inner
growth from innocence to maturity or from inexperience to experience. Chick-Lit
55
novels are also different from the traditional bildungroman in that they follow a
female main character, contrary to the conventional male main character of the
bildungsroman novel. The heroine of Chick-Lit novels and the main character of the
bildungsroman story are more similar than they are different because they represent
the common woman and the common man, respectively. If the hero of the
bildungsroman is Everyman, then the Chick-Lit heroine is Everywoman. Readers love
her because she is personable, easy to identify with and appealing. She is “confident
yet insecure. Smart but naïve. Lovable yet flawed” (Mlynowski and Jacobs 64). She
represents her audience and so, as Radway observes readers of Harlequin romances
do, readers of Chick-Lit can project themselves onto the heroine and build and live
their own fantasy life through her. Chick-Lit readers escape their reality through the
act of reading, much like readers of romance do. They escape the burdens of their
quotidian lives through the individual, solitary act that is reading and enter a fantastic
world of all that is commonly portrayed as feminine: very little work, shopping,
fashion, fun, glamour, dating, and (heterosexual) romantic love.
A myriad of literary subgenres are published under the heading Chick-Lit.
Mlynowsky and Jacobs mention and define some of these genres. They are “Mystery
Chick Lit (hip woman solving crimes); Christian Lit (not only is she trying to find a
man—she’s trying to find God); Multicultural Lit (everyday struggles with an ethnic
slant); and Paranormal Lit (everyday struggles—except the protagonist happens to be
vampire/witch).” The authors also add to the list
Teen Lit (girl juggling her issues at home and school); Single-in-theCity Lit (young woman living in New York/London gets dumped and
tries to find her way in the urban jungle); Bride Lit (young woman
about to walk down the aisle, or walking behind her friend down the
isle); Mom Lit (young woman juggling life, kids, and desires); [and]
Hen Lit (young-at-heart woman juggling life, kids, desires, and
grandkids). (14)
Mlynowski and Jacobs offer a brief explanation of the impact of Chick-Lit
on the publishing industry. The most important landmark year in the history of ChickLit in addition to 1996 is 2001, when Harlequin Enterprises launched Red Dress, a
company branch dedicated solely to publishing Chick-Lit novels. Harlequin’s move
prompted other companies like Simon & Schuster and Kensington to open separate
branches for the publishing of Chick-Lit. Four years later, media giant Warner Books
56
inaugurated 5 Spot, a company branch dedicated only to Chick-Lit novels. The boom
of publishing branches dedicated to Chick-Lit further illustrates the popularity of the
genre and the relevance of its role in the book industry. These companies’ expansion
shows that publishing Chick-Lit novels is profitable, to the extent that it is worth
creating a separate branch dedicated solely to its production. There is certainly a
market for Chick-Lit, even if the figures offered by RWA’s 2008 ROMStat report
seem to indicate otherwise.
Chick-Lit has grown since its inception and continues to grow as a genre in
the field of literature for and by women thanks to the publishing industry’s strategic
subdivision of said genre into multiple subgenres. Each of the many subgenres under
the heading Chick-Lit targets a specific sector within the larger community of readers,
a marketing tactic that serves to increase its appeal and audience numbers. A quick
visit to the local bookstore reveals that there is a good amount of Chick-Lit novels on
the shelves, an indication of its success and popularity as a literary genre and sellable
commodity. It will also reveal that publishing companies rely on a specific visual
iconography to market Chick-Lit novels. For example, Chick-Lit book covers share a
color palette based on purple, pink, red, white, black, and pretty much any pastel color
in the spectrum (although pink and baby blue prevail). A quick survey of Chick-Lit
covers reveals that favorite icons are commodities such as shoes, phones, purses,
shopping bags, lipsticks, food (especially adorned cakes and cupcakes), and clothing
items and accessories (dresses, skirts, and any kind of sparkling jewelry, particularly
wedding rings, are favorites). This way, Chick-Lit not only reinforces and perpetuates
emphasized femininity in written content matter but also visually through the display
of items that are indicative of three of the most oppressive forces in women’s lives:
domesticity, commodity consumption, and heteronormativity. Other common icons
that adorn the covers of Chick-Lit novels are skylines of famous big cities (New
York, Seattle, and San Francisco stand out) and fragmented pictures of often
Caucasian, faceless, skinny bodies showing bare legs, feet donning stilettos, and
hands flaunting wedding rings. The use of colors and icons that are already popularly
associated with women and femininity in the design of Chick-Lit book covers
contributes to the successful marketing and selling of said items.
The repeated use of said icons and color palette on the covers of Chick-Lit
novels gives the genre uniformity and helps readers differentiate said books from
within the larger pool of available books classified as fiction. The publishing
57
industry’s practice of relying on a set of familiar icons and references to help readers
set apart one genre from another is a tried and true practice. Take for example the
covers of romance novels, which often resemble ornate period paintings of fit,
muscular, invariably bare-chested, virile men. The use of a specific iconography and
style to distinguish Chick-Lit book covers from those of other genres is especially
understandable since there is no such thing as a Chick-Lit section in most bookstores
and only some online booksellers classify books under such category. Most Chick-Lit
novels can be found under the headings Literature and Fiction. The fact that Chick-Lit
novels can be found next to other genres in bookstore shelves is worth pointing out
because it suggests that Chick-Lit is an open-ended umbrella term and a category that
is not as well defined as other genres such as the Harlequin romance novel, Children’s
Literature and Young Adult Literature, all of which are distinctly categorized in
bookstores and book selling websites.
The titles of Chick-Lit novels are also similar in letter font and word choice.
Ornate fonts with curly cues and cursive letters tend to be the preferred kind. This
constitutes another attempt from the part of publishing companies to appeal to ChickLit readers, since curves are popularly associated with the female body and angles
with the male body— a curvy hour glass figure being the analogy of choice for the
description of the ideal female body and an upside down triangle for the ideal male
body. An additional and very important observation about the visual rhetoric of
Chick-Lit novels is that their titles often make reference to famous places or
landmarks (mostly those associated with shopping, glamour and/or romance), name
brands, designers, clothing items, accessories, and/or marriage and dating. Great
examples of said characteristic are the titles of Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears
Prada and Chasing Harry Winston, Sue Margolis’s Gucci Gucci Coo, Kimberly T.
Matthews’ The Perfect Shoe, Jenniffer Weiner’s In Her Shoes, Dee Davis’s A Match
Made on Madison, and Amanda Hamm’s Tightening the Knot. These titles are only a
small sample of Chick-Lit novels available in the market. Similar titles with similar
references to commodity consumption and marriage abound.
The presence of the word “chick” in the category Chick-Lit is highly
problematic given the meaning of said word as well as its negative connotations. To
call a woman a “chick” is no better than calling her a “bitch,” a “nag,” or a shrew—
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all terms that equate a woman with an animal. In some ways, the derogatory of
“chick” may be worse. The young of a chicken is not aggressive, threatening,
intimidating, majestic or symbolic of strength and courage, like, for example, a bald
eagle. A chick is quite the opposite: it is small, weak, fragile, harmless, domesticated,
and inoffensive. Its feathers are soft and its chirp barely audible. The harmlessness,
fragility and non-threatening appearance of said bird are such that “chicken” is often
employed to designate a cowardly person. The implication of calling women “chicks”
is that they are much like a young chicken. Reviewing the list of adjectives that can be
used to describe a chick brings to mind the typical romantic heroine who is
submissive and fragile at heart, regardless of her tomboyishness, wit, and apparent
rebelliousness against societal norms. It also brings to mind the Chick-Lit heroine
whose beliefs about life and love are very similar to those of her predecessor, the
heroine of popular romance novels, even if she is somewhat more ironic and sarcastic
about love and romance.
The Oxford English Dictionary includes the derivatives “chick lit” and “chick
flick” under “chick.” It defines “chick lit” as “literature by, for, or about women esp. a
type of fiction, typically focusing on the social lives and relationships of young
professional women, and often aimed at readers with similar experiences”
(http://dictionary.oed.com). The OED makes the very special distinction of preceding
this definition with the indication “occas. depreciative,” thus making reference to the
interrelationship between the term chick, its definition as that of a young bird, and the
literary genre with which it is associated and its target audience. There are many
definitions of Chick-Lit available in the literature about the subject. Many Chick-Lit
scholars agree with OED’s emphasis on “the social lives and relationships of young
professional women” and its aim at both targeting and creating a community of
readers that share these experiences. Caroline J. Smith examines community
formation among Chick-Lit readers and points out that part of the success of this
genre is the sense of comfort that it provides its audience, one that they “feel
compelled to share with their female friends” (358, emphasis mine). This comfort
originates in the formulation of familiar situations and personable, appealing
characters. Readers of Chick-Lit tend to “respond to the situations” the characters find
themselves in, “their quests for love, their struggle to find meaningful work [and]
their attempts to navigate their lives” because they are familiar with these endeavors
(Smith 358). They also relate to the main female character of Chick-Lit novels
59
because she often functions as a representative of the larger community of women.
The sense of comfort Chick-Lit offers its readers is also due to the close
relationship between Chick-Lit and the larger tradition of domestic and sentimental
literature, a genre associated with women writers. ShaunAnne Tangney argues ChickLit is part of this tradition because it shares many characteristics with older works
categorized as such. The most relevant of these characteristics for the purposes of this
work are its emphasis on
•
a young heroine who struggles for self-mastery, learning the pain of
conquering her own passions.
•
a heroine who learns to balance society’s demands for self-denial with
her own desire for autonomy.
•
tales that generally end with marriage, usually one of two possible
kinds: reforming the bad or ‘wild” male, or marrying the solid male
who already meets qualifications. (50)
The first two characteristics from the above list are especially applicable to
Chick-Lit, as we will see in the case of Bridget Jones’s Diary, where Bridget
constantly struggles to control herself and her impulses. There is some debate in the
literature about Chick-Lit on whether the last characteristic mentioned by Tangney is
applicable to said genre since not all novels end in marriage. I would argue that most
of Chick-Lit novels end either in marriage or an union (as in a reconciled romantic
relationship) and many of them, if not all, tackle to some degree the social pressure
that young women feel to marry and have children. Generally speaking, Chick-Lit
approaches sentiments and feelings differently than its predecessors. The sense of
nostalgia, sadness, disillusion, and hope prevalent in sentimental literature is present
in Chick-Lit novels. The main difference between Chick-Lit novels and sentimental
literature (such as the Harlequin romance) is that the aforementioned feelings in
Chick-Lit are tinted with the sarcasm, irony, and disbelief characteristic of the
postmodern times we live in, where isolation, alienation, and the strains of
consumerist capitalism tend to desensitize individuals and increase feelings of
disenchantment and skepticism about interpersonal human relations more than ever
before.
Isolation, alienation and the need to disassociate with the past is a key feature
of Chick-Lit’s postfeminist content. Although Chick-Lit as a literary genre tends to
60
distance itself from the past by rejecting feminism (Bridget Jones’s Diary being the
perfect example), the underlying message of many of these novels is that the struggles
previous generations of feminists faced and are thought to have overcome are still
troubling the current generation of young women. Testament to this message is that
Chick-Lit novels are populated by female characters troubled by pressures and issues
that have been and still are of concern to feminists. For example, many Chick-Lit
heroines feel the pressure to “make it” and “have it all,” which basically refers to
managing a house, husband, kids, and job without help, simultaneously and
successfully. A big contributor to the oppressiveness of said standard is that it is
applicable only to women. As previously stated, men do not have to strive to be
“super” because they are not pressured to juggle their careers with everyday domestic
obligations; this is the job of the superwoman. The superman comes home from work
to enjoy his kids and home. The superwoman comes home from work to work what is
popularly known as the second shift, which consists of tending to her children,
husband and home.
Bridget Jones is an example of character who feels the pressure to “make it.”
For her, “making it” means having a career and changing her status from singleton to
partnered. Miranda Hobbes of the Sex and the City movie and TV series is another
example of a character who struggles with the pressure to “make it.” Her romantic
relationships (and ultimately marriage) fail because she is unable to balance her career
and personal life. Miranda represents the woman who tries to fit the standard of a
superwoman and fails. Her story renders said ideal as almost impossible to attain and,
most importantly, detrimental to women. Overall, the message of Chick-Lit novels
and Chick-Flicks is that women cannot successfully balance their professional and
personal lives. It is either one or the other. Sadly, these texts’ favored “one” is
domesticity. In the case of Miranda, her relationships improve when she lowers her
work load. Already Susan Faludi’s concept of the backlash is apparent in Chick
culture in general.
For now, it is in our interest to define Chick-Lit as postfeminist fiction. In
Chick-Lit novels, feminism and the struggles that previous generations of feminists
fought against for the good of newer generations of women are often portrayed as
things of the past, not worth recalling. These feminist issues, such as equal pay in the
workplace, are erroneously considered by the great majority of the population to be
outdated and already settled. Chick-Lit novels contribute to define postfeminism as a
61
contradiction. In Lynne Alice’s words, these texts define postfeminism as “a return to
breasts, femininity and motherhood” on one hand, and “an acknowledgement that
feminism was overly preoccupied with escaping domesticity to achieve equality with
men in the workplace” on the other (9). As postfeminist fiction, Chick-Lit novels also
emphasize the sense of self-centered, commodity-dependent formation of the female
subject that is pervasive nowadays. Nevertheless, and even if the definition of ChickLit as postfeminist literature might seem negative and anything but progressive and
forward-thinking, this popular, successful literary genre holds great potential for
putting forward a more favorable image of women and of feminism not only
within the literary landscape but also within the larger field of popular culture.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines chick as a verb as well as a noun. The
verb chick means “[t]o crack or burst as a seed does in sprouting; to split; to chap”
(http://dictionary.oed.com). Suzanne Ferris and Mallory Young point out that
“[r]eactions to chick lit are divided between those who expect literature by and about
women to advance the political activism of feminism, to represent women’s struggles
in patriarchal culture and offer inspiring images of strong, powerful women, and those
who argue instead that it should portray the reality of young women grappling with
real life” (9). Chick-Lit should be about the first; an agenda of change is necessary
behind every modern woman’s narrative because there is no way of achieving
progress without first believing in the idea that it can be done. This idea could and
should be developed in the sphere of popular culture. There is no better way to show
that progress is possible than by creating characters that are easy to relate to who
illustrate said objective as something that is possible and viable. As it is nowadays,
Chick-Lit is not progressive or transgressive. It perpetuates archaic, patriarchal ideas
about gender and gender roles. It also offers a very limited definition of who, what
and how a woman is and should be. Nevertheless, like a seed does to the soil when it
sprouts, this fairly new literary genre can little by little forge an opening, a new space,
for a truly feminist and fair approach to the representation of an appealing
Everywoman heroine in its pages, one that challenges and transgresses the established
parameters ascribed to her gender.
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CHAPTER THREE
THE EDGE OF REASON: IS BRIDGET JONES A FEMINIST HEROINE?
“Why is Bridget Jones so popular, and why can’t I put this book down at two
in the morning?” I ask myself as I turn the page while relentlessly fighting sleep,
wanting to keep on reading even as my eyes close on me. Surely, there has to be
something in it, something about Bridget that is alluring to readers like me: young,
single, working women. Why is this character so popular? What is it about her that is
so appealing? Her vulnerability? Her sarcasm? Her honesty? As I read on, it becomes
apparent that this is a tough question, one that might have more than one valid
answer. Whatever the answer, the mystery element has worked well, because Bridget
Jones is now a household name. What started as a series of anonymous columns first
published in the British newspaper the Independent back in 1995 is now a
multimillion dollar international franchise (Guenther 84). As of today, the Bridget
Jones franchise consists of two novels: the original Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996) and
its sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (1999). The franchise is completed by
the corresponding film adaptation of each novel. Bearing the same title as the
corresponding novels, the films were released in 2001 and 2004, respectively. In
addition to the two novels and films, there is also the less popular Bridget Jones’s
Guide to Life (2001), a sort of self-help book where Bridget gives advice about how
to approach a myriad of situations in life such as confronting annoying married
couples, or “smug marrieds,” and, of course, losing weight. Bridget also provides a
glossary in which she defines many of the made-up terms that she uses in her first
diary such as “singleton,” “smug married” and the popular “emotional fuckwittage.”
A TV series stands as a possible addition to the Bridget franchise. Recently, there
have also been talks about a third movie. It is still to be seen if these last adaptations
of Bridget Jones’s Diary materialize. 5
Bridget Jones’s Diary is as much a phenomenon within the field of literary
studies as it is in the sphere of popular culture. Often the main issue of the ongoing
debate is whether or not Bridget’s self-earned financial stability, independence and
5
For Bridget Jones’s Diary TV series see: “Bridget Jones Comes to TV.” The New York Post, 1 March
2010. Web. 28 December 2010.
<http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/bridget_comes_to_tv_uDcRvBzPW9AkFx6gVyxzLK>
For third Bridget Jones’s Diary movie see <http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/08/11/third-bridgetjones-movie-is-finally-a-go-exclusive/>.
63
ability not to let her short comings get the best of her make her the prototype of the
ideal modern woman. Some scholars vehemently argue that Bridget is a feminist
heroine while others maintain the opposite point of view just as passionately. I will
argue that Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary is not a feminist text and by
extension its main character is not a feminist heroine. Instead, Bridget Jones’s Diary
is very much a postfeminist novel in that its main character partakes in the undoing of
past feminist gains in the fight against female objectification and unrealistic beauty
standards. Fielding’s novel is part of the double-edged sword that is popular
postfeminist thought. Bridget is meant to be a model strong, confident, nonconformist, witty, independent woman. But alas, underneath this façade of feminine
strength and rebellion, lie enormous contradictions, for she performs traditional
emphasized femininity without any real effort to challenge this very limiting concept,
does not rebel against the misogynist attitudes of her friends and family (especially
Daniel Cleaver’s), and completely gives in to virtually every oppressive societal
expectation about women. The discrepancy between proclaimed independence and
enacted submission to normalizing patriarchal traditions and ideology is the essence
of postfeminism. This way, what seems to be a narrative that celebrates female
empowerment and progress is quite the opposite.
What could be Bridget’s most accessible means to show self-empowerment,
assertiveness, independence, ownership, and control is in fact the number one
obstacle between her and these aforementioned feminist ideals. It is also her biggest
source of frustration. This tool is none other than her own body, herself. Bridget’s
failure to possess her body, to make it hers and not the media’s or her family’s, is the
reason why she struggles with it so much throughout her diary. Two of the biggest
burdens in Bridget’s life are her singledom and her inability to conform to existing
standards of female physical beauty. Fear of being fat is a real, imminent pressure for
many women. Controlling one’s weight is an integral part of the process of fitting-in
and conforming to standards of beauty. The simple act of watching television or of
eying one of the many women’s magazines on display in the market will provide
evidence enough of the magnitude of the health and fitness industry’s efforts of
promoting diet and exercise goods marketed solely to female audiences.
Bridget represents one of the millions of women who are literally consumed
by the inculcated fear of being fat. She is a victim of what bell hooks calls
“patriarchal mass media” (Feminism 1). A self-proclaimed “child of Cosmopolitan
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culture,” she is exposed to media (such as the aforementioned popular women’s
magazines) that perpetuate and emphasize unrealistic beauty standards (Fielding 52,
italics in original). As a result of her exposure to patriarchal media, Bridget realizes
she has been “traumatized by supermodels and too many quizzes” (Fielding 52). An
evident symptom of that trauma is her constant obsession with her weight and
physical appearance. Bridget keeps a detailed record of her weight from the first entry
of her diary to the very last one. She also compulsively counts the calories she
consumes on a daily basis and repeatedly sets unrealistic, unattainable weight loss
goals. For example, the entry for February 23rd reveals that Bridget wishes to go from
125 to 119 lbs overnight. Losing 6 pounds in one day is close to impossible, let alone
losing them overnight, unless, of course, one turns to unhealthy weight loss
alternatives such as diuretics. The entry for March 7th shows another instance of
Bridget’s obsession with her weight. At 9am, she asks herself “[h]ow can I have put
on 30 lbs. since the middle of the night? I was 130 when I went to bed, 128 at 4 a.m.
and 131 when I got up. I can understand weight coming off—it could have evaporated
or passed out of the body into the toilet—but how could it be put on?” (Fielding 64,
emphasis in original). Bridget’s concern with her weight leads her to obviate natural
bodily processes such as normal weight fluctuations. In accordance with her obsessive
behavior, Bridget follows her best friend Jude’s advice to keep a food diary and
concludes the entry with a detailed list of her meals for that day.
Bridget’s struggle with weight management translates into efforts to control
and normalize her body. These efforts are documented in the entries for August 2, 3,
4, and 9 where she records not only her weight and caloric intake but also her body
measurements. The August 2nd entry begins with the following catalogue of quantities
and measurements, “124 lbs., thigh circumference 18 inches, alcohol units 3 (but v.
pure sort of wine), cigarettes 7 (but did not inhale), calories 1500 (excellent), teas 0,
coffees 3 (but made with real coffee beans therefore less cellulite-inducing), total
caffeine units 4” (Fielding 159, italics in original). Bridget follows the above list with
the statement “[e]verything’s fine. Am going to get down to 119 lbs. again and free
thighs entirely of cellulite. Certain everything will be all right then.” For Bridget,
happiness and stability reside in reaching a desired weight and body image standard.
Her unrealistic goals about weight loss result in an equally unrealistic and detrimental
approach to life: the notion that happiness can be reached by being skinnier. Nowhere
is the effect of patriarchal mass media more palpable than in the self-hatred many
65
women feel because they cannot adhere to beauty standards sold as necessary for
happiness in life. Feminist mass media would be the opposite of patriarchal media: it
would be based on a true celebration of diversity of bodies and femininities.
Unfortunately, Bridget does not celebrate her body and self. Her world revolves
around the desire to modify and normalize her body, so much so that her obsession
with controlling its weight and shape develops into an eating disorder.
Bridget proudly documents in various occasions not only that she throws up
the food she eats but also that said act enables her to cut calories, as if throwing up
one’s meal was a beneficial accomplishment. The preface to the August 14th entry is
an example of such compulsive, unhealthy behavior. It reads as follows, “131 lbs.
(great-turned into lard mountain for interview, also have spot), alcohol units 0,
cigarettes many, calories 1575 (but threw up so effectively 400, approx)” (Fielding
170, italics in original). Bridget throws up her meal again in the entry for October
13th, where she is not satisfied with the amount of calories lost. Bridget’s account of
the day’s calories reads, “129 lbs (but have temporarily turned into wine bag), alcohol
units 0 (but feeding off wine bag), calories 0 (v.g.)
Actually might as well be honest
here. Not really v.g. as only 0 because puked up 5876 calories immediately after
eating” (214, italics in original). Her ability to measure the amount of calories she
throws up is puzzling to me. Can this realistically be done? And on what criteria does
she base her estimations? I also find it confusing that a character that is proud of her
ability to lose calories by throwing up can be considered a feminist heroine.
Bridget’s habit of throwing up her meals suggests that she suffers from an
eating disorder, specifically bulimia. Although there are no direct indications that
Bridget voluntarily throws-up by stimulating her gag reflex through the finger-downthroat method traditionally associated with bulimia, the intention of throwing up in
order to lose weight is apparent in her entries, thus making the possibility of said
disorder alarmingly real. She congratulates herself after throwing up 400 calories
“effectively” and proudly mentions that she lost 5876 calories “immediately after
eating” (Fielding 170; 214). These remarks along with the lack of evidence of illness,
indigestion or alcohol abuse (she records zero alcohol units on both occasions)
suggest that vomiting is intentional and induced. Bridget’s diary entries also hint that
she might be anorexic since, for example, she believes that the “nutritional ideal is to
eat nothing at all and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy
they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets” (Fielding 225).
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World-wide statistics for eating disorders are alarming. In the United States alone, “as
many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle
with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.” 6 Bridget Jones’s Diary
glamorizes bulimia and anorexia by presenting them not as life-threatening eating
disorders but as dietetic methods whose end is the loss of bodily weight for aesthetic
purposes. A true feminist text would create awareness about eating disorders, a
condition that is statistically proven to affect women more than men. It would not
glamorize such a serious issue as a dietetic fad.
In order to fit-in with societal standards of physical appearance, Bridget has
also to perform a series of beauty routines related to traditional emphasized
femininity, a ritual that entails spending inordinate amounts of time, effort and money
in achieving an appearance or look considered attractive to men. Think of, for
example, Bridget’s efforts to look attractive for her coworker Daniel Cleaver, which
result in tardiness and awake in her a desire to undergo plastic surgery. Culturally
shared parameters about what is considered beautiful and normal in women, plus the
rituals that accompany the necessary submission to these concepts in order to comply
with the standards they dictate, inform the ideology behind what Naomi Wolf calls
the beauty myth. According to Wolf, the beauty myth is a set of “underlife” principles
that poisons women’s freedom. This myth is a created popular belief “infused with
notions of beauty, […] a dark vein of self-hatred, physical obsessions, terror of aging,
and dread of lost control.” Wolf argues that the beauty myth exists as the result of a
backlash against feminism. While feminists advocate agency and progress for women,
the beauty myth acts as a “political weapon against women’s advancement” by
exerting social control over women’s psyche through the regulation of their bodies
(10). The beauty myth also works as a sort of intellectual prison, one that sets norms
and regulations related to the body and by extension to communal behavior, manners
and morals. Wolf explains “[t]he qualities that a given period calls beautiful in
women are merely symbols of the female behavior that that period considers
desirable.” This way, the beauty myth “is always actually prescribing behavior and
not [only] appearance” (13-14).
6
See: National Eating Disorders Association Statistics: Eating Disorders and their Precursors.”
National Eating Disorders Association, 2005. Web. 28 December 2010.
<http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/uploads/file/Statistics%20%20Updated%20Feb%2010,%2020
08%20B.pdf>.
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Central to Wolf’s discussion of the beauty myth is the figure of the Iron
Maiden. The Iron Maiden is a Medieval German torture device (similar to a casket)
which was painted with “the limbs and features of a lovely, smiling young woman.”
Inside the Iron Maiden would stand the immobilized victim who was certain to die of
starvation or of the “metal spikes embedded in its interior” (Wolf 17). The operating
system of the beauty myth is analogous to that of the Iron Maiden because both
apparatuses imprison their victims, the former physically and the latter ideologically.
The beauty myth entraps its victims, not letting them break free from oppressive
ideologies that regulate their appearance, thoughts, morals, bodies, and overall
behavior. The beauty myth is very much at work in the lives of millions of women, if
not of every living woman. No matter where you turn, you are bound to meet women
who feel the burden of an inculcated feeling of non-conformity with their bodies,
looks and even life in general. They (we all) are trapped in invisible, internalized Iron
Maidens.
Bridget Jones is the perfect example of a young woman trapped in the Iron
Maiden of the beauty myth. In Bridget’s case, her own body acts as the Iron Maiden.
As we have seen, her weight obsession leads her to keep a detailed log of her caloric
intake and weight. But Bridget struggles with other aspects of her body in addition to
her weight. For example, she dreads getting older—a textbook indication of the
beauty myth in action. The aging process (which is natural and inevitable) frustrates
Bridget and makes her feel inadequate and worthless. The fact that she cannot afford
surgery to slow it down frustrates her even more. She writes “[o]nce get on tack of
thinking about aging there is no escape… Feel need to do something about aging
process, but what? Cannot afford face-lift. Caught in hideous cleft stick as both
fatness and dieting are in themselves aging. Why do I look old? Why?” Bridget also
feels undesirable, unattractive and unsexy because of her age. She complains “[a]argh
aargh. Have reached age when men of my own age no longer find their
contemporaries attractive” (Fielding 127). Her desperation and frustration as result of
the possibility of not being attractive to her male peers in her entry is easy to notice.
Her only hope is to reverse or slow down the aging process through plastic surgery,
but she cannot afford it. The Iron Maiden has Bridget trapped physically,
intellectually, and materially. Unfortunately, Bridget thinks “there is no escape”
because of her financial situation. She cannot see beyond the lies of the beauty myth
and the grasp of her personal Iron Maiden is too strong for her to realize that she
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can be happy and attractive without surgically modifying her body.
Like millions of women, Bridget is oppressed not only by societal beauty
standards but also by the industry that fuels them, one that impoverishes its mostly
female participants both at a personal and a financial level. We have no indication that
Bridget’s finances are adversely affected specifically because of the beauty industry,
nevertheless her personal and emotional impoverishment reflected in her lack of self
esteem along with her feelings of inadequacy and incompetence at being a feminine
woman are apparent throughout her diary. Bridget is the fictional representative of a
multitude of women who not only experience the need to look beautiful but who feel
the pressure to excel at it, to perfectly perform all the rituals related to emphasized
femininity or, in popular parlance, to be a “goddess” or a “diva.” The entries for
January 15th and February 23rd illustrate the anxiety and frustration that beauty rituals
bring to Bridget. She candidly confesses that they are a burden and make the mere act
of being a feminine woman difficult. She explains her frustration in the 6 p.m. entry
for January 15th which reads as follows,
Completely exhausted by entire day of date-preparation. Being a
woman is worse than being a farmer— there is so much harvesting and
crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved,
eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturized, spots
cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged,
stomach and muscles exercised. The whole performance is so highly
tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to
go to seed… Ugh, ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence?
(Fielding 27, emphasis mine).
Certainly, there is something wrong if being a farmer, and thus tending a
farm and carrying out arduous physical work on a daily basis, is easier than being a
woman. It simply means that being a feminine woman and socially existing as one
represents an enormous amount of work, so much so that it is close to undesirable.
The irony of Bridget’s comparison dissolves once one takes in account the fact that
the many societal obligations and pressures associated with being a feminine woman
(beauty related or otherwise) are ever ending. While the farmer can take a day off
from his duties at the farm, a woman cannot take a day off from being a woman.
Physical work can be paused and the tired body can rest but the body cannot stop
performing gender since it must be acted out constantly. In Bridget’s words, if the
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performance stops the whole act “goes to seed” (Fielding 27).
Bridget’s frustration with the hardships related to the performance of
traditional femininity brings to mind Butler’s theory about performativity. Bridget
herself uses the word “performance” in reference to her participation in acts and
rituals associated with her gender. She feels the need to be attractive and feminine
because it is what her culture dictates a person of the female sex should do. She is not
only expected to wax, shave, apply makeup, and do all that is related with being
feminine in the traditional sense of the word, but is also expected to excel at it simply
because she is a woman. Understandably, her frustration arises when she does not
meet the expectations. Even if Bridget willingly participates in this socially expected
performance of traditional emphasized femininity, she recognizes that it is
overwhelming, difficult, and time-consuming. She is aware that it is a fragile
endeavor. It takes practice, work, and dedication.
The January 15th incident of exhaustion after trying to appear feminine is not
an isolated event in Bridget’s life. She repeatedly fails at performing femininity. In
the February 23rd entry, she undergoes one of the “date-preparations” mentioned in
the previous excerpt. She decides to wax her legs by herself since it was “too late to
book [an] appointment” at the beauty salon. The results are disastrous. Bridget ends
up burning her legs while at the same time “kneeling on a towel trying to pull off wax
strip firmly stuck to the back of my calf while watching Newsnight in an effort to
drum up some interesting opinions about things.” After her failed attempt at
performing said ritual, Bridget’s back hurts, her head aches, and her “legs are bright
red and covered in lumps of wax” (Fielding 52, italics in original). The procedure of
removing body hair with hot wax physically hurts Bridget. Once again, she fails at
performing rituals related to traditional emphasized femininity and the Iron Maiden
gets the best of her.
Not only is Bridget aware that the performance of femininity is quite an
endeavor (“neglect it for a few days and the whole thing goes to seed,” do it wrong
and it can be physically harmful), but she is also aware that it is disadvantageous for
women’s physical health, confidence, and self-esteem. Bridget asks “[i]s it any
wonder girls have no confidence?” (Fielding 27). She also points out in various
entries that societal standards of female beauty and the practices related to them are
detrimental for women. For example, on November 3rd she writes “I think taking part
in a beauty contest has started to make him [Tom] crack under the pressures we
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women have long been subjected to and he is becoming insecure, appearance
obsessed and borderline anorexic” (225). Bridget’s observation about her friend
Tom’s (who is the only gay character in the novel) participation in a beauty pageant
for men shows that she is aware of the negative effects that beauty standards have on
people, especially women. Bridget is no fool. She knows that the beauty myth affects
women negatively. Nevertheless, she conforms to it and does nothing to stop the
vicious cycle of obsession and monitoring that keeps her from living her life fully and
freely. Bridget is no feminist activist. She is a conformist postfeminist who recognizes
diverse sources of oppression but does nothing to oppose them after exposing them.
Some critics interpret Bridget Jones’s conformity as a sign of resistance. The
prevailing argument being that Bridget’s diary reflects her desire to resist normalizing
her life. This perspective suggests that her inability to lose weight and stop smoking
are not failed attempts at changing her life but successful attempts at not
accommodating to common societal expectations of an ideal, healthy weight and
lifestyle. Leah Guenther argues that Bridget’s “struggle to control her life and her
narrative” does not result from a literary convention (namely the confessional diary
narrative) but from “a cultural imperative to strive for multiple and contradictory
female ideals” (86). Following this argument, she offers a reading of Fielding’s novel
as a “feminist confessional” (84). According to Guenther, Bridget’s diary constitutes a
“confession of an unreformable self, a self ostensibly striving to improve but
incapable, and possibly unwilling, to do so.” She goes on to explain that Bridget’s
diary offers its fictional author “the tantalizing possibility of personal change while
also affording the space in which to record the failure, non-maintenance, or simple
rejection of it” (88, emphasis in original). For Guenther, Bridget’s diary is not merely
a tool she uses “to work through her efforts at self-improvement” but constitutes a
“rebellious record of her ultimate refusal to change” (88).
While it is true that Bridget’s diary acts as a record of her attempts at changing
herself and her life, it is not accurate to say that this record is “rebellious” or that
Bridget’s inability to change is a sign of her resistance to do so. Rather than offering a
possibility of transformation, Bridget’s diary is a record of her many struggles,
recurrent failures and frustration at her inability to achieve her goals such as, for
example, quitting smoking. Her constant need to monitor, revisit and discuss her
failures points to the acceptance of this cyclic performance as normal. In addition,
Bridget’s never-ending struggle to control her weight and modify her body image
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unquestionably outdoes her efforts of rejecting, resisting or accepting failure because
perseverance does not constitute acceptance of failure. Guenther maintains that
Bridget’s diary is a “rebellious record of her ultimate refusal to change” (89). For
Guenther, Bridget’s constant failure constitutes an act of rebellion against change. I
fail to see rebellion against change where change is constantly sought. This is not
refusal to change. It is failure to change. This is not rebelliousness. It is conformism.
Kelly A. Marsh joins the case in the defense of Bridget’s apparent resistance
to change and argues that although Bridget’s failure to progress might appear to be
“an indication of her lack of control over her life,” when examined closely it really is
“an indication of her total control of her narrative” (57). The opposition between will
and might and control and release in Bridget’s diary creates a series of contradictions
that arise mainly out of her constant desire to make changes in her life and her
inability to carry through. Marsh argues that although these contradictions might seem
to overpower Bridget’s narrative at first glance and to turn her diary into “a serious
self-improvement program” her main concern “is less in improving herself than in
justifying herself.” In Marsh’s account, Bridget emerges as a heroine who realizes
that “power over one’s future is always an illusion.” She accepts life as it is and
demonstrates through her constant refusal to change that the “myth of self-perfection”
and its promise that “the self can be completely remade” is truly a myth (59-60). In
other words, Marsh asserts that Bridget’s diary entries reflect not a failed woman but
a woman whose impulse to be free motivates her to reject all societal impositions on
her life and body.
Marsh and Guenther describe Bridget as a rebel who demonstrates that the self
cannot be “completely remade” but only modified. They fail to consider that if
Bridget were a true rebel, she would desist trying to change herself and constantly
setting unattainable goals that only prove to be a source of frustration. She would
embrace her life and self as they are and live proudly with both. She would break the
habit of repeatedly scolding herself with comments like “bad” and “v. bad” and would
accept that her life and body are not disgusting anomalies but are perfectly normal in
their current state. Bridget’s many self-deprecating comments show that her constant
inability to carry through with the goals that she voluntarily sets for herself frustrates
her. Bridget is not a rebel but a conformist. A rebel would make a change where
she/he sees fit and would break free from the source of conflict, something that
Bridget does not do.
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Bridget’s conformity affects every aspect of her life. It not only determines its
configuration as a repetitive cycle of goals and failures without an assertive, decisive
intent to change, but it also affects her own conceptualization of womanhood,
femininity, and feminism. Bridget’s idea of feminism is not based on the principles of
opposition and action against oppression of any kind. She demonstrates knowledge of
popular feminist concepts and works such as Germaine Greer’s “invisible woman”
and Susan Faludi’s Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women yet is
unable to apply their teachings to her life. In other words, Bridget is unable to put
theory into practice. She is aware of Faludi’s Backlash but is not capable of
recognizing how the backlash operates in her own life. For instance, she allows
societal pressure to be in a relationship and get married contribute to her sense of
depression, helplessness, and failure as a woman. She never once sets straight the
people who nag her but instead complains about it and, even worse, puts herself down
for not adhering to their standards.
Bridget constantly faces offensive comments from her friends and relatives for
being single and for working outside the house. Her friends’ negative remarks about
her being a “career girl” abound in her diary. For example, in her very first diary entry
Bridget describes a family holiday party. Here, friends of Bridget’s parents engage in
typical backlash-style criticism of her for not being married and having children. Una
Alconbury tells her “Bridget! What are we going to do with you!… You career girls!
I don’t know! Can’t put it off forever, you know. Tick-tock-tick-tock” (Fielding 11,
emphasis in original). Brian Enderby, another family friend also in the party, follows
Una’s comment by bluntly asking Bridget “How does a woman manage to get to your
age without being married?” (11). Una’s and Brian’s comments summarize all that is
wrong in Bridget’s life: she is a hopeless case because she is in her thirties, single,
does not have kids, has let her career get in the way of this socially prescribed goal
and, as a result, is getting too old to reproduce. Una’s reference to the “tick-tock-ticktock” of a clock refers to the much talked about biological clock that is held as
exclusive to the female sex. For Una and Brian, Bridget is a victim of the “‘infertility
epidemic’ striking professional women who postpone childbearing” (Faludi 19).
Bridget internalizes this sort of comment and laments her singleness and
childlessness. She asks herself “What’s wrong with me? Am completely alone”
(Fielding 28). A feminist stance would have allowed Bridget to oppose the pressure of
getting married and having children simply by not letting her whole life revolve
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around it. Putting theory into practice would have enabled Bridget to adopt a more
critical and less self-indicting posture. This might have enabled her to think of the
possibility of remaining single not as the end of the world but as an option as valid
and as good as the first.
Feminism is merely a word Bridget uses to feel better about herself and to
make sense of female-male romantic relationships in a very limited, traditional and
often anti-feminist way. In Bridget’s case feminism is, as Guenther explains, a word
“often picked at will to suit the speaker” (92). Bridget identifies as feminist in a
selective manner, doing so only privately in her diary. She demonstrates her
unwillingness to openly identify as feminist when she and her friend Jude shush their
mutual friend Sharon (or Shazzer, as Bridget prefers to call her) at a public café after
the latter makes a remark about Richard (Jude’s ex-boyfriend). Bridget justifies her
action, asserting “[a]fter all, there is nothing so unattractive to men as strident
feminism” (Fielding 18). Clearly, Bridget opposes self-identifying as feminist in
public because she believes it will lessen her possibilities of finding a male partner.
This way, she perpetuates the popular stereotype of feminists as bitter man-haters or
as women that men should avoid. She has internalized this negative stereotype and
fears it will be an obstacle in her personal love life.
The diary entry for February 18th contains a perfect example of Bridget’s
inclination to confess she is a feminist but only privately. In this entry Bridget
identifies as feminist as a way to try to understand her mother’s new outlook on life
and possible affair with Julio, a young Portuguese man that Mrs. Jones has recently
taken as a lover. Bridget’s mother complains that she has “spent thirty-five years
without a break running [her husband’s] home and bringing up his children” and is
now ready to “change things a bit” to make some time for herself. Bridget is shocked
by her mother’s sudden turn against domesticity and married life. She interprets it as a
feminist act and chooses to identify as such in an effort to understand her mother’s
new approach to life. Unfortunately, as she is thinking about her mother, “a tall,
distinguished looking man with gray hair, a European-style leather jacket and one of
those gentleman’s handbag things” catches her eye (Fielding 47). Immediately,
Bridget’s feminist musings are suspended and her romantic imagination kicks back in.
Mrs. Jones and her apparently feminist new take on life and Bridget’s effort to
understand it fade into the background as her mind is once again occupied by a
possible romantic prospect.
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Even if Bridget identifies as feminist and tries to understand her mother’s new
take on life as such, she cannot truly embrace a feminist stance because, among many
other reasons, she is defined by her relationships with men or lack thereof. She does
not find happiness within herself throughout her diary. For her, happiness would
come through an intimate, heterosexual monogamous relationship. Bridget is victim
of a heavily patriarchal existentialist positioning of the female self, one whose basic
premise Simone DeBeauvoir succinctly explains in the following quote: “woman is
defined exclusively in her relation to man” (143). Bridget constantly defines herself
and allows others to define her in relation to men. She laments her existence as a
single woman in various occasions throughout her diary. She goes so far as to state
“[t]otally alone. Entire year has been failure” after finding herself single in the month
of December (Fielding 260). A pause is in order here to allow ourselves a minute to
consider the weight of Bridget’s words. The entire year, 365 days, has been a failure
for her because she is single. Following her reasoning, if failure means being alone
then success means being accompanied or, most importantly for Bridget, not being
single. Therefore, being in a relationship would make her life better. It would help her
be happy and declare herself successful. It would also validate her as an accomplished
woman, given that her main concern is her inability to be in a relationship. Bridget
bases her definitions for success and happiness not on herself but on men and
their presence in her life. She defines herself in relation to her male other.
Luckily for Bridget, her narrative ends on a happy note when, in a
traditionally Harlequin-like romantic resolution, Mark Darcy, like a knight in shining
armor, walks into her family’s Christmas party to restore order by leading the police
to Julio, who is accused of fraud. After the police take Julio, Bridget’s family is still
trying to make sense of the scene and her mother and father start arguing. Just then,
Darcy grabs her hand as she was starting to feel “as if [her] whole world was
collapsing around [her] ears” and takes her out of the house and away from chaos to
“‘[…]celebrate what is left of Baby Jesus’s birthday’” (Fielding 265). Darcy takes
Bridget to Hintlesham Hall for champagne and Christmas lunch. After a short chat,
Bridget and Darcy get intimate. She enthusiastically narrates her experience as
follows,
Then he took the champagne glass out of my hand, kissed me, and
said, “Right, Bridget Jones, I’m going to give you pardon for,” picked
me up in his arms, carried me off to the bedroom (which had a four75
poster bed!) and did all manner of things which mean whenever I see a
diamond-patterned V-neck sweater in future, I am going to
spontaneously combust with shame. (267)
The ending to Bridget’s diary is highly problematic because of her passivity
and lack of agency. She is physically manipulated into taking part of Darcy’s plan for
their getaway, one in whose design she had no say. While it is true that Bridget
participated voluntarily in Darcy’s plan, it is also true that he planned the getaway
without consulting her, thus thinking of her as something he has control over, a
possession. He demonstrates his command over her when he lifts her up and carries
her to bed as if she was a doll. Bridget has no physical or sexual agency. She talks
about “all manner of things” that Darcey did to her in the bedroom but never once
does she talk about her role in the sexual act. Did she take a more active role and
reciprocate? We have no indication. She seems happy with surrendering all agency to
Darcey and assuming the role of the sexually passive/submissive woman opposite the
active/aggressive man. Furthermore, she predicts having feelings of shame after
having sex with Darcey instead of satisfaction, pride, and/or happiness. Why can’t she
enjoy having sex? Does she enjoy having sex with Darcy? And finally, how can she
be considered a feminist heroine when her narrative is not framed in a feminist
manner? It would have been a more feminist friendly ending to have Darcy help
Bridget with her family dilemma while recognizing her independence and ability to
successfully mediate the issue and restore harmony in her own family. In addition,
instead of Darcy assuming the role of prince charming, he could have given agency to
Bridget by allowing her to partake in the design of the getaway. Finally, the violence
that carrying a woman to bed signifies could have been omitted to give place to a less
rape-suggesting outcome. A more sexually aggressive Bridget would have
counteracted the suggested rape in her narrative.
Feminism in Bridget Jones’s Diary is subject of great debate within academia.
Ruth Page pinpoints the main contradictions that spark the debate. According to Page,
“Bridget herself exemplifies the outcome of second wave feminism in her selfdetermination, career success and sexual freedom,” but, she continues, the narrative
“seems to reinforce sexist stereotypes as shown through Bridget’s compliance in
constructing herself as a sexualized object of the male gaze, and the fact that she
seeks pleasure in desiring romance-plot closure for the narrative” (97). The Mark
Darcy rescue scene is not the only instance where Bridget distances herself from
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feminist principles by acting as the object of the male gaze. The best (and worst)
examples of female objectification in Bridget Jones’s Diary are Daniel Cleaver’s
electronic messages where he sexually harasses Bridget with inappropriate comments
about her attire. For example, Daniel tells Bridget her skirt is so short it should be
considered as absent and her blouse so transparent that her breasts (or “tits”) show
through. His comments are formulated in anything but a considerate, professional
manner. Bridget recognizes the harassing tone of Daniel’s messages and drafts an
electronic message to him as a response to the assault. Nevertheless, she retracts. She
thinks “[h]mm. Think will cross last bit out as contains mild accusation of sexual
harassment whereas v. much enjoying being sexually harassed by Daniel Cleaver”
(Fielding 22). Bridget also recognizes sexual harassment in an encounter with Daniel
at her place but chooses not to act on it. She says “I know that I didn’t give him
license to sexually harass me, but the complication was quite enjoyable, really, after
all the dramas and inner poise and everything” (95). It puzzles me how a character
who recognizes and is upset by sexual harassment perpetrated against her but chooses
not to do anything about it can be considered a feminist heroine.
Although my approach to Bridget Jones’s Diary so far has been from a
perspective focusing on issues of gender and sexuality, I would like to briefly address
other normalizing, homogenizing ideologies in said novel, specifically those
pertaining to issues of race and class. Stephen Maddison and Merl Storr, in their
excellent analysis of Bridget Jones’s Diary describe the novel as “intensely
conservative in terms of gender, race and class” (13). Fielding’s novel is incredibly
homogenous from a racial perspective: every one of its main characters is Caucasian.
According to Maddison and Storr, this whiteness is “unmarked, unspoken, and allpervasive” because the text makes almost no reference to the characters’ race (9).
There is only one direct reference to race in Bridget’s diary. It takes place when she
describes her mother to the police as “‘Caucasian’ and ‘of medium build’” (Fielding
241). We as readers are left to assume that Bridget, her father and her friends are
white in large part because of the setting in which the narrative develops (England)
and the characterization of the people that populate the story. The characters’ speech
patterns, shopping tendencies, socializing practices, culinary preferences and cultural
references all point to a Caucasian Northern European lifestyle. The assumed racial
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homogeneity in Bridget Jones’s Diary is confirmed in the film version of the novel
where all characters are played by Caucasian actors.
The whiteness of the racially homogenous community in Bridget Jones’s
Diary is “thrown into relief” by the token character of Julio, Bridget mother’s
Portuguese lover (Maddison and Storr 10). Julio, who is mostly absent throughout the
novel, acts as the Latino stereotype of the irresistibly attractive, dark, dominant,
macho, impulsive lover. We learn about Julio through Bridget, her mother and Mark
Darcy. Nevertheless, there is one scene where his presence stands out: the final family
Christmas party scene. At the party, before Mark Darcy takes Bridget away, Julio
literally bursts-in through the French windows of the Jones’s house and addresses
Bridget’s father bluntly stating, “[y]ou sleep with my woman.” Shortly after,
Bridget’s mother tokenizes Julio as a Latin lover when she “coquettishly” exclaims
“[o]h, he’s so Latin, hahaha” so as to try to relieve tensions arisen as the result of the
exposure of her extramarital affair. Julio stands out in this scene as the macho Latin
lover willing to claim “his” (note use of possessive pronoun) woman from any other
man who stands in his way. Bridget is quick to point out that her mother looks “more
aroused than embarrassed” by the Julio incident, thus validating his machismo as a
welcomed romantic gesture (Fielding 263). The scene concludes when Mrs. Jones
follows Julio to her room. Like her daughter, she too is lured by dark romantic heroes.
She is also marveled by Julio’s bravery to break-in through the French windows of
her house and liven-up an otherwise non-eventful family Christmas party. The
breaking of the windows is a symbolic event, for it constitutes a metaphorical rape of
the domestic feminized space that a house represents. The changing of locales, from a
common area of the house to the more intimate bedroom, also symbolizes the rape of
an intimate space. This way, the Latino male stands as the epitome of the
stereotypical irresistible strong, possessive, heroic, dark lover— dark not only
figuratively as mysterious and dangerous but also physically as in dark-skinned or
simply non-white or not Caucasian. It is worth mentioning that this stereotype appears
only in the novel. Julio does not figure among the characters of the film.
Celia Daileader explores the cultural myth of dark male lovers and their
pairing with white women in her book Racism, Misogyny and the Othello Myth:
Inter-racial Couples from Shakespeare to Spike Lee. Her trans-historical approach to
the age-old Anglo-American cultural fixation with the juxtaposition of black males
and white women is informed by a variety of texts, from masterpieces of Elizabethan
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theatre to popular cinematographic blockbusters. Borrowing from Shakespeare’s
Othello, Daileader coins the term othellophilia to designate “the critical and cultural
fixation on Shakespeare’s tragedy of inter-racial marriage to the exclusion of broader
definitions and more positive visions of inter-racial eroticism” (6). According to
Daileader, othellophilia is not limited to the Shakespearean stage. It refers to the
casting of “black men as Othellos” within the “coupling of a black male and a white
female” (7). This practice can be seen at work in a broad variety of texts, from plays,
to films, to novels. Close reading reveals that othellophilia is present in Bridget
Jones’s Diary. The black/white, or in this case dark/white, binary of the othellophilic
paradigm is fulfilled thanks to Fielding’s racial classification of Mrs. Jones and her
Portuguese lover Julio. As the Caucasian woman, Mrs. Jones would fit within the
“white” category of the binary. Julio, being Latino and non-Caucasian, would fit
within the non-white or, in this case, the reductionist “black” side of the classic racial
binary.
The term othellophilia suggests an element of physical violence, rape or nearrape performed by the man (the Othello) to the woman (his Desdemona). Although
there is no direct reference to bodily rape in the sub-plot of Mrs. Jones and Julio, the
representation of a forceful, violent entry into a space takes place in the metaphorical
rape that Julio’s breaking of the windows of Mrs. Jones’s house represents. The
concept of rape is also present in Bridget’s narrative, for she constantly positions
herself as the object of the male gaze. Bridget fantasizes about and imagines this
position as ideal in her relationships with men. When unhappy with her boyfriend
Daniel Cleaver’s lack of affection towards her, she looks to God with hopes of
changing him. She writes “[i]f there is a God I would like to humbly ask Him… to
stop him [Daniel] getting into bed at night wearing pajamas and reading glasses,
staring at a book for twenty five minutes then switching off the light and turning over
– and turn him back into the naked lust-crazed sex beast I used to know and love”
(Fielding 107). Simply put, Bridget wants a “lust-crazed sex beast” as her partner or,
in other words, an Othello. This way, she willingly and voluntarily positions herself
as the passive object of Daniel’s desire. Her tendency to render herself the object of
the male gaze positions her in the category “white” of the black/white binary, a place
she occupies not only metaphorically as a harmless individual who lacks agency but
also racially as the Caucasian daughter of a Caucasian woman. Once more, I fail to
understand how Bridget can be considered a feminist icon.
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Another cultural stereotype that is alive and well in Chick-Lit and ChickFlicks is the figure of the token homosexual male best friend. Gay characters have
little or no sexual agency in said narratives. One seldom learns about their personal
lives, much less their sex lives. Their partners are sometimes mentioned, so as to
ensure audiences that the character is in fact gay, but their plotlines are rarely (if ever)
developed in detail. While the personal and sex lives of the heterosexual women of
Chick-Lit and Chick-Flicks are developed, described and shown in detail, those of
their gay male friends are notoriously absent. These men are gay, but not too gay. The
gay male best friend of Chick-Lit and Chick-Flicks is gay enough though to be
effeminate in a way that contrasts the heroine’s feelings of inadequacy as a woman.
Their effeminacy often comes through as funny, so as to provide comedic relief. I will
call this stereotypical character the fairy gayfather because, like the fairy godmother
of fairytales, he teaches the heroine how to excel in whatever her endeavor might be
(in being feminine or behaving as a woman, for example) and shows up mostly when
she needs help, advice, and/or moral support. Consider, for example, Stanford Blatch
and Anthony Marentino from the Sex and the City television series and movies.
Stanford always helps Carrie, and Anthony is always on the stand-by for Charlotte. In
like manner, Bridget Jones’s Diary, being the foundational text of the Chick-Lit
genre, includes a fairy gayfather, who is generically named Tom.
Together with Shazzer and Jude, Tom is part of Bridget’s inner circle of close
friends. Tom shows up mainly when Bridget faces difficulties and calls on him. Being
a good fairy gayfather, he is always available to offer his advice and support. She
calls him for advice when she does not know whether she should pursue Daniel
Cleaver, when she is undecided about who to invite to her own birthday party, and
when she does not know how she managed to reach her desired weight of 119lbs.
Tom is truly Bridget’s fairy gayfather. He acts as the voice of wisdom in her life,
telling her things such as “[d]o not ring Daniel or you will regret it” after she
surprised him cheating on her (Fielding 157). Bridget relies on Tom for support and
advice to such a degree that he becomes indispensable. She actually believes she
could not carry on without him. She writes “[s]ometimes feel without Tom I would
sink without trace and disappear” (189). Without a doubt, Bridget feels a strong
connection to her dear friend. She explains that Tom has a theory for the success of
their friendship. For Tom, “homosexuals and single women in their thirties have
natural bonding: both being accustomed to disappointing their parents and being
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treated as freaks by society" (24). Tom’s theory serves to explain the appeal that gay
male characters have for female audiences of Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks.
Bridget’s comment about needing Tom is really a justification for her
friendship with him. I find its inclusion in the narrative to be somewhat problematic
because it gives way to speculation. I cannot help but wonder why is there a need to
provide a reason for Tom and Bridget’s friendship. Is it possible that Bridget’s
comment is really Fielding’s reason for the inclusion of a gay male character as
member of the heroine’s group of close friends? Or perhaps Fielding is using Tom to
justify his own presence in the narrative, as if to make it clear for the reader why he
and Bridget are such good friends. Whatever the reason, it is obvious that Bridget’s
observation reduces them not only to outcasts within the narrative but also to freaks,
one because of his sexual orientation and the other because of her singledom. Their
friendship is thus possible because of the absence of social acceptance in both their
lives. It is disheartening to learn that Tom submissively accepts his role as fairy
gayfather when he takes to calling himself a “hag-fag” (24). In other words, Tom
accepts that he is at Bridget’s service. He is, after all, her “fag.” Bridget describes
Tom’s label as “unflattering” but nevertheless retains her privilege as a heterosexual
woman by not objecting to such a derogatory marker and treating him as exactly that,
her “hag-fag.”
I would like to point out that lesbians are notoriously absent from Chick-Lit
novels and Chick-Flicks. This absence is, in my opinion, baffling. Wouldn’t it make
more sense to include a lesbian character as part of the heroine’s group of girlfriends
instead of a gay man? Wouldn’t this make the text more woman-centered? Perhaps
the reason behind this absence is that the inclusion of a lesbian friend in the circle of
heterosexual girlfriends would represent a threat to traditional femininity, which said
texts, as we have seen, unapologetically perpetuate. Another possible reason is that
she would not be able to act as the heroine’s fairy gaymother (or fairy lezzymother?)
lest their friendship be interpreted (or misinterpreted?) as a lesbian affair. One thing is
sure: lesbians are women who are absent in a genre created, produced, and marketed
to a female audience. Bridget Jones’s Diary is no exception to this trend since it
contains absolutely no lesbian characters. Its main character even bluntly rejects any
slight possibility of lesbian undertones in her relationship with her girlfriends and
coworkers. Bridget writes, “[s]uddenly think I might love Perpetua” when her
coworker agrees with her in calling their boss Daniel Cleaver a “selfish, self81
indulgent, manipulative, emotional blackmailer.” But Bridget is quick to add “though
not in a lesbian way,” thus thwarting what might have otherwise given way to a
lesbian subplot (Fielding 177). Bridget’s rejection of homosexuality and tokenizing of
her gay friend Tom further testify to what Maddison and Storr refer to as the novel’s
“intensely conservative” character (13). The heroine can have gay friends, but there is
no way she can even be considered gay. In this case, there is no space whatsoever for
any kind of transgression against heteronormativity.
In an interview with Penguin Group publishers, Fielding addresses various
questions regarding Bridget Jones’s Diary.7 Her answers are curiously vague when it
comes to issues of feminism and her novel. For example, when asked if her novel is
an insult to feminism she dodges the question and replies “I can quite see that if
you're not keen on irony as a form of expression, the book might get on your nerves.
It was initially written to make people laugh. If it raises some issues that strike a
nerve, so much the better. Novels are there to reflect the truth in what they see, as
well as to entertain.” When asked if Bridget is a heroine or an anti-heroine she replies
“I think Bridget's an ironic heroine,” leaving it unclear if she is a heroine or the
opposite of a heroine. The only occasion when she directly addresses and recognizes
the presence of feminist thought in her novel is when she states that one of her
favorite parts in the novel is “when Bridget declares, ‘There's nothing quite so
unattractive to a man as a strident feminist.’” What is one to make of Fielding’s
answers and her resistance to state whether Bridget Jones’s Diary is a feminist or antifeminist novel? Is it feminist or does it poke fun at feminism as a way of building
comedic irony? Does this irony stem from the belief that feminism is passé? And is
Bridget a heroine or is she intentionally the opposite? Is that why she is funny?
Fielding’s answers are as open-ended as the many questions that arise as a result.
What is true is that her favorite part of her novel is when Bridget says “[t]here's
nothing quite so unattractive to a man as a strident feminist.” One can only infer that
she agrees with Bridget. Therefore, describing Bridget Jones as a feminist hero is in
itself an erroneous affirmation.
Bridget is not a feminist hero or a feminist model to follow. She offers no
revolutionary or groundbreaking vision of who, how or what a woman is or should be.
She just conforms to already limiting, normalizing existing definitions of woman as
7
See: Applewhite, Ashton. “An Interview with Helen Fielding.” Penguin Group USA, 2010. Web. 27
Dec 2010. <http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/bridget_joness_diary.html>.
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traditionally feminine, white, thin, and heterosexual. Opposing change by not
changing is not an act of defiance. It is merely conforming to and following the
operating status-quo. This is Bridget’s Iron Maiden. She was born into it, has always
been in it, and feels comfortable within its ideological confines. The Iron Maiden is
not scary for Bridget: it is the outside that is scary. Coming out from it would mean
redefining her relationship with herself, with men, and with society in general.
Leaving behind her Iron Maiden would mean no longer tolerating Daniel’s sexual
harassment in the office. It would mean not putting herself down for not looking a
certain way. It would also mean standing up to all those friends and family members
who constantly pressure her to get married. And, last but not least, it would mean not
tokenizing her gay friend Tom. The aforementioned acts would indeed be the doings
of a feminist heroine.
Suzanne Ferris and Mallory Young ask, “[i]s chick lit advancing the cause of
feminism by appealing to female audiences and featuring empowered, professional
women? Or does it rehearse the same patriarchal narrative of romance and
performance of femininity that feminists once rejected?” (9). The answers are
obvious. Bridget Jones’s Diary is only one of the many Chick-Lit novels that attempts
to put forth an image of a model professional, empowered woman but falls into the
same patriarchal, conservative, oppressive ideological patterns. After all, why write a
novel with a truly feminist agenda when doing so can endanger its success? Better to
be on the safe side and base it on a subject that is traditionally gendered feminine and
not alter the status quo with revolutionary ideas. And—as we will see in the next
chapter—what better subject is there for this purpose than shopping?
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CHAPTER FOUR
“MERELY SUCCUMBING TO THE WESTERN DRAG OF MATERIALISM”:
THE GLAMORIZATION OF PATHOLOGICAL SHOPPING AND SPENDING IN
SOPHIE KINSELLA’S CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC
Christmas shopping madness starts well before December 25th here in the
United States. It starts the 25th of November at 12:00am sharp: the morning of the
ever popular Black Friday. That day, hoards of shoppers invade malls and shopping
centers all around the country. You can see them running around desperately in search
of the best deals all the while dragging behind them suitcases (brought from home to
serve as shopping carts) busting at the seams with the day’s acquisitions. Black Friday
shopping is an event as American and as culturally relevant as the Superbowl. It is
truly a sight to see.
As usual though, while madness raged outside, I sat down on my comfy living
room sofa to watch TV—part of my yearly refusal to participate in Black Friday
shopping. All curled up, I watched Black Friday commercials one right after the other
while I waited for VH1’s music video countdown Jump Start to resume. In them,
happy women or jolly voices of women urged me to go to Macy’s, Sears, JCPenney,
Kohl’s, Marshall’s. Hurry up while supplies last! What are you waiting for? Every
commercial was the same. In every commercial, a woman happily shopping for gifts.
Gifts for her husband, gifts for her daughter, gifts for her son, for her friends. Among
the many commercials that I saw that November morning, one in particular caught my
attention. It was a commercial for Target.8 In this spot, a woman dressed in a tight,
red track suit trains Rocky Balboa-style for the big Target Black Friday Two-Day
sale. She times herself wrapping gifts, runs laps around the store, does crunches to
strengthen her abdominals, and lifts two Target plastic shopping baskets full of goods
in place of dumbbells to strengthen her arms. She crosses out the days on her calendar
in anticipation and studies the Target shopper diligently all the while screaming,
gasping and shaking her head out of sheer excitement. She simply cannot believe
what she sees and cannot wait for the big Black Friday sale: the day when she will
show the world her outstanding skills as a trained, professional shopper.
8
For full Target 2010 Two-Day Sale commercial see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdJB36lVJI8&feature=related
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I could not believe my eyes as I watched the Target commercial. Right before
me was a woman being portrayed as a manic shopper. I kept watching TV in the vain
hope of finding an equivalent commercial with a man as main figure. Such
commercials are very rare—if they exist at all. You might see men training to drink
beer or eat burgers, but not to go shopping. My belief that women are popularly
thought to be “born to shop” and to sell commodities was cemented that Black Friday.
We must be good at it. Turn on the TV or open a magazine. I guarantee there will be a
woman selling something to somebody—male or female. She can sell Tampax
tampons to women as efficiently as she can sell Old Spice deodorant to men. I also
guarantee that you will not only see a woman selling this product, you will see her
buying it too— for her husband, for her children, for her friends. Women are thus
commonly portrayed and, most importantly, socialized in our culture as consumers
and sellers par excellence. We are victims of and at the same time willingly
participate in this process. How many mothers have you heard enthusiastically
announce “I’m taking my little girl shopping today”? How many women have you
heard proudly announce “I’m going on a shopping spree!” or “A little retail therapy
would do me good today”? Countless, I’m sure.
Images of women as innate, expert consumers abound in our culture. They are
not limited to Black Friday TV commercials or to magazines. In literature, for
example, the pairing of women and commodities (especially of designer goods)
makes the perfect combination for a bestseller, especially of Chick-Lit novels.
Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City, Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada
and Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic are but a few examples of
bestsellers that rely on the pairing of women and consumerism for character
formation and plot development. Every one of these aforementioned novels features
young female characters who surround themselves with luxury items. They shop,
spend and buy like they mean it. Never mind that they struggle to support their buying
and spending habits and are deeply in debt. This is not relevant in Chick-Lit
narratives. And this is exactly what draws my attention to them.
The following pages will focus on Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a
Shopaholic. Confessions of a Shopaholic is the first book of the Shopaholic series,
which includes the aforementioned novel (released as Secret Dreamworld of a
Shopaholic in England and Australia) (2000), Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (or
Shopaholic Abroad in England and Australia) (2002), Shopaholic Ties the Knot
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(2003), Shopaholic and Sister (2004), Shopaholic and Baby (2007), and the latest
installment, Mini Shopaholic (2010). This analysis of Confessions of a Shopaholic
(from here on Shopaholic) will focus on Kinsella’s glamorization of materialist values
and compulsive buying tendencies in women. Her novel significantly contributes to
the socialization of women as shoppers and offers a positive representation not of
regular, necessary spending but of compulsive, uncontrollable, pathologic extremes of
said activity. Kinsella’s novel puts forth a positive image of women as addicted
shoppers and over-spenders. In Shopaholic, over-spending is portrayed as something
fun and enviable that does not have serious repercussions in life. This representation
is highly problematic, for it contrasts markedly with the many detrimental
consequences that over-spending can have in an individual’s life, such as elevated
levels of stress, anxiety, debt and, in the most extreme cases, personal bankruptcy. In
addition, Kinsella unashamedly portrays Shopaholic’s main character Rebecca
Bloomwood as a single, young woman who is ditzy, childish, irresponsible and even
downright stupid. If the Chick-Lit heroine represents Everywoman, then, according to
Kinsella, Everywoman is helpless, lacks smarts, is an uncontrollable, compulsive
shopper/buyer, and is seriously, deeply in debt. Moreover, she is unable to improve
her condition, try as she might. Sadly, this representation of women is not only widely
accepted but, most importantly, it is culturally celebrated. It is my aim in this chapter
to challenge this detrimental, popular and widely accepted image of women as innate
(over)spenders/(over)buyers or, as Kinsella calls it, shopaholics. I will also address
Kinsella’s glamorization of pathological behaviors related to shopping, buying, and
spending, for it is my belief that Rebecca is not only a shopaholic, but also a “buy-aholic” and a text-book patient with Compulsive Buying Disorder.
Understanding the implications of Rebecca’s spending habits will allow us
to challenge their glamorization as well as the endearing, captivating attitude of
“funness” and carelessness that she exudes throughout the novel, an element that
invites the average reader to identify with her and emulate her by trying to live a life
of consequence-less luxury shopping. My analysis of Rebecca Bloomwood will also
facilitate a more informed critique of Kinsella’s blatant portrayal of a psychological
disorder as something inconsequential and close to irrelevant in a woman’s life. I use
the word “irrelevant” because Rebecca’s Compulsive Buying Disorder (from here on
CBD) remains unaddressed, undiagnosed, and unresolved throughout the novel.
Neither Rebecca nor any of her friends or relatives realizes that she needs help. Thus,
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she never seeks the aid of a professional, which would have helped her control her
compulsive buying habit. Instead, she keeps overspending, burying herself into debt,
and evading and lying to her banker and debt collectors. Clearly, Rebecca’s condition
is not a major issue in the novel. It is merely a device for character and plot
development. Much like Bridget Jones, whose bulimia goes unaddressed, Rebecca’s
CBD is neglected as well. I find it extremely problematic (bordering on alarming) that
the heroines of two major Chick-Lit best sellers suffer from serious psychological
disorders that remain unnoticed, undiagnosed, unresolved, and uncured throughout
their respective narratives. As I think about the reason behind the popularity of such
characters in novels for and by women, I cannot help but ask myself: Why do female
authors choose unhealthy women as protagonists of their stories? And why are
women drawn to these characters? Furthermore, if the Chick-Lit heroine represents
Everywoman, what is this popular image saying about contemporary womanhood?
How is this message defining and shaping women? Lastly, to what extent are these
representations informing the way that the medical community (as well as those of us
who are not doctors or health specialists) approaches women’s health? These previous
questions are just some of my catalysts for engaging in this critical analysis. As part
of said project, I will discuss the correlation between compulsive buying, CBD,
materialist values, the processes of production and consumption, and, most
importantly for our purposes, gender. I will also address the relationship between
consumer goods and self-identity formation in an effort to understand the root of
Rebecca’s compulsive shopping, buying, and spending patterns. Lastly, I will talk
about what Steven Maddison and Merl Storr call “ditzy femininity.” The
aforementioned concepts will provide a theoretical framework with which to
challenge Kinsella’s glamorization of pathological shopping and buying behaviors
among young women.
The psychological condition known as Compulsive Buying Disorder has only
been recently defined. Before the term Compulsive Buying Disorder came into
existence, compulsive buying was described as “oniomania” (or buying mania).
Oniomania was first described in 1915 by Emil Kraeplin (Benson xxi). According to
Helga Dittmar, there are “no published researched studies [about compulsive buying]
before 1986, when they started to appear, first in the US and Canada, then in Europe.”
She adds that there is “no agreed specific definition” for compulsive buying.
Nevertheless, psychologists agree on three core features of the aforementioned
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behavior. These features are: 1) experiencing the impulse to buy as irresistible, 2)
losing control over buying behavior, and 3) continuing with excessive buying despite
harmful consequences in “personal, social or occupational [life], and financial debt”
(Dittmar 468-69). Experts particularly refer to a compulsive buyer’s disregard of the
harmful consequences that excessive buying might have in his/her life when
formulating their definitions of compulsive buying, thus making this last feature
especially relevant. For example, April Lane Benson explains that the extent to which
excessive buying causes “significant disruption or impairment in an individual’s
social, occupational, financial, or marital functioning” should be used to distinguish
between pathological and nonpathological buying when conducting a diagnosis
(xxxi).
Psychologists also emphasize the role that emotions and identity formation
issues have on a compulsive buyer’s spending habits. Compulsive buying often serves
as a sort of medicine for individuals who buy goods in order to improve their mood
and/or deal with their emotions. Compulsive buyers tend to buy as a way to get a
“buzz” and feeling of “enjoyment” from the experience, to “regulate or repair” their
emotions and/or to “improve their mood” (Dittmar, Long and Bond 339). This
practice is popularly known as “retail therapy.” Another tendency typical of
compulsive buyers is turning to commodities (especially apparel products) as aids in
an effort to “demonstrate that they possess certain self-identifications” and social
status (Yurchisin and Johnson 299). Research points to a clear relationship among
compulsive buying, emotional repair, and identity formation. Lane Benson expands
on said correlation. She points out that “compulsive buying seems to represent a
desperate search for self in people whose identity is neither firmly felt nor
dependable.” She adds, “most shopaholics try to counteract feelings of low selfesteem through the emotional lift and momentary euphoria provided by compulsive
shopping” (xxii). In like manner, Dittmar et al describe “identity seeking and mood
regulation” as “compensatory behaviors” that trigger compulsive buying behavior
(336).
The effort to develop and assert one’s identity through the consumption of
commodities is a common practice. The items that we buy and surround ourselves
with every day have culturally inscribed meanings. They visually communicate a
shared message, which we use to project and construct a desired self-image. For
example, wearing a pair of high heel shoes by famous French designer Christian
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Louboutin communicates ideals of sophistication, class, style, and fashion awareness.
Its owner is automatically assumed to have a high acquisitive power because of the
shoe’s hefty price tag. Wearers of Louboutin shoes (who are mostly women) are
aware of these meanings and purposefully sport them to communicate the message to
others. As a result, they are regarded as high class “fashionistas.” But shoes are not
the only objects that are inscribed with meaning. Virtually every object, whether it is
apparel related or not, bestows meaning upon those who own it. For example, cars,
electronic gadgets and even houses, inform the owner’s identity as indicators of their
acquisitive power and social status.
Identity formation through commodity consumption and its relationship to
materialist values and compulsive buying is a fairly well known subject within the
field of psychology. The theory of symbolic self-completion stands out in many
studies as a means to explain the all-too-common practice of employing items as
extensions of one’s identity. Jennifer Yurchisin and Kim K. P. Johnson offer a
comprehensive summary of Robert A. Wicklund and Peter M. Gollwitzer’s theory of
symbolic self-completion, which they first outlined in their book Symbolic SelfCompletion (1982). Said theory stipulates that every individual possesses a “particular
self-definition.” Individuals then associate with symbols in order to convince
themselves and others of their ownership of said self-definition (295). Ultimately, it is
others’ recognition of the desired self-definition which validates it. According to
Wicklund and Gollwitzer, most individuals cease self-symbolizing efforts once they
and others recognize their self-identity. Nevertheless, there are individuals who
continue to “persistently self-symbolize” and do not “stop to evaluate whether other
members of society have acknowledged their self-symbolizing efforts as successful or
unsuccessful” (Yurchisin and Johnson 295). Persistent self-symbolizaton is tied to a
materialistic mindset, which is supported by materialistic values. A materialistic
mindset posits objects (or material goods) as indispensable extensions of one’s
identity. Dittmar adds that people with highly materialistic values believe that
material goods are “a prime indicator of success, and key to happiness and selfdefinition.” They are also “more likely to have favourable attitudes towards
borrowing money and to overspend” (472).
Yurchisin and Johnson expand on the relationship between materialism,
compulsive consumption, and self-definition. Like Dittmar, they find that a materialist
mindset is related to excessive buying. They explain that
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[t]o highly materialistic people, the possession and potential use of
more symbols are always better than the possession and potential use
of fewer symbols associated with a self-definition. [They] may not
realize that they have acquired enough material possessions to stop
their self-symbolizing efforts. As a result, highly materialistic
individuals may experience a chronic state of incompleteness in terms
of their self-definition. They may feel constantly compelled to
purchase items associated with their desired self-definition despite the
fact that, at some point, they may acquire too many products to
actually use all of them. (296)
Material possessions allow individuals to project their own particular selfdefinition because each one is ascribed with meaning/s that is/are socially shared. It is
important to bear in mind that commodities do not exist in a vacuum within capitalist
society. They exist in relation to one another and are attributed meaning in relation to
one another as well. Together, they form a system of meaning and signification. As
Jean Baudrillard explains, “[f]ew objects today are offered alone, without a context of
objects to speak for them […] the object is no longer referred to in relation to a
specific utility, but as a collection of objects in their total meaning” (“Consumer
Society” 31). In other words, objects form a system of signification in which each one
informs the other’s meaning. For example, each object in a department store
cosmetics display informs the other as part of a system of signification that is
culturally associated with femininity. In turn, these cosmetic devices inform their user
as feminine. They act as symbols, in this case of femininity. A lipstick is not merely a
lipstick within this context. It is an item popularly associated with a woman who is
feminine. A woman who defines herself as feminine and would like to project this
quality to others would then buy and wear lipstick.
The individual as a consumer plays a crucial role within the system of
signification that material goods form, for it is she/he after all who both sustains and
informs it through consumption. Production and consumption are interdependent
within a capitalist economic system. One cannot exist without the other. The
consumer engages in this process as she/he feels the need to consume, to buy, whether
compulsively and/or excessively or not. According to Baudrillard, the felt need to
consume is a “product of the system of production” (“Consumer Society,” 42,
emphasis in original). In other words, to consume is consequential of the need to
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produce and, I would argue, vice versa. The system not only produces commodities, it
simultaneously produces the need for them. Hence, for example, the need for the
latest cell phone model or for shoes despite of already owning said items. These
already-produced commodities have to be consumed for the (capitalist) economic
system to be functional and efficient. The individual is interpolated as consumer in
this system as he/she identifies with the meaning that different objects have. Hence,
even if there is no real, practical need to buy a new phone, the individual is compelled
to buy one because it possesses cultural meaning within the dominant socioeconomic
system of representation. This need is the result of the desire to be an active member
of said system, where owning and displaying a new electronic gadget translates into
social acceptance. In the words of Baudrillard, “…a need is not a need for a particular
object as much as it is a ‘need’ for difference” or the “desire for social meaning”
(“Consumer Society,” 45, emphasis in original).
Baudrillard’s theory helps explain the correlation between identity, objects,
and consumption. Having knowledge of the aforementioned relationship will help us
understand the rise of excessive and compulsive buying, which are behaviors closely
tied to the prevalence of objects as symbols that are informed with culturally shared
meanings within our socioeconomic system. My main concern is the role of women
within the cycle of production and consumption for purposes of self-identity
formation and projection. Women, like men, employ objects or commodities to
develop and relay their perceived self-identity. Nevertheless, women are more prone
than men to engage in the excessive buying of commodities for the effective
communication and formation of a perceived self-identity as well as for other
psychoemotional purposes, such as mood-repair. As a consequence, women are more
likely to buy compulsively and experience Compulsive Buying Disorder.
According to Dittmar, “the most consistent finding in over 30 research studies
on compulsive buying is that women are disproportionately affected.” She adds, “in
studies that classify individuals as compulsive buyers, the percentage of women
ranges from 74% to over 93%, with the majority reporting around 90%” (470).
Without a doubt, the aforementioned correlation between compulsive buying and
women is in great part due to the gendered socialization of shopping in Western
culture. Colin Campbell points out that “shopping in a modern, industrialized,
Western society is a thoroughly ‘gendered’ activity […] widely perceived as closely
linked with the female role and thus seen in some degree as a ‘feminine’ activity”
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(60). This kind of socialization influences an individual’s approach and attitude
towards shopping and buying. Campbell explains that males tend to associate
shopping with “a work frame” whereas females associate it with “a leisure frame.” As
a result, men are more likely to approach shopping strategically using work-related
criteria such as “rationality and efficiency.” Said approach explains men’s tendency to
“clearly define a need, identify an appropriate retail outlet where this need can be
satisfied through purchase, then expend as little effort and money as possible in
finding and purchasing the item.” In contrast, women tend to regard shopping as
recreational. They are “inclined to define the activity as enjoyable and to reject any
purely instrumental or utilitarian frame of reference” (61). Unlike men, women place
more importance on the “emotional and identity-related dimensions of shopping”
(Dittmar 470).
General attitudes towards shopping also differ among men and women.
Research suggests that women are more likely to show a positive attitude towards
shopping while men are more likely to show a negative attitude. According to
Campbell, these attitudes are closely linked to social expectations and gender roles
commonly associated with the performance of femininity and masculinity. He notes
that the men who participated in his survey “were much less enthusiastic than the
women about the activity [of shopping]” (61). Campbell also cites other studies in
addition to his own which indicate that the vast majority of men perceive shopping to
be effeminate; some actually do not partake in this activity for the aforementioned
reason. They refuse to go shopping with their female partners even at their request.
He states that men’s “public expression of distaste [for shopping] is seen as a
confirmation of their manhood” (62). If shopping is emasculating for men, then,
according to the traditional gender binary where masculinity and femininity are
posited as opposites, it follows that shopping reasserts femininity for women. It
comes as no surprise that Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks, being narratives that
stress and perpetuate traditional gender roles, portray shopping as a feminine
endeavor, as every woman’s preferred activity for recreation, liberation, bonding and,
most of all, self-discovery.
It is within the feminized world of stores and shopping that we find the
heroine of Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic, twenty-five year old
journalist Rebecca Bloomwood. Rebecca not only enjoys shopping; she shops to buy
and is not able to stop. After all, she is a shopaholic. The novel opens with three
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letters from Endwich Bank, all testaments of Rebecca’s excessive buying and ensuing
debt. The first letter, dated July 6 1997, informs Rebecca that she is eligible for “a free
extended overdraft facility of £2,000” (Kinsella 2). The second letter, dated
September 10 1999, notifies Rebecca that she exceeded the £2,000 limit. We find out
in the third letter that Rebecca has told the bank she has broken her leg in an attempt
to delay the payment she owes them. This exchange of letters between Rebecca and
her bank is the beginning of a series of similar exchanges wherein she lies and evades
her collectors in order to avoid paying her overwhelming debt. She sends an unsigned
check to Octagon (her “favorite shop in the whole world”) where she owes £235.76,
tells Endwich Bank her dog has died as a way to divert the bank’s attention away
from her outstanding debt, and tries to bribe PGNI First Bank out of her debt with a
free subscription to Successful Saving magazine and a dinner invitation (Kinsella
236).
The exchange of letters between Rebecca and the various institutions to which
she owes money is extremely problematic. It not only illustrates Rebecca’s inability to
stop spending money but also informs her representation as an irresponsible,
compulsive liar who runs away from her financial problems (literally, since at one
point she moves in to her parent’s house without informing her debt collectors of her
new address). According to Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, the letters in Shopaholic “create
mixed messages about financial responsibility, at once admonishing and encouraging
Becky’s [Rebecca] compulsive, credit-driven spending sprees” since they “inquire
about overdue payments […] and offer credit extensions with the same polite tone.”
She adds, “[t]he well-mannered and at times ridiculous double speak of these letters
keeps readers from worrying too much about Becky’s financial scrapes” (220). These
letters, along with the novel’s happy ending, give the false impression that debt is a
light matter, one that does not have serious repercussions in real life. The message
seems to be one of appeasement, a “don’t worry if you are in debt, your bank will
give you money so you can pay.” Of course, anyone who has been in debt knows this
is the beginning of a vicious cycle of borrowing and owing. Rebecca is caught up in
this cycle and pays for it in the form of stress and anxiety. Nevertheless, she does not
suffer any major legal consequences, other than having a Visa card denied. Overall,
the novel suggests that no matter how bad things are everything will work out in the
end.
Confessions of a Shopaholic celebrates compulsive shopping, buying, and
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overspending not only by means of its title and the letters it includes but also through
Rebecca’s approach to shopping itself. Rebecca gets a rush and a sense of excitement
from shopping that she cannot get anywhere else. It is a completely emotional venture
for her. Her feelings towards said activity clearly exemplify the results of Dittmar’s
and Campbell’s surveys where women were found to approach shopping as an
emotionally and personally fulfilling leisure activity. In addition, Rebecca experiences
the feelings of “‘buzz’ and enjoyment” and euphoria after shopping that Dittmar,
Long and Bond mention in their study about compulsive buying (339). Rebecca’s
reactions to and thoughts about shopping illustrate her emotion-based approach to
said activity. In one occasion, she enthusiastically confesses “[t]here’s a thrill about
walking into a shop—any shop—which you can’t beat. It’s partly the anticipation,
partly the buzzy, welcoming atmosphere, partly just the lovely newness of everything
(Kinsella 81, emphasis in original). On a different occasion, after staying away from
any store for several days in an attempt to improve her finances, she walks into a
museum shop and feels genuinely happy and renewed. Rebecca rejoices “[s]uddenly
my steps have more spring in them; my energy has miraculously returned” (103). She
gravitates towards stores, in her own words, like plants do towards light. Like a true
addict, Rebecca feels withdrawal symptoms after not shopping for any prolonged
length of time. She says “I crave the bright lights and warm air, the racks of
merchandise, even the bleep of the cash registers” (81). It is evident that Rebecca
feels best when she shops. But she is not only a shopaholic. She is also a buy-a-holic.
According to Cambell, a shopaholic is a person who “seems to be addicted to
the activity of shopping itself, unrelated to the buying or having of an object.” On the
other hand, a spendaholic is a person who is “addicted to spending and for whom the
shopping activity is usually quite secondary” (58). Although spending and buying are
different concepts, it is not uncommon to find them used interchangeably in the
literature. Nevertheless, it is important to make a distinction between these terms in
order to understand them correctly. April Lane Benson explains that buying refers to
“taking possession of something” while spending refers to “the action of relinquishing
funds rather than the gathering of material objects” (xxiv, xxv). Spending does not
necessarily have to involve buying or even shopping. To differentiate said actions,
Benson offers the example of a father giving an allowance to his child. She points out
that when a father gives money to his children in the form of an allowance, he is
spending money but is not shopping or buying since he does not visit a store and there
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is no acquisition of a material good. Rebbeca Bloomwood fits the definition of a
shopaholic and of a “buy-a-holic” (rather than a spendaholic) because she enjoys the
activity of shopping and is addicted to buying. Of course, buying entails spending, but
it is the act of buying, of acquiring material goods, that gives Rebecca pleasure. She
just “has to buy” whatever article grabs her attention. She “craves…the bleep of the
cash registers” that comes with it (Kinsella 81).
Rebecca’s excessive shopping and buying habits are pathological and should
be approached as such, for even if she attempts to improve the status of her finances
and tries to modify her behavior, she never succeeds. For example, in an outing to a
craft fair she firmly declares “I’m really just going to keep Mum company, and I’m
certainly not planning to buy anything.” Notwithstanding, she gives in and buys ten
handmade cards. After all, they were “amazing” and “only £1.50 each!” A short time
later, she adds “a gorgeous blue ceramic plant holder with little elephants going round
it” to her bounty (Kinsella 49). Rebecca simply cannot resist the urge to buy. Her
tendency to compulsively and obsessively buy material goods renders her unable to
curb her spending. One of Rebecca’s attempts to take control of her finances consists
on listening to her father’s advice to “C.B.” (or Cut Back). In typical shopaholic
fashion though, instead of cutting back, Rebecca starts the C.B. process by spending
money. As a first step, she buys a self-help book called Controlling Your Cash. The
book suggests one “should begin by itemizing every single purchase in a single
normal spending day and plot it on a graph.” Rebecca misinterprets the book’s advice
and thinks “the best thing is, you have to start out by going shopping!” (65). Thus,
instead of cutting back and reducing her spending, she goes shopping and buys more.
Rebecca’s self-help book also suggests making your own coffee instead of
buying coffee in a shop, keeping a journal of buying expenses, not altering normal
spending patterns so as to monitor them honestly, and rewarding one self when
making a real effort at controlling spending habits. For Rebecca though, these
suggestions translate into buying more. She quickly goes out and buys an Alessi
designer flask for her coffee, a notebook and pen to start her spending journal, lunch,
and coconut bath oil as a reward for her effort. Once out shopping, Rebecca’s
spending goes out of control. She notices that the store where she bought the coconut
oil advertised a special offer on costumer reward points. Unable to resist, she buys
three tubes of moisturizer, a perfume, and a cardigan to take advantage of the
promotion. Shortly after, she also buys shoes and several items of Clarins makeup.
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Rebecca justifies her new acquisitions by stating that she “needed something to cheer
[her] up,” a “little treat to see [her] through” the day (Kinsella 72). Her need to buy
consumer goods for emotional repair purposes relates to Dittmar’s observations about
compulsive buying and Obsessive Buying Disorder. According to Dittmar,
compulsive buying is “compensatory behavior where individuals attempt to deal with
identity and mood problems through buying material goods” (467). As the above
examples illustrate, Rebecca copes with her feelings of depression and restlessness
through shopping and buying. She believes that shoes and makeup will help her feel
better. In fact, she depends on commodities to improve her emotional state.
Material goods also help Rebecca form and project to others her perceived
personal identity. This method of identity formation illustrates Wicklund and
Gollwitzer’s theory of symbolic self-completion. Rebecca relies on designer goods to
gain social acceptance and recognition. For example, she believes that a gray-blue
Denny and George scarf will define her and make her stand out from the rest of the
population. Said possibility appeals to Rebecca’s emotions. It excites her. Upon the
sight of said item, Rebecca exclaims “I have to have this scarf. I have to have it. It
makes my eyes look bigger, it makes my haircut look more expensive, it makes me
look like a different person” (Kinsella 15, emphasis in original). The cultural value of
the scarf’s brand alone enables Rebecca to transcend her current ordinary identity and
elevate it to a higher level, one of ultimate elegance and physical attractiveness. Other
fashion-related items that inform to her identity are a “dove-gray angora cardigan”
from Benetton and a white coat from Harrods, a fine department store (67). According
to Rebecca, the cardigan will elevate her status, grant her differentiation from other
members of her community, and help her be recognized as the “Girl in the Gray
Cardigan” (68). In like manner, the white coat will help her be known as the “Girl in
the White Coat” (172). Thanks to these articles of clothing, she will no longer be just
plain Rebecca. She firmly believes that these aforementioned consumer goods will
enable her to re-define and re-invent herself and, most importantly, project her
improved self-identity to others. In Van Slooten’s words, “fashion becomes Becky’s
vehicle for creating a self” (227). Her “sense of identity is intrinsically linked to what
she wears” because she relies on clothes to define and project her desired, ideal self
(224).
Rebecca’s dependence on material goods for self-definition translates into an
obsession with high-end designer labels, which are notoriously expensive. She
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purchases the Denny and George scarf and the Benetton cardigan not only because of
the quality and feel of the items themselves but also, and most importantly, because of
the socially recognized valued brand names that they carry on their tags. Rebecca’s
hyper-awareness of name brands goes to such an extent that she keeps a record of all
the labels she wears at any given moment. She checks herself on the mirror before
heading out to work on a Monday morning and in catalogue-like manner confidently
tells herself “[t]op: River Island, Skirt: French Connection, Tights: Pretty Polly
Velvets, Shoes: Ravel… Coat: House of Fraser sale,” as if these items granted her the
power to tackle the day (Kinsella 155). This is not merely a list of brands. It is a
record of the specific objects that will help her be and project her ideal self: an
elegant, upper middle-class, independent, working young woman. They will aid her in
re-defining herself and facing the world confidently. Thus, these objects not only
shape her outwardly but inwardly as well.
Rebecca’s reliance on fashion to define her own self brings consequences that
she has to eventually confront. Her materialist mentality drives her to shop and buy
even if she hears the “thumping” of “Guilt Guilt Guilt Guilt. Panic Panic Panic Panic”
in the back of her mind (Kinsella 154). These feelings of guilt and panic are of course
caused by the fact that she is in debt and cannot afford to buy in excess like she does.
Rebecca exhibits the typical behavior of a compulsive buyer every time she cannot
fight her impulse to go on a shopping/buying spree. According to Helga Dittmar, “the
three core features of compulsive buying are experiencing buying urges as irresistible,
losing control over buying behavior, and continuing with excessive buying despite
harmful consequences” (Dittmar qtd. in Dittmar, Long and Bond 335). Rebecca
shows each one of the characteristics mentioned above in any one of her many
spending sprees. Her compulsive shopping tendencies, especially her disregard of its
negative consequences, go so far as to cost her her job as an employee at a women’s
clothing store in what I will call “the incident of the zebra-print jeans.” Rebecca truly
believes these jeans are “the coolest jeans you’ve ever seen.” As is expected of
Rebecca, she is convinced that she just has to have them. The jeans are pricey and out
of her reach, although marked down from £180 to £90. She knows she should listen to
her father and “C.B.,” but nevertheless persuades herself to buy them using a rather
childish logic. She argues “[i]f you were in Gucci, you’d be paying at least £500” for
similar jeans, ignoring the fact that she cannot afford them (Kinsella 142). As a store
employee, Rebecca knows she is not supposed to hide merchandise from clients.
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Nevertheless, Rebecca gives in to her obsession and hides the jeans from a client
who wanted to try them on. As a result, she gets fired.
Rebecca’s materialist mentality not only affects her finances but also affects
her personal life and interpersonal relationships. The correlation between Rebecca’s
material conditions and her romantic relationships are of particular relevance because
they highlight the representation of money as an enabler of heterosexual love in
romantic narratives. In these stories, the possession of money and by extension
membership in the corresponding social class creates a disparity in power
relationships between men and women where women are commonly relegated to a
position of disadvantage in relation to men. Many romantic narratives, from soap
operas to romantic comedies to Chick novels and films, rely on this disparity to frame
the expected final rescue scene where the man sweeps the heroine away into his world
of power, privilege, and wealth. Confessions of a Shopaholic is no exception to this
formulaic development of romantic plots. It is worth noting that Rebecca feels
attracted to two men, both of whom spark her interest because of their acquisitive
power. This way Rebecca Bloomwood, the Chick-Lit heroine/Everywoman, emerges
as materialist, money-centered and superficial. Rebecca fuels and perpetuates the
detrimental stereotype of women as gold-diggers. Yet, she is the girl every woman
identifies with and wants to be.
Rebecca’s first romantic interest is Tarquin Cleath-Stewart, number fifteen in
Harper’s and Queen magazine’s “Hundred Richest Bachelors” list. Rebecca, who at
first was not overtly excited about her date, suddenly shows interest in Tarquin once
she finds out about his fortune. Only seconds after reading about his £25 million
fortune, her materialist mentality kicks-in and before we know it she starts
daydreaming about being Tarquin’s wife. In her fantasy, Rebecca dreams about all the
things she will be able to buy when she becomes Mrs. Cleath-Stewart. Love for her is
only of secondary importance, first comes money. She says “Tarquin’s going to fall in
love with me and ask me to marry him and we’ll get married in a gorgeous Scottish
castle like in Four Weddings […] Of course, I’ll love him, too. By then” (Kinsella
209). Rebecca clearly has her eyes on the prize: Tarquin’s fortune. But her happilyever-after is not with Tarquin, even if she sees herself as his future wife. Her prince
charming is Luke Brandon, who saves her emerging career as a talk show host by
attending the show as a guest. In other words, Rebecca’s happily-ever-after is with the
man who rescues her from failure in her professional life. Not coincidentally, and like
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Tarquin, this man is of a higher social class than her. It is his acquisitive power that
wows Rebecca and first draws her to him.
Materialism acts as the catalyst of Shopaholic’s romantic plot line once again
when Rebecca bonds with Luke Brandon thanks to a shared appreciation for
expensive designer goods. In a Cinderella-like moment, Luke asks Rebecca to
accompany him to shop for luggage at Harrods. There, much to Rebecca’s delight,
they shop for Louis Vuitton suitcases. Rebecca is instantly in awe of Luke. She
cannot believe that he likes and can afford designer items. For Rebecca, £1,000 Louis
Vuitton luggage signifies the possibility of romance. Luke’s own materialist mentality
and taste for designer goods makes him the perfect match. Her financial
irresponsibility and “shopoholism” are glamorized as gateways for the much soughtafter fairytale heterosexual romantic relationship.
In addition to enabling bonding and romance, shopping frequently acts as a
space for the development of a particular kind of femininity, one that Maddison and
Storr call ditzy femininity. Ditzy femininity is the heterosexual femininity par
excellence in contemporary romantic narratives. Ditzy female characters are
portrayed as being silly, absentminded and dumb, sometimes naturally and others
knowingly on purpose. Their ditziness is manifest, for example, in the superficial
observations and the easily avoidable mistakes they repeatedly make, which in many
occasions are meant to be funny and endearing signs of their humanity. The portrayal
of ditzy femininity in romantic narratives is a reason for concern because it renders
the female heroine as “a one-woman disaster area” regardless of her “class, education
and professional status” (Maddison and Storr 5). Ditzy femininity acts as a doubleedged sword. Female characters that perform it come through as unintelligent and
dumb but are at the same time portrayed as appealing to men, who then emerge as
their foil and more often than not save them from the consequences of their mistakes.
The conundrum for single heterosexual women looking for a partner is then, to act
dumb and be attractive to men or be smart and not be as attractive.
Ditzy femininity is embodied in Chick-Lit foundational novel Bridget Jones’s
Diary by its main character Bridget Jones, who cannot gain control of her life and
body try as she might. Shopaholic’s Rebecca Bloomwood follows the steps of her
foremother Bridget by enacting ditzy heterosexual femininity. The apple does not fall
far from the tree. Like Bridget, Rebecca’s ditziness is seen in her faulty reasoning and
the lack of control that she has in her life. Bridget cannot control her weight, caloric
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and cigarette intake, and love life. In like manner, Rebecca cannot control her
personal finances and love-life. While Bridget’s ditziness is fueled by her selfconsciousness and many personal insecurities, Rebecca’s is fueled by her materialist
mentality. In addition, it is accompanied by a simplistic, irresponsible, childish way of
rationalizing and solving problems. Rebecca’s ditziness and childishness are
illustrated through the many ludicrous ideas she has throughout the novel, among
which stands out wishing to be run over by a car for the world to see the “best bit” of
her outfit, her “gorgeous new matching knickers and bra with embroidered yellow
rosebuds” (Kinsella 14). Thus, Rebecca’s materialist mentality not only renders her
ditzy but also suicidal in a supposedly comical way. Another example of ditzy,
childish female behavior in Shopaholic is Rebecca’s conviction that she can pay her
£6,000 debt by winning the lottery, as if purposefully winning the lottery was a
realistically viable option to liquidating one’s debt. A big part of Rebecca’s ditziness
and childishness is her illogical problem-solving method, which basically consists of
deliberately lying and running away from the source of anguish. She lies to Luke
about needing money to buy a gift for her sick aunt, to Tarquin about liking German
opera composer Richard Wagner (a lie meant to make herself more attractive to him),
and to important company clients from the Bank of Helsinki about speaking fluent
Finnish. All these aforementioned lies carry no real or major negative consequences
for Rebecca, a stark contrast with the consequences of lying in the real world.
Rebecca’s irresponsibility, childishness, and ditziness shine when it comes to
her approach to dealing with finances and professional duties. Her deliberate evasion
of letters and phone calls from her various collectors are a perfect example of the
aforementioned qualities. Rebecca feels disconnected from the letters, as if they were
not addressed to her and as if the problem at hand (namely debt) was not hers. In one
occasion, she confesses “I honestly feel as though this piece of paper has nothing to
do with me” and ponders whether to “carelessly” drop the Visa bill at hand behind her
computer to make it disappear (Kinsella 9). Her ditziness and childishness make their
mark when she explains the logic behind her plan: claiming she never got the letter.
According to Rebecca, they cannot charge her for a bill she never received. Rebecca
adopts this irresponsible stance numerous times throughout the novel. For example,
she puts away another batch of bills in her desk drawer and immediately closes it so
as to vanish them from her life. Immediately after, she triumphantly exclaims “I’ve
already forgotten all about them” (193). In yet another occasion, Rebecca throws
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away a Visa bill and a letter from Endwich Bank in a yellow garbage disposal outside
a neighboring house. This act of defiance brings her excitement and relief. The letters
are “[g]one for good”, she says “my step’s lighter and I’m feeling buoyant.” She exits
the scene feeling “as though neither of those letters ever existed” (156). Rebecca
never learns. Her inability to deal with problems in a logical, responsible manner goes
so far as to move her back in with her parents.
Rebecca’s ditziness contrasts starkly with her profession. Her job as journalist
for Successful Saving (a magazine on finances and economics), considered alongside
her inability to control her own finances, is ironic at best, degrading at worst. She can
offer financial advice but cannot follow her own recommendations. Surprisingly, said
irony and ditziness are elements that help make Rebecca an accessible and personable
character to readers of the Shopaholic series. Her ditziness and inability to escape
escalating debt open a window for escapism and relief. According to Jessica Lyn Van
Slooten, readers of Shopaholic often compare Rebecca’s situation with their own and
have an “at least I’m not that bad” reaction (220, emphasis in original). Reading about
a character who is in a situation worse than their own gives Kinsella’s audience
license to enjoy the narrative of a ditzy, childish, superficial, materialistic woman.
The fact that the glamorization of such a negative representation of women is not a
reason of concern for audiences but acts rather as an enabler of feelings of
endearment and identification is alarming. Whatever reasons there are to celebrate
such a character escape me. Readers of Shopaholic, though, relate to Rebecca and
celebrate her as a heroine.
Jennifer Scanlon explains that the majority of the responders of her survey
relate to Rebecca because of her obsessive over-shopping and her ditziness. As part of
her study, Scanlon distributed online questionnaires to readers who had rated the
Shopaholic books with four or more stars on the websites of online booksellers
amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. The feedback that she compiled is illuminating
as it gives insight about the thoughts of readers not only of Shopaholic but of ChickLit in general. Scanlon’s survey gives the scholar an idea of why Chick-Lit, as
ideologically conservative as it is, turns out to be so alluring to young female
audiences. When asked what is most appealing about Rebecca as a character and of
Shopaholic as a series, readers mostly addressed the veracity and plausibility of its
plot and credited Rebecca’s charm as a personable, everyday, average woman. One
reader pointed out that she is most attracted to “[t]he humor and the realness of
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Becky. She has embarrassing things happen to her and she has a lot of problems and a
lot of people can relate to that.” Another reader said “[w]hat I find most appealing
about the shopaholic books is that it really could happen. I know its [sic] fiction, but I
find myself in the same financial mess. It’s good to know sometimes things can get
better” (Scanlon). Already the detrimental effects of a romantic fairytale ending on
readers of such narratives are apparent. Certainly, things may get better, but there is
an even bigger chance that they may not, especially if problems are handled following
Rebecca’s approach.
According to Scanlon, the majority of the readers surveyed state that they
most identified with Rebecca because of her love of shopping and patterns of
consumption. Scanlon observes that “almost every respondent reports identifying with
Becky not because of her romantic exploits, career changes, or dreams and ambitions,
which are considerable, but rather because of her shopping habits.” As one reader
honestly explains “[t]he character is very similar to myself. I am addicted to
shopping.” Scanlon argues that shopping (and by extension consumer capitalism)
works as a modern alternative site of negotiation and self-exploration that provides a
space for Rebecca and her readers to form their individual identities by themselves
and for themselves rather than through and for a man. This way, shopping provides a
subversive alternative space where an escape from traditional romance is possible
because it offers women the opportunity to define themselves as the One rather than
as a subaltern Other in relation to men. Although I can grasp the logic behind
Scanlon’s argument, I do not completely agree with it, since a thorough re-definition
of woman and the reversal of the One/Other binary is impossible within a system that
is designed and dominated by men. This is especially true when it comes to shopping
and, even more, the fashion industry, since, as previously explained, both are geared
towards the female public and are socially gendered as areas of feminine interest. The
layout of major department stores easily illustrates the aforementioned gendering of
shopping. Just notice how much space stores set aside for merchandise specifically
made for women (such as cosmetics, apparel, footwear, and accessories) versus that
dedicated to merchandise for men. In like manner, a quick survey of fashion labels
will show that most of them are named after the men who founded them and/or are
currently headed by male designers. Consider for example Ralph Lauren, Louis
Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, and Versace.
Scanlon also argues that shopping “meets women’s needs in ways that
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traditional romance does not.” In other words, consumerism steps in for women when
romance is insufficient or ineffective. Although Scanlon fails to list the ways in which
shopping satisfies women’s unmet needs, she does mention that it allows them to
“transfer their primary interest from a lover to the fruits of their engagement with
capitalism.” Scanlon’s argument lacks weight in relation to the analysis of Kinsella’s
novel when one takes in consideration the numerous times that Rebecca stresses about
not having a boyfriend as well as the importance that she gives to dating. Rebecca,
like Bridget, laments not having a boyfriend. She asks herself “[w]hy haven’t I got a
boyfriend?” and [w]hy haven’t I got a boyfriend to buy me stuff at Tiffany’s?”
(Kinsella 151, 150). Most importantly, her narrative ends in happily-ever-after fashion
when she and Luke reconcile, have sex and, later on, get married in the sequel
Shopaholic Ties the Knot. Therefore, even if the safe haven/alternative space that is
shopping is there for Rebecca, she opts to exit it and enter the world of heterosexual
romantic relationships as epitomized by the institution of marriage. Shopping is not
enough, romantic love is still a need. Furthermore, Scanlon fails to identify the
“fruits” of women’s engagement with capitalism, which I imagine should best not be
ingested lest one enjoy the general impoverishment that it brings to women in the
shape of, for example, the still prevalent gender-based inequality in wages.
The character of Rebecca Bloomwood, as representative of the modern
Everywoman, and her narrative not only perpetuate the misconception that women are
innate shoppers. They glamorize the popular image of women as compulsive
consumers who cannot do anything to modify their behavior even if it means
increasing their personal debt to alarming levels. This way, Kinsella’s Confessions of
a Shopaholic partakes in the pervasive infantilization of women as dumb, ditzy,
irresponsible, childish individuals who are not able to control their own lives and
solve problems in a responsible, efficient, rational manner. In Shopaholic, women are
represented as individuals who need to be disciplined and saved from their selfinflicted doom. This representation provides optimal conditions for the traditional
romantic plotline to develop and bring with it, as it inevitably does, its archaically
conservative fairytale-like ending where the man rescues the woman. Furthermore,
Rebecca is a compulsive shopper/spender/buy-a-holic who could very well suffer
from Compulsive Buying Disorder. But these behaviors, of course, are not addressed.
They are blatantly glamorized and perpetuated as they are never directly addressed
and diagnosed, and, most importantly, do not have negative consequences for the
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main character. After all, our heroine cannot be seriously flawed. She is the woman in
the Target commercial wearing the red track-suit. She has to be able to keep on going.
The economy depends on her. It is she who lives to shop and consume. The mall is
her natural habitat and shopping her cardio, as Carrie Bradshaw would say.
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CHAPTER FIVE
SATC ♥s NYC: CHICK-LIT AND THE CITY
It seems impossible to live in the year 2011 and not be familiar with the name
Sex and the City. Like its predecessor Bridget Jones’s Diary, this mega franchise has
translated successfully from book to screen. Unlike Bridget Jones’s Diary though, Sex
and the City benefited greatly from a medium still unexplored by Bridget: the TV
screen. With a novel, a TV series known the world over, two blockbuster movies,
apparel and accessories, the name Sex and the City itself is truly inescapable. Add the
star-quality of the Sex and the City TV series and film cast, from which popular
actress Sarah Jessica Parker immediately comes to mind, and you have the formula to
its success and longevity. Indeed, Sex and the City is everywhere. It is in bookstores,
at the movies, on magazine covers, and on TV, for the series, even if it wrapped up in
2004, is currently syndicated on various American cable networks such as E!
Entertainment Television and Turner Broadcasting System (better known as TBS).
Many are the women who have been and are still influenced by Sex and the
City (from here on SATC), especially by its main characters, Carrie Bradshaw,
Miranda Hobbes, Samantha Jones, and Charlotte York, as portrayed in the TV series
and movies. Large numbers of female fans deeply and truly identify with the
aforementioned characters. Their admiration and identification often reaches cultfandom levels, á la Star Trek or Star Wars. Scores of fans feel identified with the
glamorous Manhattanite girlfriends to such an extent that they assume new identities
by owning and displaying “I am a_____” items. You can see this phrase imprinted on
lapel pins, martini glasses, T-shirts, and bags at, for example, the SATC shop on
HBO’s website. 9 This way, a woman who identifies with Carrie Bradshaw (main
character of the movies and TV series) can wear an “I am a Carrie” shirt to show her
Carrie-ness. Others, like my dear friend Keyla, will show their devotion to SATC by
enthusiastically uttering the now-popular phrase “Hello lover!” in the presence of
gorgeous shoes, as Carrie does in the TV series episode entitled “I Heart New
York.”10 Those who like fashion will profess their adulation by emulating costumes
from the film and series. And yet others will forever swear by a Cosmopolitan (the
ever-present red alcoholic drink in the series and movies) as their cocktail of choice.
9
See http://www.hbo.com/sex-and-the-city/index.html
“I Heart NY” Sex and the City Season 4 Episode 18
10
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Like many Chick texts (think of The Devil Wears Prada (2006) for example),
Sex and the City develops mainly in where else but New York City: Mecca of Chick
culture. In the SATC movies as well as in the TV series, New York City (specifically
Manhattan) emerges as a fun, glittery, exotic place of posh glamour, opportunity,
diversity, and adventure. It holds such prominence in the series that its cast and crew
often refer to it in interviews and press releases as one more character. This way, New
York City transcends its geographic physicality to land in the realm of the humanly
corporeal numerous times in the small and big SATC screens. For example, Darren
Starr, creator and executive producer of the TV series, states “[t]he city to me was
always the fifth character on the show” (qtd. in Sohn 146). In like manner, Carrie,
Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha consider the city a friend and vehemently defend it
against negative criticism. Of the four friends, it is Carrie, the main character and
narrator of the TV series and movies, who best exemplifies the relationship between
SATC and New York City (from here on NYC). In what has become one of the most
often cited quotes from the series, Carrie declares “[i]f Louis was right, and you only
get one great love, New York may just be mine. And I can’t have nobody talking shit
about my boyfriend” (“Anchors Away”). Carrie idealizes NYC as the perfect
boyfriend, the one true love that will always be there for her. Clearly, the city is not
only a place to live in for Carrie. It is a human companion.
The relationship between the four main Sex and the City characters and NYC
has grown to such an extent that they have become synonymous. The franchise has
depended on New York City’s allure to inform its protagonists as fashionable, hip,
trendy women. The city that never sleeps provides the buzz and perfect cosmopolite
background for their many escapades, sexual encounters, busy nightlife, and, in the
case of the movies and TV series, expensive shopping trips. As Seth Burch (location
department director for the first four seasons of the series) explains, “hot spots” in
New York City “give the show a sense of style,” and, I would add, the class and
glamour that are so often associated with big cities (qted. in Sohn 146). In like
manner, NYC benefited (and still benefits) from SATC. The franchise has not only
cemented the City as the epitome of the American metropolis but it also has helped its
tourism industry, proof of which is the famous Sex and the City tour of Manhattan,
inexistent before the series. Now, if you like SATC, you can make a pilgrimage to the
island of Manhattan where you can experience first hand its sexiness. Said tour takes
you to various locales where the series and movies were filmed, such as the steps of
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Carrie’s apartment and the famous Magnolia Bakery on 401 Bleeker Street, where
you can eat a cupcake like Carrie and Miranda do in the “No Ifs, Ands, or Butts”
episode.11 12 The tour even includes a stop at a chic restaurant where you can drink a
Cosmopolitan cocktail like the four ladies do so many times throughout the series and
movies.
The emphasis on geographic setting evident in the TV series and movies is
also present in the novel, although in a rather different way. Whereas the big and
small SATC screens exalted the glamour and adventure-friendly quality of New York
City, the original novel from which these aforementioned filmic narratives stem
emphasizes its grittiness and alienating way of life in an unemotional, scientific
manner—qualities I will discuss in the context of blank fiction. In Candace Bushnell’s
novel Sex and the City, geographic locality goes hand in hand with a detached
fascination for all things cosmopolite, especially its inhabitants’ way of life and
approach to intimate relationships and, most importantly, as the book’s title indicates,
sex. Throughout the novel, its anonymous narrator performs a Darwinian examination
of Manhattan’s human life with a persistency and recurrence that is not translated
accurately and consistently to the TV series or movies, for while it is present in the
early seasons of the series (the first three episodes of the first season come to mind), it
is practically abandoned in its totality by the final season and is completely absent
from both movies, where the four girlfriends leave Manhattan to travel abroad.
Often, Bushnell’s novel reads like a National Geographic article where its
female narrator (who is not Carrie, contrary to the TV series and movies) acts as an
observant anthropologist who studies human behavior as it specifically relates to the
island of Manhattan. Her observations and comments convey the idea that New York
City is a singular place whose inhabitants behave and interact differently from those
anywhere else. She states “[w]hen it comes to finding a marriage partner, New York
has its own particularly cruel mating rituals, as complicated and as sophisticated as
those in an Edith Warton novel.” Like any good scientist, the narrator looks for
patterns and connections. She observes that as a result of this environment several
endemic species have developed, such as “a particular type of single woman— smart,
attractive, successful and… never married” (Bushnell 25). Also found in NYC are
11
“No Ifs, Ands, or Butts” Sex and the City Season 3 Episode 5
Screentours.com is one of the companies that offers Sex and the City Manhattan tours:
<http://www.screentours.com/tour.php/satc/ >.
12
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Bicycle Boys, a “Manhattan literary-romantic subspecies.” They are a “particular
breed of New York bachelor: Smart, funny, romantic, lean, quite attractive” young
men working as “book, magazine, and newspaper editors and writers who insist on
traversing Manhattan’s physical and romantic landscape as solitary pedalers” (73).
After reading these observations, one is left wondering if the island of Manhattan is
part of the Galapagos and the narrator is performing some kind of Darwinian human
research.
Both representations of New York City in the Sex and the City franchise (its
humanized, idealized small screen representation and detached, anthropological
novelistic portrayal) are a perfect example of what Jean Baudrillard calls simulation
or simulacra. According to Baudrillard, simulation is the “generation by models of a
real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (“Simulacra” 169). Simply put, simulation
is the creation of a new reality parting from an already existing reality. In this newly
created reality, the original real becomes lost and useless as the emerging models take
its place. As a result, simulation “threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false,’
between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’” (“Simulacra” 170). The original model and its
offspring models become conflated and the lines between the real and the imaginary
and the true and the false become blurred. Baudrillard offers Disneyland as an
example of simulation. Within Disneyland’s “play of illusions and phantasms: pirates,
the frontier, future world, etc,” the limits of the imaginary and the real are stretched to
their limit as this “play” often leaves visitors wondering if they are still on Earth or a
fantasy land in another dimension (“Simulacra” 174). Another example of simulacra
is Disneyworld’s Epcot Center, a park that promises the experience of traveling
around the world and visiting eleven countries by walking just 1 ½ miles around its
World Showcase section. Even if it seems hard to believe, there are people (I have
personally met them) who profess to having visited France, seen the Eiffel Tower,
eaten original French cuisine, and experienced French culture after visiting Epcot,
without ever setting foot in France. For them, a visit to Epcot (located in Orlando,
Florida U.S.A) is equivalent to visiting Europe. This is the effect of simulacra, a
phenomenon that blurs the line between the real and the imaginary. Consider also the
recent release of a U.S. Postal Service stamp of the Statue of Liberty. Indeed, the
image on the stamp is the Statue of Liberty. Only it is the wrong Statue of Liberty, as
the image is of a replica of the original that can be found in the New York-New York
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Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.13 In both aforementioned cases, the real becomes
blurred and substituted by a model, a produced reality that is shaped after the
precedent real. As a result, the replica of the Statue of Liberty in Las Vegas is
mistaken with the authentic statue in New York City, and a visit to “France,” Epcot
has the same validity as a visit to France, Europe. In the aforementioned examples of
simulacra, the real does not count, only the model is needed, and, especially
applicable to the case of the postage stamp, the hyperreal is produced, reproduced,
engrained, and perpetuated in the collective consciousness of a population.
The representation of New York City in the Sex and the City movies, series
and novel contributes to the conflation of the authentic real with the produced model.
This way, New York is believed by many to be as fun and glamorous as it is on the
big and small SATC screens and New Yorkers are believed to be unique in the way
they dress, talk, behave, carry themselves, etc. The portrayal of NYC in SATC (and
popular media in general) as the city of romance and blinding lights takes precedence,
and the real city of New York recedes into the background as a place that only exists
geographically for the purpose of living a created fantasy, hence the SATC tour. Even
if at times it is difficult to differentiate the fictional NYC from the physical city, we
can easily differentiate the New York of the SATC screen (the perfect boyfriend and
at times also fifth glamorous girlfriend) and the gritty, cruel New York City of the
SATC novel. The novel’s representation of NYC resembles that made in other novels
of the genre known as blank fiction.
There is very little amount of material published on blank fiction, most likely
due to its youth as a genre. Blank fiction only began to be published in the late 1980s
and reached its peak in the 1990s. Among the best-known blank fiction novels is Bret
Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, which almost did not get published because of its
explicit sexual and violent content. American Psycho is the story of Patrick Bateman,
a 26-year-old wealthy businessman who lives in New York City. Bateman is the
average Wall Street man. He is fit, good looking, healthy, white, affluent, and takes
good care to look sharp and fashionable every day. He also informs his audience of
the brands he wears and owns every chance he gets, a definite sign of his wealth,
social status, and materialist mentality. An Alan Flusser custom suit, a Valentino
Couture silk tie, Testoni crocodile loafers, a Burberry scarf, and a Rolex watch make
13
See article in Sociological Images blog at
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/04/25/hyperreality-and-the-new-statue-of-liberty-stamp/
109
up his outfit in the opening pages of the novel. But do not let Bateman’s outer
appearance fool you, for he is, as the novel’s title indicates, a psychopath. He is a
serial killer of the cruelest kind who enjoys torturing, dismembering and murdering
his (mostly female) victims. Among the worst tortures that he performs on his victims
is the insertion of a rat in a woman’s vagina by way of a plastic “Habitrail” tube. Even
worse is his indifference when seeing the rat move inside the woman’s belly. He
considers the “noises” the woman makes “for the most part, incomprehensible” and
continues with the torture (Ellis 329). Ellis’s novel is a useful example of blank
fiction because it perfectly illustrates at first glance the genre’s main characteristics:
an emphasis on all things related to commodities and consumer culture manifested
through pervasive references to the latest fashion trends, labels and brands (a defining
feature of Patrick Bateman), pervasive violence (the rat incident being a case in
point), and a reliance on popular culture events as a means to situate the text both
spatially and temporally.
James Annesley’s Blank Fictions: Consumerism, Culture and the
Contemporary American Novel is one of the few books written solely on blank
fiction. Annesley performs a study of a series of emblematic blank fiction novels
among which Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Susanna Moore’s In the Cut
stand out, both well known among the general public for their violence and nudityladen controversial film adaptations. Annesley outlines a series of characteristics
shared by the novels of a generation of American writers who he refers to as the
“bratpack” of the 1980s and 1990s American novel. These writers’ novels (among
which figure Ellis’s and Moore’s works) reflect an “emphasis on violence, sexual
experimentation, drug use and urban despair” that, according to Annesley, is present
in much of “recent American fiction.” Their works are “predominantly urban” novels
that focus on “the experiences of American youth” specifically individuals in their
“teen, twenty and thirty somethings.” Blank fiction novels adopt what he calls a
“looser approach” to plot development in contrast to the “dense plots, elaborate styles
and political subjects that provide the material for writers like Toni Morrison […].”
These novels are also mostly preoccupied with “sex, death and subversion.” Another
characteristic that blank novels have in common is their setting. They take the “New
York of the 1980s” as a “central reference point,” making Manhattan’s “clubs,
restaurants and galleries” the focus of their setting (Annesley 2).
Throughout his work, Annesley reminds his readers that there is no single
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definition of blank fiction. Nevertheless, there is a clear “common context and a
common vision” as well as “affinities” that “suggest the existence of a ‘blank scene’”
(3). These affinities include a sense of indifference and emotional detachment, a
“wide range of mass cultural references” and, because of its numerous “allusions to
retail outlets, brand names and styles,” a shared “commodified language” that
“positions it very precisely in a particular time and place”—namely the decade of the
1990s (7). He also points out that “there is no ‘blank school’, nor can they [the
writers] be regarded as part of a coherent literary movement.” According to Annesley,
the absence of a blank school or manifesto suggests “there is no definitive kind of
blank fiction, but a number of different blank fictions” (137, emphasis in original).
The multiplicity of blank fictions is accompanied by a variety of terms used to
designate this one genre. The lack of agreement on a single term to refer to blank
fiction novels further impedes their study and definition, for there is always the
possibility that a source uses a new or different term to label them. Some of these
terms are “‘fiction of insurgency’, ‘new narrative’, ‘blank generation fiction’,
downtown writing’, [and] ‘punk fiction’” (2). Annesley explains that he opted for the
use of “blank fiction” over the aforementioned terms because it provides an open or
“blank” space for the study of the literary genre in question. He argues that “[t]he use
of the word ‘blank’ seems almost to leave the category open, waiting, perhaps, for
that blank to be filled by a term that has been weighted, measured and assessed over
time and applied with the benefit of hindsight” (138). Although I will not attempt to
provide a new term to refer to “blank fiction” or a definition for said genre in this
chapter, I will attempt to fill in the blank in blank fiction, so to speak, with an analysis
of Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City, a novel that both follows and fits the model
of blank fiction and offers a new perspective on it. Even if Sex and the City does not
include violence or excessive references to commodities (like American Psycho
does), it shares with blank fiction its loose approach to plot development, general
sense of detachment, sense of urban despair, metropolitan setting and, preoccupation
with sexual experimentation. It is because of these similarities that I will argue that
Sex and the City (the novel) is blank fiction for women readers.
Annesley mentions Bushnell’s novel in his book once and very briefly, only to
make the point that it is “unimaginatively entitled” (34). It is time to give this
overlooked Chick-Lit novel the critical attention it deserves, for it fills in the blank in
“blank fiction” from a Chick perspective. I must say I agree with Annesley. Certainly,
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the novel’s title is unimaginative, for as you read it you are bound to notice that the
plot is exactly what the title says it is and little more: a series of accounts about sexual
encounters that take place in a city. Nevertheless, this “unimaginative title” is perhaps
the biggest argument to support the inclusion of Sex and the City in the blank fiction
canon, as it underscores the novel’s preoccupation with sex and its metropolitan
setting. The title also contributes to one of the novel’s defining features as blank
fiction, which is, in Annesley’s words, a “loose approach to plot development” (2).
But before discussing the plot of SATC, I would first like to focus on the portrayal of
the city itself (New York City, specifically Manhattan) and the contextualization of
female characters within said geographic space throughout its development.
Bushnell’s gendering of the novel’s narrator (and most of its main recurring
characters) as female is also significant because it provides an alternative perspective
on a public space and way of life long gendered as masculine. Female urban voices
are relevant to an analysis of SATC, because the role and place of women in the city
versus that of men have been aesthetically and scientifically (especially from
historical, sociological and anthropological standpoints) approached and portrayed in
unequal ways. I will now provide a brief overview of the discourse about women and
city life to then place SATC not only within the context of blank fiction, but also
within the context of women’s writing (specifically Chick-Lit) and feminist inquiry.
This will allow us to examine Bushnell’s contribution to both fields.
Women have long been relegated to domestic spaces. Labor gendered as
feminine such as childrearing and the daily call of domestic chores have forced
women to remain mostly within the private sphere of the home. On the other hand,
men have enjoyed the freedom to move in public spaces as they have assumed the
task of monetary productivity, which often takes place outside the home. It is because
of this traditional gendering of chores and spaces that, as Andrea Kornblum notes,
“urban women” are considered to be “provocative” and, I would add, rebellious, since
they dare transgress the boundaries of normative gender roles (60). In the words of
Mary P. Ryan, “[t]o search for women in public is to subvert a longstanding tenet of
the modern western gender system, the presumption that social space is divided
between the public and the private and that men claim the former while women are
confined to the latter”(qtd. in Kornblum, 60). Kornblum offers an overview of works
examining the relationship between women and the city that spans from the mid
1800s to the 1990s. She points out that her study is comprised of works that “examine
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women who somehow deviate from the ‘ideal’ woman, who in the nineteenth century
seemed to be a married Protestant middle-class non-employed mother.” Thus, the
narratives she examines focus on the opposite, “prostitutes, immigrant women and
wage-earning women, as well as politically and sexually radical women” (60). It is
disheartening to learn that the stereotype of the ideal woman has changed so little
throughout the years. Society still rejects women whose political beliefs and sexual
practices and/or orientations differ from the norm. Hence, the use of negative words
such as “slut” to refer to non-monogamous women and the ever-present stereotype of
the professional working woman as a cold-hearted bitch.
Kornblum observes that studies examining the role of women in urban spaces
published from 1869 to 1920 consider the presence of women assuming diverse roles
in cities (meaning other than housewives and mothers) to be a problem and seek to
“understand the obvious presence of women in cities by the use of theories based in
morality, in biology and in social reform” (61). One such study is George Ellington’s
The Women of New York: or, The Under-World of the Great City, published in 1869.
Ellington bases his study of women’s place in the city on morality by establishing a
comparison between urban women and those who live in the country. He portrays the
former negatively and suggests that they could restore their image and gain the
respect of others by emulating the virtues that rural women are known for through the
observance of “chastity, morality and good works” (Ellington qtd. in Kornblum, 62).
Ellington and his contemporaries considered women’s migration to urban public
spaces threatening and dangerous, a main concern being female sexuality and
prostitution.
By the 1920s and 1930s, advances in urban planning and changes in urban
growth and demographics led to adjustments in social consciousness. Consequently,
studies conducted during these decades no longer approached the presence of women
in cities as something problematic. Instead, urban historians and sociologists “argued
that the existence of diverse roles for women in cities was normal” (Kornblum 60). Of
particular importance are Arthur Meier Schlesinger’s The Rise of the City, 1878-1898
(1933), Lewis Mumford’s The Culture of Cities (1938) and Carl Bridenbaugh’s Cities
in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, 1625-1742 (1938).
Schlesinger, Mumford and Bridenbaugh focused their respective studies on
examining urban female sexuality by paying special attention to female promiscuity,
immigration and prostitution. According to Kornblum, their studies concluded that
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“the presence of women in cities, particularly the presence of prostitutes, served not
as evidence of moral decline, but of urban culture.” These studies “relied on
anonymity as an indicator of the urban condition, and the presence of prostitution
served as an easy measure of anonymity” (68). Thus, the aforementioned historians
were among the first to demonstrate that urban female promiscuity and prostitution
were not a product of moral decay but of their environment.
Currents shifted again in the 1960s and 1970s due to the resurgence of
feminism and the advent of the Women’s Liberation Movement. As a result, scholars
quickly demanded the recognition and consideration of the many factors that shape an
individual’s experiences such as race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Studies
performed during these decades still focused on urban women’s sexuality, on the
urban division of labor, and on the role of women’s organizations in women’s lives.
Nevertheless, this time scholars were re-examining women’s roles in urban settings
and renovating the image of the metropolis in an attempt to do away with its negative
stigma as locus of moral decay. Margaret Gibbons Wilson’s The American Woman in
Transition: The Urban Influence, 1870-1920 (1979), for example, concluded that
urban settings “offered women both increased autonomy within the traditional sphere
of the home and an extension of their activities into the ‘outside’ world” (Wilson qtd.
in Kornblum, 70). Come the 1980s, issues of sexual orientation started to gain
prominence in studies of women and the city. For example, John D’Emilio’s Sexual
Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United
States, 1940-1970 (1983) expounds on the intersection between anonymity and
sexuality, proposing that it “made homosexual and lesbian socializing easier” in urban
spaces, especially thanks to the proliferation of gay bars and clubs in cities (Kornblum
75). Another study included in Kornblum’s survey that stands out and is of special
relevance to this paper is Joanne J. Meyerowitz’s Women Adrift: Independent Wage
Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930 (1988). According to Kornblum, Meyerowitz sought
to “recreate the ways in which women created new ways of living in the city” by
focusing her study on single women “who lived apart from family in the city.” In her
study, she “charts a change from viewing these women as problems to seeing them as
unexceptional.” She also adds “particular female reasons for leaving home” to
existing traditional reasons for female migration to the city. She mentions “desires to
escape oppressive male relatives and to escape restrictions on behavior” among them
(76). Meyerowitz’s study sheds light on the closely related popular conviction that
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urban women living away from their families are unhappy and unsuccessful. Nowhere
is the existence of this idea more evident than in popular culture. Consider as
manifestations of said conviction Chick-Flicks such as Sweet Home Alabama (2002),
whose heroine finds comfort and happiness in the warmth of her Southern family as
opposed to cold, harsh Manhattan.
In addition to being the focus of attention in scientific studies, the figure of the
urban woman has also taken center stage in fields of inquiry more concerned with
aesthetic approaches rather than those purely scientific, as is the case of the literary
arts. Enter the flâneuse. Deborah L. Parsons examines the character of the flâneur and
argues for the consideration of its female counterpart, the flâneuse. Parsons explains
that the flâneur is “a conceptual figure related to the characteristics of the modern
artist, his modes of observation, and the public spaces he portrays” (17). He
represents the man of leisure and of the crowd who “walks idly through the city,
listening to its narrative” (3). Detachment and isolation characterize him, as he prefers
to walk and observe unaccompanied. In Baudelaire’s poetry, for example, the flâneur
observes “the public areas of Paris experienced during a day’s strolling through the
city; the fashionable Bois de Bologne, parks by day, cafés, restaurants, theaters […]”
(22). According to Parsons, this figure, the observer of the city, has consistently been
portrayed as masculine in large part due to the traditional division and gendering of
public spaces as masculine and those that are private as feminine, a practice that
resulted in women having “restricted access to the public life of the city compared to
men’s” (5). Nevertheless, Parsons points out that women were “achieving greater
liberation as walkers and observers in the public spaces of the city” during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that therefore “women’s highly selfconscious awareness of themselves as walkers and observers of the modernist city
does need to be recognized” (6). In her book, she argues for the consideration of the
flâneuse female observer of the city.
Parsons maintains that the traditional gendering of the flâneur as a strictly
male figure is erroneous because the flâneur is an androgynous figure by definition, a
fact that allows for the figuration of the flâneuse. According to Parsons, “[i]n the
nineteenth-century Encyclopedia Laurusse, the entry ‘flâneur/flâneuse’ describes a
figure who loiters the city, shopping and watching the crowd.” This, she argues, gives
place to “the possibility of a feminine version and it includes the largely female
occupation of shopping as a characteristic activity, despite then assuming a masculine
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gender throughout” (Parsons 17, italics in original). Parsons analyzes various
modernist literary works by women where the flâneuse and the activity of city
observation by female characters is present. Some examples of such works are Djuna
Barnes’s Nightwood (1937) and Virginia Woolf’s essay “Street Haunting: A London
Adventure” (1930). Parsons concludes that the flâneuse is developed in women’s
modernist fiction as “elusive and ambiguous.” She observes the city but does not feel
the need to retain the “categorizing, possessing gaze of the masculine observer” (229).
In other words, women writers have felt the need to position the female characters of
their fictional works as observers and explorers of their urban habitats just as their
male counterparts have done. They have done it and continue to do so in their own
way.
Parson’s explanation of the presence of the flâneuse in modernist literature by
women is relevant because it provides a starting point for the analysis of
contemporary works by women writers that develop in urban settings. We can now
examine the place that the female characters of Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City
occupy not only within the city but also within the larger picture of works by women
writers set in urban spaces. At first glance, just from reading the novel’s title, you
would think that it is a narrative about women experiencing, exploring and observing
the city itself (with all its venues, stores, cafés, monuments, museums, parks, etc.) like
a flâneuse would do. But the women of SATC are not flâneuses. They hardly make
any physical observations of the city they live in. They do not explore their city. New
York City rarely shows up in SATC other than to play the role of a Darwinian
Galapagos of sorts. Rather than focusing on the city they live in and experiencing
what the city has to offer in flâneuse fashion, the female characters of SATC
(including the narrator) focus their energies on the relationships and sexual
experiences they have. They share them, study them, dissect them, and analyze them
to the core in restaurants and bars. This way, the characters not only remain within
private, enclosed spaces (which have so long been gendered feminine) but also reject
being physically active outdoors in favor of being passive indoors. Furthermore, they
reject objectivity in favor of the emotional by giving complete precedence to
conversations about their and other people’s relationships over any other topic
throughout the novel, as if women’s main or only concern in life was or should be
chatting and/or gossiping about people’s personal lives. The city, in this case New
York and specifically Manhattan, is just a setting, a backdrop for the characters that
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inhabit it. Developing SATC in NYC is simply a product of Bushnell’s attempt to
capitalize on the city’s cultural capital, perhaps for the sake of securing book sales.
New York City does not figure prominently within the story as the great metropolis
that it is. I fail to understand how it came to be the perfect companion that it is to
Carrie in the TV series. One can only wonder, where is the city in Sex and the City
and what is its role?
Sometimes, reading the opening pages of a book is enough to get a good idea
of what it is about and how it is going to end. Sadly, Sex and the City is one of those
books. You can find the answers to the previous questions in the opening pages. It is
hardly necessary to read beyond page fifty to notice the formulaic and repetitive
nature of its structure and plot: a series of stories (mostly told by non-recurring
characters) woven together by the topics of dating, marriage, and sex. The novel starts
with the anonymous narrator telling the story of an English journalist who moves to
New York City only to find that the rules of relationships that apply in England do not
apply in her new home. She dates an investment banker who she believes wants to
marry her. For her, meeting the architect of the house that said banker was building at
the Hamptons meant he had future plans of living together. She thought that the
meeting was the banker’s attempt to include her in his life in a definitive way.
Unfortunately, they were not on the same page. The relationship ends when the
banker tells her he would call her and never does. The narrator reacts to this story
with a cautionary “[w]elcome to the age of Un–Innocence… No one has breakfast at
Tiffany’s, and no one has affairs to remember—instead, we have breakfast at seven
A.M. and affairs we try to forget as quickly as possible” (Bushnell 2).
It is here, on the second page of the book, that we learn that New York City is
a particular place. It has its own rules. There, the narrator warns, sex has nothing to do
with love or romance. Instead, it “results in friendship and business deals.” The times
have changed, she cautions, “[t]hese days, everyone has friends and colleagues; no
one really has lovers—even if they have slept together.” Two voices converge in
these opening pages, the naïve, idealist British journalist and the Manhattanite
narrator, who acts as the voice of reason and experience throughout the novel. As
such, the narrator states “[r]elationships in New York are about detachment.” If you
decide you want to get attached and have a committed relationship, “[h]oney, you
leave town” (Bushnell 3). Clearly, New York is not for traditional lovers. The New
York of Bushnell’s Sex and the City is not the New York of popular imagination. It
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has nothing to do with love and romance and everything to do with detachment,
casual sex, and isolation. Getting used to these aforementioned elements does not
come easy to the female characters of the novel, even if they have lived in Manhattan
all their lives. They acknowledge them, live by them, and at times celebrate the
resulting freedom they bring from commitment. Nevertheless, they feel conflicted and
long for traditional love, romance, monogamy and, ultimately, marriage.
In another instance of New York-ness, the narrator explains that for the first
time in the history of Manhattan “many women in their thirties to early forties have as
much money as men—or at least enough to feel like they don’t need a man, except for
sex” (Bushnell 41). Her statement is relevant since it establishes a correspondence
between money, detachment, and objectification. According to her argument, it is
because of women’s economic independence that men have become expendable,
which in turn has resulted in women’s ability to have casual sex or, as the narrative
puts it, have sex like men. In traditional SATC fashion, Carrie, a journalist in her mid
thirties and friend of the narrator, talks about her most recent sexual experience.
Carrie begins her story with the confession that she is “turning into a man” because
she had sex with her partner Drew and “didn’t feel a thing” afterwards. The morning
after the affair, she told him “[g]otta go to work, babe. Keep in touch” and
“completely forgot him after that.” Carrie and her friends feel empowered by their
ability to have casual sex. The narrator explains, “[w]e were hard and proud of it, and
it hadn’t been easy to get to this point—this place of complete independence where
we had the luxury of treating men like sex objects. It had taken hard work, loneliness,
and the realization that, since there might never be anyone out there for you, you had
to take care of yourself in every sense of the word” (41). Carrie shares this sentiment.
She states “[t]here’s a thin line between attraction and repulsion… [a]nd usually the
repulsion starts when they begin wanting you to treat them as people, instead of sex
toys.” Charlotte jumps in and clarifies that the only way to have sex like a man is
becoming “a real bitch.” She explains “it is either that, or you have to be incredibly
sweet and nice” (42).
Although the above scene might seem empowering, it is really an insult to the
principle of gender equality and thus of feminist ideals. On the one hand, the
characters’ talk about casual sex might seem empowering because it celebrates a
woman’s right to have casual sex and because by doing so it also rejects the notion of
virginity as an indicator of a woman’s value. On the other hand, it is not empowering
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because there is no progress and empowerment stemming from the objectification of
either sex, no matter whether by a man or a woman. Instead of dispelling with
patriarchal sexual objectification, the rhetoric about having sex like a man reinstalls it
and reverses it so as to place women in the role of the oppressor. Thus, having sex
like a man is really behaving like a male chauvinist. In this sense, SATC is retrograde
and conservative instead of progressive and revolutionary, for the women are doing to
men exactly what feminists have fought against for so long. SATC also offers a very
limited definition of casual sex and of sex in general because implied in its rhetoric is
the condition that if women were to have sex casually they would have to define their
experience as having sex like men, not like women. This renders casual sex
incompatible with women and femininity and compatible only with men and
masculinity. Empowerment then stems from appropriating normative gender-specific
parameters, not from challenging them. I wonder where the rejection of having casual
sex like a woman comes from. I also wonder why women should aim to have sex like
men. I cannot but think this is one more manifestation of patriarchal misogynist
ideology.
Sex and the City continues warning about untraditional sex in chapter eight,
titled “Manhattan Ménage! Seven Men Pop the Inevitable Question.” The narrator
opens the chapter with the story of a man who asked her if she would like to have a
threesome with him and another woman. (She declines the offer.) She points out that
this kind of offer is only natural in New York City since it is “a place where people
come to fulfill their fantasies. Money. Power. A spot on the David Letterman show.
And while you’re at it, why not two women?” (Bushnell 59). Threesomes appear to
be the new sexual frontier and NYC the place to experiment. After all, as an
unidentified male friend of the narrator states, in New York threesomes are “[a]
sexual variant as opposed to sexually deviant. Another option in the city of options.”
At this point, one might think that the novel would propose an alternative view of
heterosexual sex, one that does not rely on monogamy and marriage as normative
principles, but the narrator’s response to the man’s offer alerts us against this
possibility. The moralizing voice of the narrator quickly interjects after the speaker’s
comment. She asks “[o]r is there a darker side to threesomes: Are they a symptom of
all that is wrong with New York, a product of that combination of desperation and
desire particular to Manhattan?” (59). Again, New York City, specifically Manhattan,
is portrayed as a place with inhabitants different from those found anywhere else.
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They are desperate and from this desperation comes all that is wrong with it, such as
untraditional sexual behavior in the shape of group sex. Ideological crossroads like
this one and the casual sex conundrum simultaneously differentiate and equate SATC
and blank fiction. Like most blank fiction novels, SATC is set in New York and its
inhabitants’ particular behavior is linked to the metropolitan atmosphere of their home
city. Nevertheless, SATC is moralizing and cautionary against everything that
deviates from the norm. These aforementioned characteristics differentiate SATC
from blank fiction and bring it closer to Chick-Lit, which is why it is not surprising
that Carrie and her friends spend their lives looking for a man who is marriage
material.
Heteronormativity, monogamy, and marriage are as firmly established in
Bushnell’s Sex and the City as they are in Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and
Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic. For example, chapter 18 reads like a
“how-to” guide on getting married in New York. In this chapter, we meet Lisa (a
thirty-eight year old correspondent for a news show) and Britta (a friend of the
narrator’s), who act as voices of wisdom when they offer advice on how to get
married in New York. Lisa advises “[y]ou have to be sweet” but “you can’t let [men]
get away with everything.” Britta follows by saying, “[y]ou have to start the training
from day one” if you want to get married. You also have “to be a bit calculating. You
always have to expect more than you have” (Bushnell 149). Lisa’s comments
elaborate on Britta’s advice. She explains why women have to be “calculating” if they
want to get married and also why they have to “train” men for marriage. The reason
for these aforementioned strategies is that “in terms of socialization for men, getting
them ready for marriage, New York is a terrible place” because “[s]ingle men don’t
tend to hang around with couples. They’re not used to the idea of coziness and family.
So you have to get them there mentally” (154). Other advice that the women offer for
getting married includes doing “unexpected things” like serving a candle-lit dinner for
your date and keeping an eye on him “all the time” because he can cheat or another
woman can steal him from you (150). The ladies also state that “eliciting coziness” is
“primordial” to start a relationship because “men want to feel comfort” (155). Lisa’s
and Britta’s advice is juxtaposed to Carrie’s story in this chapter, for she does exactly
the opposite of what they suggest. As expected, she breaks up with Mr. Big and
remains single in New York City at the conclusion of the novel. Without a doubt,
Carrie’s is meant to be another moralizing, cautionary tale.
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Chapter 18 is not only problematic because of its emphasis on heterosexual
marriage. It is also problematic because it portrays women as calculating, conniving
spider women or femme fatales. Not only are they obsessed with getting married, they
are looking to “train men” into it. As the narrator says, New York women know what
they want and they go for it. When they “target a man as a potential husband, there is
usually very little he can do to get away” (Bushnell 149). Once they weave their web
around him, he is done. While there is nothing wrong with being determined, having a
goal and going for it, there is a lot wrong with the narrator’s and her friends’ advice
on how to achieve it. The idea that men need training, much like an animal needs to
be trained for any given purpose, is nothing short of offensive and dehumanizing.
Unfortunately, this rhetoric is popular and widespread. I have heard my own friends
talk about training their boyfriends and have remained in awe of their insensitivity
and ignorance. They seem to think their partners are unable to be in a relationship
unless they prepare them for it. The advice of doing “unexpected things” and
“eliciting coziness” in order to get a potential husband is also limiting and trite. This
advice does nothing more than perpetuate gender-based stereotypes. It relegates
women to the role of nurturers who care for and cater to their male partners. In
addition, it genders relationships as a female concern, thus also relegating women to
the emotional side of the rational/emotional gender informed binary. Lisa’s advice to
“be sweet” relates to Charlotte’s observation that the only way to have sex like a man
is either to become “a real bitch” or “be incredibly sweet and nice” (Bushnell 42).
Both of these comments perpetuate the angel/devil, virgin/whore binaries that women
face every day and are forced to negotiate with every time they find themselves in a
relationship, be it intimate or not. All evidence seems to point to a preference for the
angel/virgin side of the aforementioned binaries in SATC, something that can hardly
be considered revolutionary or empowering.
The compliance with traditional gender behavioral norms continues in chapter
21, titled “Women Who Ran With Wolves: Perennial Bachelors? See Ya.” This is the
second chapter in the novel that is dedicated to marriage. Chapter 21 opens with the
story of Simon Piperstock, owner of a software company. He wakes up one day to the
phone call of a woman who calls him a “piece of shit” and scolds him for his
“reprehensible behavior” of bringing a “bimbo” (a slang term used to refer to a
promiscuous, unintelligent and attractive woman) to her party. She quickly asks him
“Why don’t you get a life? Why don’t you get married?” (Bushnell 175). Simon is the
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example of the typical bachelor in Manhattan against whom the narrator warns us
readers. He is the man who has to be trained for marriage. Alluding to Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, the narrator cautions “[t]here’s something rotten in New York society, and
it’s the character formerly known as a the ‘eligible’ bachelor.” She tells us that NYC
is full of non-eligible bachelors. These are men “in their forties and fifties who have
never been married, who have not, in years anyway, had a serious girlfriend […]”
(175). In short, they go out with as many women as they want and never commit to a
monogamous relationship. The narrator offers Roger as an example of a non-eligible
bachelor. He is fifty, not married and still goes out with “bimbos.” Men like Roger are
deemed “pathetic” and are rejected by the female characters of SATC. Women are
advised that these men are not marriage material and should not be approached
because of their poor choice of companionship and tendency to promiscuity and
unfaithfulness. Their age and singledom puts them in the “no date” zone for single
women looking to get married. Chapter 21 is another example of normativity within
the SATC narrative. Women are instructed as to whom to date, and the men are
indirectly advised on how to behave in order to conform to the norm and be chosen by
women as mates. In addition, ageism is evident in the narrator’s comments. Like
women, men are indicted for remaining single beyond their thirties and for not being
monogamous. Apparently, there is a deadline to get married and that deadline for both
sexes, not surprisingly, is tied to the ability to reproduce. This is in itself problematic
for it offers an even more limited definition of marriage postulating reproduction as
its goal.
Chapter 21 perpetuates the sense of desperation that the narrator says is
endemic to New York City women. Through the collection of a myriad of stories told
by women from all walks of life and the figure of a journalist female narrator,
Bushnell builds a narrative of New York City and single women portraying said
location as a cosmos apart from every other cosmos but at the same time one that sets
the example for women in other cities. The New York City of Sex and the City is very
similar to that of blank fiction in that it is a cruel place to inhabit. Nor surprisingly,
the characters that populate SATC are in some ways similar to those found in blank
fiction novels. They inhabit a big city, discover and act upon their newly-discovered
sexuality, and feel a sense of detachment from the world and people around them.
They live and act on their own. Sex is just sex and people can be used as sex objects.
Men and women come and go, and there is little to no sentimental value attached to
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them. This lifestyle is very similar to the way that Patrick Bateman, who uses people
for his own benefit, lives his life. But the characters of SATC are not Patrick
Bateman. The do not kill or want to kill. They are cold-hearted, but not cruel. And
even if there seems to be no possibility for love, they look for it. In fact, they
resemble Bridget Jones more than Patrick Bateman in this sense. After all, they are
characters in a Chick-Lit novel. It should come as no surprise that for them it is better
to try and fail again and again in the quest for love than face the possibility of dying
alone in your apartment and be eaten by an Alsatian dog (Bridget’s worst fear). In the
words of the narrator, “[t]here are worse things than being thirty-five, single, and
female in New York. Like: Being twenty-five, single, and female in New York”
(Bushnell 126).
What is left to do is ask ourselves how does Sex and the City, hailed by many
as emblem of female emancipation and empowerment, define woman? The answer is
disturbing from a womanist standpoint. Simply put, Bushnell’s novel does not make a
significant positive contribution to the definition or representation of women in
popular literature, for it advises them to continue occupying the traditionally feminine
gendered “emotional” and “passive” sides within the emotional/rational and
passive/active gender informed binaries. What is the point then of situating the novel
and its characters not only within a metropolitan setting but one of such vast
possibilities for reinvention as New York City? Even if the women of SATC inhabit a
city, they are far from living the life of an exploring, observant, bohemian flâneuse.
They are also not the provocative, rebellious women Kornblum talks about. They do
not challenge or transgress normative ideologies concerning women and gender roles
in general. Bushnell’s novel deserves credit for challenging traditional blank fiction
parameters by offering an all-female perspective through its main characters and
narrator. Unfortunately, this point of view is not revolutionary, as some of us feminist
scholars would have hoped. Instead, SATC perpetuates misogyny and objectification
through its conservative, preachy, cautionary tone. Bushnell wastes a good
opportunity to subvert such a misogynist genre as blank fiction. Her novel merely fills
in the blank in blank fiction with the traditional “chick” of Chick-Lit.
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CHAPTER SIX
“WILL PERSEVERE WITH RESOLUTION TO FIND A NICE SENSIBLE MAN”:
CARRIE, BRIDGET, AND REBECCA MAKE IT TO THE BIG SCREEN
Hollywood, the big maker of dreams, puts fantasies on the big screen. Worlds
never before seen appear right before our eyes, avatars run free in a far away
rainforest, galaxies fight one against the other in outer space, wizards and witches
battle the forces of evil, and teenagers morphed into vampires and werewolves feed
our hunger for fantasy, action, and adventure. But Hollywood not only depends on
make-believe and dreams as subject matter for movies; it also draws from life itself to
tell stories that appeal to and captivate us, the audience. Through movies, we see
ourselves represented on the big screen, while characters that oftentimes are fictional
or quasi-fictional live our dreams, fears, and aspirations right before our eyes. We
often feel so identified with the characters that we live through them. We project
ourselves on them and wish we were them; we wish our lives were that interesting,
eventful, glamorous, perfect. Sometimes, the line between reality and fiction can be
so thin that we forget movies are a representation of reality. It is when this process of
representation, projection, and identification occurs that movies stop being merely
entertainment, even if they are perceived by many as a harmless excuse for spending a
couple of hours relaxed on the sofa or in a cool air-conditioned movie theatre.
Films, like literary texts, exceed the ability to entertain. They are imbued with
institutionalized systems of ideas or beliefs (also known as ideologies) that not only
affect but also ultimately shape the way we think about ourselves as individuals, and
our place in the world. Movies develop and portray these ideologies (which can range
from beliefs about patriotism to beliefs about gender) in a myriad of ways.
Unfortunately, the development and representation of ideological currents in film tend
to reflect the point of view of the group (as defined by markers such as sex, social
class, race, ethnicity, etc.) that controls the production of these texts. Nevertheless,
there is always room for negotiation as minorities contest with the majority for a
space in representational filmic discourse. Cultural negotiations of this kind are areas
ripe for analysis. The present chapter will focus on subjects of contestation such as
womanliness, femininity, feminism, and postfeminism within films made for a
predominantly female target audience—films often referred to as Chick-Flicks. The
movies I will analyze in this chapter are the film adaptations of three very popular
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Chick-Lit novels: Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sophie Kinsella’s
Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City.
The term Chick-Flick is popularly used to designate any movie with a female
lead. However, not all movies with a female lead are Chick-Flicks. Suzanne Ferris
and Mallory Young, Chick-Flick and Chick culture scholars, avoid providing a
definitive definition for Chick-Flick at the risk of rendering this category as closed,
limited, and excluding of a significant number of films. Nevertheless, they provide a
series of guidelines that will prove useful for the purpose of differentiating ChickFlicks from other women-oriented films that are not markedly a part of Chick culture.
One of such guidelines refers to content. According to Ferriss and Young, ChickFlicks address issues closely related to feminist concerns. They tend to “raise
questions about women’s place—their prescribed social and sexual roles, the role of
female friendship and camaraderie—and play out the difficulties of negotiating
expectations and achieving independence.” They also exemplify “all of the cultural
characteristics associated with the chick postfeminist aesthetic: a return to femininity,
the primacy of romantic achievements, girlpower, a focus on female pleasure and
pleasures, and the value of consumer culture and girlie goods, including designer
clothes, expensive and impractical footwear, and trendy accessories”(4). Many ChickFlicks are guilty of this last characteristic as they blatantly embrace and promote a
femininity that relies on commodity consumption, especially of high-end designer
goods. This especially is the case of, for example, Sex and the City: The Movie and
Confessions of a Shopaholic.
According to Ferriss and Young, Chick-Flicks generally occupy the
“conflicted territory” between promoting and contesting feminist and postfeminist
ideals (5). In order to identify said ideals, it would be useful first to establish some
distinctions between feminism and postfeminism. Ferriss and Young offer a short
summary of the basic tenets of both movements from which I have selected those
most relevant to our discussion and will present them below as a brief review and
point of reference for the following analysis of Chick-Flicks.
Feminism:
•
The primacy of equality; resistance to and critique of the
patriarchy;
•
Choice is collective—it refers to women’s right not to have
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children and to enter careers and professions formerly closed to
them;
•
A rejection—or at least questioning—of femininity;
•
Suspicion of and resistance to media-driven popular culture and the
consumerism it supports;
•
Humor is based on the disjunction between traditional women’s
roles and women as powerful, independent people.
Postfeminism:
•
A rejection of second-wave anger and blame against the patriarchy;
•
Choice is individual—whether of family, career, cosmetic surgery
or nail color;
•
A return to femininity and sexuality;
•
Pleasure in media-driven popular culture and the embracing of the
joys of consumerism;
•
Humor is based on the discrepancy between the ideals put forward
by both feminism and the media, and the reality of life in the
modern world […]. (3)
Chicks-Flicks often navigate between feminist and postfeminist premises.
Therefore, we might find Chick-Flicks that lean more towards a legitimately feminist
stance while others are decidedly more postfeminist. In the like manner, we might
find both feminist and postfeminist ideals at conflict in the same film. One such
movie is Sex and the City: The Movie, where Miranda Hobbes voices mostly feminist
concerns while her friend and main character Carrie Bradshaw represents a more
postfeminist stance. Issues of gender and sexuality are especially relevant to the
discussion of feminist and postfeminist points of view in Chick-Flicks. Said topics are
practically a staple in Chick-Flicks, for they all approach and comment on them to
some degree. Unfortunately, it is often the case that although they support female
empowerment Chick-Flicks ultimately engage in the “subtle promotion of chastity”
by emphasizing monogamy, traditional gender roles, and conventional notions of
romance and heterosexual coupledom (Ferriss and Young 6).
Also relevant to the discussion of feminist and postfeminist takes on issues
concerning women in Chick-Flicks is the representation of professional, working
women. Career-oriented women are often vilified in Chick-Flicks and are portrayed
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as cold-hearted, selfish, angry, unhappy, and lonely. According to Melanie Waters,
woman-oriented films “routinely use the mature [as well as the younger] career
woman as a visual shorthand for feminism that is selfish, anti-familial, outmoded, and
generally ineffective in the context of contemporary Western societies” (8). These
films favor “romance, family and love over career and independence,” as is the case
of Sex and the City: The Movie and Bridget Jones’s Diary (Ferriss and Young 7).
This way, the rational/emotional and public space/domestic sphere gender informed
binaries are perpetuated as films emphasize traditionally gendered feminine concerns
that rely on the emotional and on the enclosed space of the domestic sphere.
Roberta Garrett contributes to the definition of Chick-Flicks by adding
that said term has been used in recent years to “describe texts headed by a female lead
and driven by emotion rather than action and adventure” (61). The distinction that
Garrett makes between action-packed films and emotion-driven film plots is of
special importance because it points to a dependence on the emotional/rational and
passive/active gender informed binaries for the production, marketing, and
classification of films. As a result, films are marketed to a male audience if they rely
on action and adventure and a female audience if they depend on romance for plot
development. The term “chick” then refers to films that emphasize the emotional
(represented by romance) over the rational, the passive over the active and the private
over the public, both the private domestic sphere and passivity represented by the
preference of familial duties and concerns about relationships over professional
ambition.
It is here, in the intersection between cinema and popularly gendered
activities, interests, and duties that we must address the issue of gender essentialism in
film production and marketing, for embedded in the use of terms such as “women’s
films” and “Chick-Flick” is the widespread belief that films classified under these
headings are meant to be for women only, that women will automatically like them,
and that they will automatically appeal to all women. These aforementioned
assumptions that guide filmmaking and marketing are tremendously problematic.
Underlying the belief that all women like the same things (such as Chick-Flicks) is
the more serious assumption that all women have the same preferences and priorities
in life, that they all think alike and ultimately, to quote popular wisdom, that they are
all the same.
One of the main reasons why Chick-Flicks are popularly thought to be
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automatically women-approved films is the presence of the element of romance as
key ingredient of their plots, a theme, as previously discussed via Radway and
Modleski, that has long been gendered feminine. Just as the element of romance
reaches Chick-Lit novels via the Harlequin romance novel, romance reaches ChickFlicks via old Hollywood romances and melodramas. Garrett traces the origins of
Chick-Flicks back to Hollywood women-centered movies, from the “screwball
comedy” of the 1930s to the “weepies” of the 1980s. She differentiates modern-day
Chick-Flicks (including romantic comedies) from their predecessors by pointing out
that “as a general rule, the new women’s cycles tend to be more upbeat and have less
invested in the notion of feminine suffering and anguish associated with classical
oriented forms” (67). Garrett also explains that contemporary Chick-Flicks draw
significantly from the classic romantic comedy, but that they are nevertheless
different, especially in their use of irony and humor. She adds that this sense of humor
and irony helps undercut traditional romantic elements such as an emphasis on female
suffering and the “preference for doomed romance” of the romantic melodrama (95).
Instead, it allows for the exploration of “a more specifically feminist-inspired
suspicion of the discourse of romantic love” as illustrated, for example, by the
sarcastic humor of Bridget Jones (105).
Another salient issue regarding Chick-Flicks is their limited scope of racial
and social representation. Chick texts (such as novels, movies and commercials) tend
to focus on young white, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual young women.
Bridget Jones’s Diary and Sex and the City: The Movie are both excellent examples
of Chick-Flicks that illustrate the genre’s very limited range of representation. For
example, the main characters of Bridget Jones’s Diary (the movie) are all Caucasian,
thus offering no space for multiracial or multicultural visibility. The only chance for
the inclusion of a non-Caucasian character in the movie was eliminated with the
replacement of Julio, Bridget’s mother’s Portuguese lover, with her English boss
Julian. The case of Sex and the City: The Movie is even more interesting for, although
it allows for some ethnic representation with the inclusion of one African American
female character, it makes the crass mistake of tokenizing her as a mammy who takes
care of the main character. We find this unfortunate instance of racial tokenizing in
Louise’s relationship to Carrie as her assistant. She not only tends to her, as a personal
assistant does, but also saves her by literally giving her the key to happiness in the
shape of a golden keychain that reads “Love.”
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As with many contemporary trends and texts, there is always room for some
contestation, and Chick-Flicks are no exception. The genre is expanding and
improving on its limited scope of ethnic, racial and sexual representation as we speak.
According to Ferris and Young, “the boundaries of the chick-flick are being pushed”
as we can see elements of said genre appropriated by film industries of other countries
(11). We can also witness this expansion in the production of woman-centered movies
that approach topics not traditionally “chick,” such as lesbian and inter-racial
romantic relationships. Ferriss and Young mention movies such as the Indian film
Bride and Prejudice (2004), the all African American cast Beauty Shop (2005), the
Latina Cinderella-esque plot of Maid in Manhattan (2002), and the lesbian themed Go
Fish (1993) as examples of films that challenge the traditional definition of ChickFlick thanks to their unconventional non heterosexual, Caucasian, middle class casts
and plots.
In the following pages, I will perform an analysis of the filmic adaptations of
Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a
Shopaholic, and Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City. Emphasis will be given to the
representation of women and femininity in said films as well as to the perpetuation
and/or challenging of long-established patriarchal, feminist and postfeminist
principles. Although a film adaptation analysis would be appropriate and fruitful with
regard to this material, a comparison between the literary work and its filmic
adaptation is outside the scope of this study. I do hope, however, that by assessing and
examining the ideologies that these films communicate, this chapter will lay the
groundwork for further inquiries about the relationship between page and screen in
Chick culture.
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Of the three movies included in this analysis, Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and
Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) hold a special place in the canon of women’s films.
Helen Fielding’s novel Bridget Jones’s Diary is credited with initiating modern day
Chick-Lit, paving the way for a myriad of women writers who have followed in her steps
by publishing novels targeted mainly at an audience of young, single women. Likewise,
the film adaptation of said novel kick-started the Chick-Flick craze that we find ourselves
in nowadays by proving that making films for women, with a female main character, is a
profitable endeavor. Bridget Jones’s Diary made $71,543,427 in box office revenue in the
United States alone ($281,929,795 worldwide), holding a significant place in box office
revenues and making it possible for woman-oriented blockbusters like The Devil Wears
Prada (2006), which grossed $124,740,460 domestically, to follow. Testament also to the
major influence that Bridget Jones’s Diary has had in popular culture are recent talks of a
third installment (with the original cast) and a musical based on the novel with score
composed by pop star Lilly Allen, scheduled to debut in England in 2012.14
Along with Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sex and the City: The Movie cemented the fact
that women make a profitable film audience. Making a total of $152,647,258 on domestic
revenue ($262,606,383 worldwide), Sex and the City: The Movie (from here on SATC:
The Movie) is a Chick-Flick phenomenon all by itself.15 I remember going to the movie
theater on opening night, like any good fan of the Sex and the City TV series, and being
amazed by what my eyes saw. Hundreds of women invaded the theater that night all
dressed to the nines, emulating the fabulous four girlfriends of the series, to witness what
was described at the time as the movie event of the decade. I recall the hype surrounding
the movie, especially the many magazine covers related to the movie or its actresses,
among which figure Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, and New York Magazine. I also
recall The Oprah Winfrey Show special, where Oprah looked at the camera and told her
14
For box office revenues see Bridget Jones’s Diary
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bridgetjonessdiary.htm and The Devil Wears Prada
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=devilwearsprada.htm
For more information on the third installment of Bridget Jones’s Diary see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/01/renee-zellweger-weighs-up-bridget-jones
For information on the Bridget Jones musical see
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/8627829/Author-Helen-Fielding-hails-themusical-new-Bridget-Jones-Sheridan-Smith.html
15
For information on Sex and the City: The Movie revenues see
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=sexandthecity.htm
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viewers "I'm telling you, this is more than a movie […] this is an event, and we owe it to
ourselves, America, to make this an event for girlfriends to remember. Go for drinks.
Have a designated driver. Make a night of it!"16 Indeed, the movie release was a cultural
event.
Sex and the City: The Movie was immensely popular when it first came out. The
movie’s success was due in no small part to the popularity of Bushnell’s novel and, of
course, the TV series, which ran for six seasons on the Home Box Office network (or
HBO) and has aired on syndication on several other channels including TBS and E! TV.
It is also important to have in mind the star power of the film’s cast, especially Sarah
Jessica Parker, who by this time had already achieved major celebrity status thanks to her
role as main character in the series and as a fashion connoisseur in real life. Likewise, the
success of Bridget Jones’s Diary was due in great part to Fielding’s novel (a best seller)
and to the star power of its cast, especially that of Reneè Zellweger, Hugh Grant, and
Colin Firth. The casting of Firth as Mark Darcy (Bridget’s true love) is of special
relevance due to his previous role as Mr. Darcy in the 1995 British Broadcasting
Company (BBC) adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, which made him
an already popular figure among female audiences and, especially, among Austen fans
everywhere. This fact about Firth’s career cannot be overlooked because Bridget Jones’s
Diary is itself an adaptation of Austen’s love story. His popularity as Mr. Darcy in the
BBC series served to secure fandom for the Chick-Flick adaptation of Fielding’s novel.
Together, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Sex and the City: The Movie challenged
Hollywood’s preference for what is known as four quadrant movies, or movies that draw
young and old male and female audiences (Radner 156). Their power to attract a mainly
female audience and make significant profits in cinemas the world over proved that
women are a sector of consumers that is worth taking into account by Hollywood. But
Bridget Jones’s Diary and SATC: The Movie share more than great box office revenues.
They share a series of topics and subjects that are of special interest for feminist scholars.
I will first start with each film’s representation and definition of women and femininity.
Of the three films I chose for this project, SATC: The Movie makes the most
16
For article about The Oprah Winfrey Show special see
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Bringing-Sex-Back
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comments about women, femininity, and feminism. The film touches on such contested
issues as monogamy vs. non-monogamy, the working woman’s struggle to balance work
and family, and the viability of marriage and traditional romance. One can see these
aforementioned issues clearly embodied by the film’s four main characters. For example,
Samantha Jones, who works in public relations, represents the woman who is conflicted
by society’s pressure to be in a monogamous relationship. In the movie, though, she is in
a committed relationship of five years with her boyfriend actor Smith Jerrod.
Nevertheless, she is not completely happy because she feels trapped and unfulfilled in her
relationship. She misses the freedom she used to have when she was single. Samantha
expresses her feelings to Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda when she tells them that she tries
hard not to cheat on her boyfriend, cheating being something that she says “feels natural”
to her (SATC: The Movie).
It is worth pointing out that Samantha is the only character whose story does not
end happily. Although she decides to break up with her boyfriend and live life on her
own terms again, she does not leave on a high note. She tells Smith Jerrod that he will
find a woman who loves being in a relationship and bids him and Los Angeles goodbye
to return to her home in Manhattan. The ending to Samantha’s narrative is problematic,
for it is easy to notice that she is the only one of the four main characters who ends up
alone, her selfishness of prioritizing her relationship with herself rather than with her
partner and her preference for non-monogamy to blame. Within a narrative that equates
heterosexual coupledom with happiness, Samantha is punished for going against the grain
by not committing to a monogamous relationship. The one character in the narrative who
challenges patriarchal ideology and normative relationship standards is not rewarded with
happiness but with contentment. There are no fireworks, no celebratory reunion, and no
happy music to celebrate Samantha’s decision. The SATC narrative also denies Samantha
a happy ending (this time in the TV series) when she deviates from the norm once more
and engages in a lesbian relationship with Brazilian artist named Maria.17 This way,
SATC: The Movie and TV series reserve true happiness (as it defines it) only for those
who practice monogamy and are in a committed heterosexual relationship.
17
See “Defining Moments,” “What’s Sex Got to Do with It,” and “Ghost Town.” Sex and the City Season
4 Episodes 3, 4, and 5.
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The next character who deserves attention for the issues dealt with in her storyline
is Miranda Hobbes, the lawyer from Yale School of Law. From among the four friends,
she is the only one who has a full time job and family duties. She is also the one character
portrayed as the voice of reason. Miranda only thinks in black and white terms, so to
speak, with no possibility of in-between gray areas for doubt or alternate possibilities. A
true lawyer, she is rationality incarnate. Right from the beginning of the movie, Miranda
faces the strains of juggling her full time job and family. We see her struggling with her
priorities several times. For example, Miranda first places her job over her family by
rushing over dinner because she has to get back to working on a brief. Then, she neglects
her marriage when she rushes sex with her husband Steve because she has to wake up
early to go to work the next day. Miranda’s actions contribute to her portrayal as a selfcentered, asexual, not family-oriented woman. In other words, she fits the common
stereotype of the heartless, emasculating, selfish working woman. In true Chick-Flick
fashion Miranda is punished for her actions and her marriage suffers when Steve cheats
on her, his excuse being that they had not had sex “in a really long time” (SATC: The
Movie). The implication of Steve’s comment is that it was Miranda’s fault that he
cheated on her for not placing her relationship with him before her work-related
obligations. It follows, then, that Miranda’s career is to blame for the failure of her
marriage. Furthermore, Miranda is vilified as an egotistic, heartless bitch. After
separating, she refuses to forgive Steve even after he repeatedly apologizes. This way, the
film makes us sympathize with Steve, who emerges as Miranda’s opposite: a remorseful,
compassionate man who begs for forgiveness. Through Miranda, we clearly see
represented the conflict that working women face every day between career and family as
well as the social pressure placed upon them to “have it all” and be a “superwoman” of
sorts while selflessly putting everyone else’s needs before their own.
Curiously enough, Miranda is faced with the same problem that Samantha faces
but from another perspective: while Samantha feels the urge to have more than one
partner but does not act on it, Miranda is negatively affected by her husband, who does.
This gives Samantha’s plot a moralizing tone by making it the “if you cheat, this is what
will happen to you” story. Miranda confronts her problem with Steve the only way she
knows how to: by relying on reason instead of on emotions. Being the Ivy League
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educated voice of black-and-white reason that she is, Miranda separates from Steve
quickly and without giving it a second thought. It is only after six months that Steve and
Miranda reconcile. Miranda gives in and listens to Steve thanks to Carrie’s advice to trust
her emotions rather than reason on the issue at hand. She changes her approach and her
marriage is firmly reestablished when she and Steve make-up with a romantic kiss on the
Brooklyn bridge.
The ending of Miranda’s story cements monogamy and heteronormativity as keys
to happiness. In addition, it also reinforces the rational/emotional gender informed binary
by emphasizing the emotional over the rational in a woman-oriented film through a
character whose fairytale shaped storyline resolves happily by stressing and reinstituting
romance, forgiveness, and familial harmony. Perhaps, if Miranda had not been so set on
monogamy she and Samantha would have offered an alternative to traditional coupledom.
But, of course, in true Hollywood fashion, marriage, monogamy, and heteronormativity
are firmly established and unaltered by the time the narrative comes to an end.
Of the four friends, Charlotte is the only one who is depicted as happy throughout
the duration of the movie. She is happily married to her husband Harry Goldenblatt with
whom she adopted Lilly, their Asian daughter, in the sixth season of the TV series.
Charlotte is portrayed in the film (and TV series) as the voice of tradition, propriety, good
morals, and lady-like etiquette. She is the prim and proper “eternal optimist” friend (as
Carrie describes her in the series) who always looks on the bright side of things and
always has faith in the power of love and romance.18 Charlotte functions as Miranda and
Samantha’s foil. She is happy in her marriage, believes in monogamy and commitment
(in fact she tells Samantha she is proud of her for not cheating on her boyfriend Smith
Jerrod), does not have major conflicts in her marriage, and feels happy with her role as a
traditional stay-at-home mother and wife. In a brief moment of doubt and fear, Charlotte
recognizes her happiness and tells Carrie that she is afraid something bad is going to
happen to her because she is happy and has everything that she ever wanted in life: a
great husband, a happy marriage, and a daughter. Unsurprisingly, nothing bad happens to
Charlotte. Her fairytale world remains unchanged and only gets brighter when her dream
of having a biological child is fulfilled with baby girl Rose’s birth. It seems as if the
18
See “Unoriginal Sin” Sex and the City Season 5 Episode 2.
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SATC narrative rewards Charlotte for her respect to tradition with the perfect fairytale
ending.
The main character of Sex and the City: The Movie and TV series, columnist
Carrie Bradshaw, represents the idealist romantic woman. She summarizes her life
philosophy and goal in the final episode of the TV series when she tells her then Russian
boyfriend Aleksandr Petrovsky “I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous,
inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love.” 19 Clearly, Carrie
represents the perfect Chick-Flick heroine who is certain that true love is out there for
her. As Chick-Flick tradition dictates, her narrative is the typical Cinderella story, shoe
and all. As the protagonist, hers is the first storyline that we are introduced to in the
movie. We find her and her boyfriend Mr. Big (whose real name, John James Preston,
she rarely uses throughout the TV series and movie) looking for an apartment in which to
live together. Conflict arises when Miranda, the voice of reason, tells Carrie that she has
no legal right to the apartment that Mr. Big is to buy for them because they are not
married. Carrie then approaches the subject with Mr. Big and they, very matter of factly
and in business-like manner, decide to get married. There was no romantic proposal and
they agreed that the wedding was to be a small affair of only 75 guests. Up to this point,
the movie represents marriage as what it is: a legal contract that is very much like a
business deal, giving the parties involved certain financial and legal rights. Of course, the
heroine’s story gets complicated before it resolves. Mr. Big gets cold feet and jilts her at
the altar.
Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big was always a rocky one if we trace it back to
the TV series. He left her and she always took him back, instead of standing up for
herself. The biggest heartbreak for Carrie was when, after more than a year of dating, Mr.
Big told her that he was marrying Natasha. Understandably, Carrie felt that he dragged
her along for nothing. Notwithstanding, they reconciled and split several more times until
they finally got back together in the series’ last episode. Carrie constantly forgave Mr.
Big and got back with him, the man who made her suffer the most. She recognized the
masochistic loop she was in but found no way to get out and permanently move on from
Mr. Big. The same vicious cycle takes place in the movie. Just as Miranda blames herself
19
See “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux” Sex and the City Season 6 Episode 20.
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for Steve’s infidelity, Carrie blames her enthusiasm for the wedding (she made it a 200
guest affair instead of the simple ceremony they had
originally planned) and assumes the guilt for Mr. Big’s cold feet.
SATC: The Movie engages in the all-too-common glamorization of female
suffering. Many questions come to mind as one examines this topic in the context of said
film. For example, why should Carrie always go back to the one man who repeatedly
broke her heart, used her, and treated her wrongly? Why is this man portrayed as her
main love interest throughout the TV series and movie? Why should she blame herself
for the dissolution of their engagement? After all, it was Mr. Big who did not show up to
their wedding. In like manner, why is Miranda to blame for the failure of her marriage? It
was Steve who was unfaithful. SATC: The Movie follows in the tradition of Hollywood
melodramas and weepies through its emphasis on female suffering and martyrdom as
necessary elements of a romantic plot. Both Carrie and Miranda blame themselves for
actions they had no part in planning or executing. Their partner’s actions affect them and
their friendship, and they in turn place guilt upon themselves.
In true Chick-Flick fashion, Carrie’s and Miranda’s conflicts resolve in a
peaceful, happy manner. Miranda’s marriage is safe and, following the pattern
established in the TV series, Mr. Big apologizes to Carrie and she forgives him. Their
story is happily resolved when, in a true Cinderella moment (foreshadowed throughout
the movie by Lilly’s Cinderella coloring book and bedtime story), Mr. Big proposes to
Carrie in traditional romantic fashion. Recalling their agreement to get married over
legalities, he gets down on one knee, tells her “all business and no romance. That’s not
the way you propose to someone,” and proceeds to put a Manolo Blahnik turquoise
stiletto shoe on her foot in lieu of a ring on her finger (SATC: The Movie). The movie
concludes with a Cinderella ending, thus perpetuating marriage, monogamy,
Heteronormativity, and traditional fairytale romance as dominant ideologies.
Another conflicting aspect of Carrie and Mr. Big’s relationship in addition to
Carrie’s willing martyrdom is their use of nicknames. Mr. Big repeatedly uses the word
“kid” as an endearing term to refer to Carrie, a 40 year-old woman. Likewise, Carrie uses
the nicknames “Big” or “Mr. Big” to refer to her boyfriend instead of his real name, John.
This use of nicknames is not coincidental or inconsequential. It explains and defines the
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relationship between Mr. Big and Carrie. Clearly, it is John who plays the role of the
“big” adult and Carrie the role of the “kid,” for it is he who exerts control over the
smaller and younger infantilized Carrie both monetarily and authoritatively. The
infantilization of grown women in Sex and the City: The Movie and TV series extends
beyond Carrie and Mr. Big’s relationship. Hilary Radner explains that together the four
main characters of the franchise “emphasize a girlishness that extends from 15 to 55 as a
mode of being and identity” regardless of the actress’s ages, which at the time the movie
was filmed ranged from the early forties to the early fifties. According to Radner, Carrie,
Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda promote girlishness mainly by means of the “do-over,”
or the chance to start over again. In the film, each of the four main characters gets a
chance to start over: Charlotte is able to conceive and give birth, Miranda and Carrie have
the chance to start over again in their relationships, and Samantha returns to her life as a
single woman. Radner continues to explain that “[t]he film promotes the fantasy, through
these endless do-overs, that girlishness as the sign of perpetual adolescence, with its
promise of change and development and its rejection of stasis and fixity as the fate of the
mature woman, offers a desirable attainable identity, biological age notwithstanding, to
the predominantly over 25 audience” (158). Add to the aforementioned issues the fact
that the movie offers a very limited definition of femininity by equating it with an
overwhelming concern for relationships and marriage as well as an inordinate
consumption of designer goods, and you have a typically postfeminist movie. SATC: The
Movie is nothing more than an updated fairytale for adult women. It is stuck back in time
and fails to offer alternatives to oppressive traditional ideologies and normative gender
roles.
The film adaptation of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary lacks the elements
of commodity consumption and female bonding that Sex and the City: The Movie so
clearly exhibits. Nevertheless, it follows in the Chick-Lit tradition by foregrounding
romance and women’s concern with relationships as driving forces of its plot. These two
aforementioned elements come with no surprise, given that the novel on which the film is
based is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The film is faithful to the
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plot of Fielding’s novel except for the ending, where Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver
fight over Bridget, instead of Darcy rescuing her from a catastrophic New Year’s Eve
family celebration, as in the novel. Nevertheless, the main elements that are present in the
novel can also be found in the film. For example, there is objectification of the female
body and sexual harassment in the workplace in the shape of Cleaver’s inappropriate
comments to Bridget. The juxtaposition between mother and daughter as representative
of feminist generational divides is also present in the movie, although it is not as
foregrounded as in the book. Bridget’s mother, a stay-at-home wife, complains to her
about not having anything of her own, no power and no career. Bridget hears her
lamentation but does not pay much attention, and the movie focuses more on her than on
her mother. Bridget’s concern with her weight and appearance is also present in the
movie, although in a significantly less pervasive manner in comparison to the novel (her
self-monitoring diary entries are far fewer in the movie). What is most relevant about the
movie is its problematic representation of the single young woman.
Particularly relevant to our discussion of the movie, Bridget Jones’s Diary, is
Roberta Garrett’s observation that Chick-Flicks emphasize the “persistent sense of lack
associated with [the heroine’s] singleton status” even if she has a career and is financially
independent (94). There is nothing in the world that appears to be a source of greater
depression, conflict and stress for Bridget than being thirty-two and single. In fact, she
states that her greatest fear is a life wherein her major relationship is with a bottle of wine
and that she will die “fat and alone and be found three weeks later half eaten by wild
dogs” (Bridget Jones’s Diary). The previous statement succinctly summarizes Bridget’s
sources of anxiety: singledom, loneliness, weight gain, and the feeling of irrelevance. The
film heightens Bridget’s desperation and sense of isolation in the famous opening credits
scene. Here, we see Bridget in her pajamas feeling alone and rejected after having been
referred to as a “verbally incontinent spinster” by Mark Darcy. She is sitting in her living
room sofa crying while drinking wine and lip synching Jamie O’Neal’s ballad “All By
Myself.” This scene represents a very intimate moment in Bridget’s life. It introduces the
audience to Bridget and lets them into her life and state of mind. Within the first ten
minutes of the movie we learn what is most important about her: she is alone, single,
fragile, desperate to fit in, and earnestly wishing for a boyfriend. She feels the pressure to
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be in a relationship and this consumes her.
Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra make the important observation that in general
“[w]omen’s lives are regularly conceived of as time starved; women themselves are over
worked, rushed, harassed, subject to their ‘biological clocks’ and so on to a degree that
female adulthood is defined as a state of chronic temporal crisis” (10). Bridget Jones’s
story constitutes one of the many popular representations of women that portray
femininity as “time starved.” Specifically, it is time starved in regards to the pressure
exerted by the so-called biological clock, whose metaphorical constant ticking reminds
women of the impending expiration of their reproductive years. Thus womanhood is
portrayed as consisting of a constant race and competition to get married and have
children. Feminists everywhere reject this portrayal of womanhood and femininity, not
only because it renders women as incubators of sorts whose sole purpose and role in life
is to reproduce, but also because it places unnecessary stress on said activity, which
should be understood not as a duty or obligation but as a choice.
Bridget Jones’s Diary approaches other issues in addition to marriage and
reproduction. Angela McRobbie performs an analysis of said film where she talks about
Bridget’s “burden of self-management.” She points out that Bridget constantly monitors
herself and her life. She “confides in her best friends; she keeps a diary; she endlessly
reflects on her fluctuating weight, noting her caloric intake; she plans, plots, and has
projects” (261). Indeed, Bridget struggles to balance her personal life, familial
obligations, and her job. Her self-managing tendencies can also be seen in her diary
entries, which appear every now and then scribbled on screen in what is supposed to be
her handwriting for the audience to see. Her first entry reads “Weight 136lbs., Cigarettes:
42, Alcohol Units: 30 50” (Bridget Jones’s Diary). Quickly, the audience realizes that
Bridget monitors every aspect of her life. One notable difference between the novel and
the movie is that diary entries are much more frequent in the novel than in its filmic
adaptation. Said shift of emphasis allows the audience to focus more on the element of
romance as driving force of the movie’s plot and the love triangle between her, Daniel
Cleaver and Mark Darcy than in Bridget’s struggle to gain control over her weight and
cigarette and caloric intake.
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Bridget’s sarcastic and ironic approach to her love problems and family
relationships make her an appealing figure to the film’s audience. For example, when a
guest at a friend’s dinner party asks Bridget, “Why is it that there are so many unmarried
women in their thirties these days, Bridget?” she speaks for all single women by
sarcastically replying “[w]ell, I don’t know. Suppose it doesn’t help that underneath our
clothes our entire bodies are covered in scales” (Bridget Jones’s Diary). Her selfdeprecating humor alleviates the sense of burden that she feels for being the only one
among her friends who is not dating. Bridget’s response contributes to the general sense
of irony that distinguishes Chick-Flicks where what is coveted (in this case marriage) is
laughed at and even on occasion rejected, while at the same time being relentlessly
pursued. In addition, Bridget Jones’s Diary’s use of “[s]lapstick comedy such as
appearing drunk with smudged make-up, falling over, wearing unglamorous underwear”
contributes to making Bridget personable and adds to the comedic element of the film in
general (Garrett 120). We find these same endearing and entertaining elements in the
filmic adaptation of Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic, for its main
character, like Bridget, is ditzy, sarcastic, and funny. Nevertheless, for the analysis of the
aforementioned film, I would like to focus on its emphasis on consumerism as a defining
feature of femininity.
We first meet Confessions of a Shopaholic’s main character Rebecca Bloomwood
as a little girl sitting among brightly colored shoeboxes in a store. As this scene develops,
an adult Rebecca tells us (by means of a voiceover) about her innermost thoughts and
dreams. She also reveals her biggest aspiration when she was a child: to be able to buy
what the big girls bought. For Rebecca, stores were “a dreamy world full of perfect
things. A world where grown up girls got what they wanted” (Confessions of a
Shopaholic). She believed credit cards were magic cards with which grown ups bought
what they wanted without the need of money. We learn quickly that Rebecca’s
understanding of credit cards has changed very little through time when we meet her as
an adult and see her happily strutting down a New York street rejoicing in her latest
acquisitions. She introduces herself and informs us that now, as an adult, she has twelve
credit cards. Next, she offers an account of her outfit as follows: “Jacket: Visa, Dress:
AmEx, Belt: MasterCard” (Confessions of a Shopaholic). Rebecca’s priorities are
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evident, for she emphasizes the method of payment for her clothes and accessories. She is
visibly happy and proud about how much she can buy thanks to her cards. Shortly after
her shopping spree high, Rebecca receives a credit card bill for $900. It is then when we
learn that she is addicted to buying clothes and accessories. She is a shopaholic who
cannot help spending money, even if she is deeply in debt: $9,412.25 in debt, to be exact.
Rebecca is a compulsive liar in addition to being a shopaholic. Both her
addictions are interrelated, as her excessive shopping and ensuing debt drives her to lie to
get what she wants. She lies in her resume about knowing Finnish to get an interview for
Successful Saving Magazine, she tells her boss and love interest Luke Brandon that debt
collector Derek Smeath is an ex-boyfriend stalker, she tells Smeath a myriad of lies
(including her mother and aunt dying in freak accidents) in an attempt to delay paying her
debt, and she lies to her roommate Suze about decluttering her room (part of her recovery
plan for her addiction to shopping). In short, Rebecca lies to get away from paying her
debt and to advance in her job, two terribly wrong and unethical maneuvers that are
portrayed in Confessions of a Shopaholic (both novel and film) as trivial, fun,
inoffensive, and practically inconsequential.
Also trivialized and, to further injury, glamourized in said film is Rebecca’s
shopping addiction. Much emphasis is placed throughout the movie on representing
stores as shiny, glittery fantasy places. After all, they are Rebecca’s safe haven, where
she runs to for what is popularly known as retail therapy. There are many instances where
Rebecca explains her fascination with shopping in a way that is dangerously endearing
and relatable. For example, she describes her shopping rationale to her recovering
shopaholics group therapy session. Wide-eyed and smiling, she says that “stores are put
there to enjoy” and that the experience of walking into a store is “more than enjoyable
[…] it’s beautiful.” Rebecca concludes her mini-discourse by stating that shopping makes
her feel “so… confident and alive” (Confessions of a Shopaholic). Herein lies Rebecca’s
weakness: she attributes feelings to the acts of shopping and buying that go beyond the
mere acquisition of material goods. Rebecca is, in short, the perfect product of our
capitalist culture. She represents the woman who relies on retail for confidence,
validation, and the will to live. Even more problematic than the glamorization of a
compulsive shopper as an endearing, happy-go-lucky character is its potential effect on
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real-life women who can relate to Rebecca’s tragically flawed logic. Rebecca’s ability to
stand for the American Everywoman is validated by her father’s speech shortly after her
lies and debt catch up with her and she realizes that she has no job and no money. In an
attempt to console and cheer her up, he tells her “[y]our mom and I think, if the American
economy can be billions in debt and still survive so can you” (Confessions of a
Shopaholic). I cannot help but think of these words as misguided encouragement for the
film’s larger audience of women in debt, especially in times of economic recession like
the ones we live in. This is not advice to control one’s spending but rather to blindly trust
that all will be resolved magically in a positive manner, as in the movie.
In typical Chick-Flick fashion, the plot of Confessions of a Shopaholic relies on
traditional romance as driving force and is structured as a fairytale. When we first meet
Rebecca she believes that shopping is better than love and men. She asks her audience
“[…] ‘cause you know that thing, when you see someone cute and he smiles, and your
heart kind of goes like warm butter sliding down warm toast?” and answers “[w]ell,
that’s what its like when I see a store. Only it’s better. You see, a man will never love you
or treat you as well as a store” (Confessions of a Shopaholic). At the conclusion of the
film, Rebecca has undergone a transformation. She is a reformed shopaholic and has
learned that the attention she might get at a store and the gratification she feels from
shopping are no match to the love of a man. In true romantic fashion, the heroine changes
from being an unbeliever to a believer in love. In true Chick-Flick fashion as well, there
is a rescue scene for the heroine of the film, except in this case it is not her love interest
who rescues her. Although Luke Brandon acts as Rebecca’s knight in shining armor by
saving her on several occasions throughout the film, it is not to him that she owes the big
final rescue. Instead, it is Rebecca’s family and shopaholic friends who help her. They
organize a public sale of her many designer shoes, clothes, purses, and accessories so that
she can pay her debt. Significantly, Rebecca, the reformed shopaholic, does not suffer
any serious consequences for excessive lying and shopping. She is easily reintegrated to
her community of loving, accepting family members and friends. The Cinderella ending
to Rebecca’s story is complete when we learn that Luke comes from a wealthy family
and the movie concludes with the mandatory romantic kiss on the lips.
Confessions of a Shopaholic is a problematic popular narrative for many reasons.
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First is the fact that it contributes enormously to the representation of women as ditzy,
dumb and vulnerable. The movie constantly portrays Rebecca as anything but intelligent.
Proof of these characteristics is her faulty logic about shopping, spending, and credit card
debt. Second, it trivializes serious pathologies such addiction to buying and compulsive
lying. And third, it conflates femininity with commodity consumption, thus aligning itself
with current postfeminist discourse. According to Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra,
“[p]ostfeminist culture […] works to commodify feminism via the figure of woman as
empowered consumer” (2). This way, being an empowered and independent woman
means not having and defending feminist convictions (such as the need for equal pay) but
having the ability to shop and consume.
Nowhere is the relationship between postfeminism and consumption more evident
than in the filmic rhetoric of Chick-Flicks. Confessions of a Shopaholic and Sex and the
City: The Movie are perfect examples of this aforementioned relationship, because while
they appear feminist in dramatizing the lives of working women, their story-lines
ultimately glamorize female financial dependency. For example, main characters in both
films are applauded for their independence as working women (with the exception of
Charlotte, who is a stay-at-home mom), but the romantic narrative quickly pairs them
with men who are more powerful and of a higher social status (Carrie with Mr. Big and
Rebecca with Luke), the assumption being that the women will depend on them. Not only
does the narrative fail to celebrate these women’s financial power, it may even be said to
punish them for earning money at all. Punishment for their acquisitive power comes in
the shape of dependence on a relentless fashion industry that sells women unnecessary
products they cannot afford. Carrie and Rebecca notably suffer the pressure to fit into a
popular definition and image of femininity that financially oppresses them. Carrie feels
the burden of her insatiable shoe and fashion fetish in the TV series when she cannot
afford to pay for her apartment, and Rebecca is affected by her addiction to shopping
when she is consumed by her enormous debt.
The conflation between femininity and shopping in Chick-Flicks transcends the
fictional film narrative to land in the reality of the viewers by means of an excessive
reliance on product placement and advertising. SATC: The Movie is notable for its use of
product placement and reliance on the fashion industry for advertising. One of the scenes
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that best illustrates product placement in this film is when the Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte,
and Samantha attend a fashion show during New York Fashion Week. They are shown
sitting down surrounded by several bottles of Glacéau Vitaminwater. Product placement
is also visibly at work in Confessions of a Shopaholic. Think for example of the opening
credits, where Rebecca mentions that her bag is Gucci. Another blatant instance of
advertising within the above mentioned film is the recurrence of the Border’s bookstore
logo, which is notably visible, for example, when Rebecca buys a self-help book. Product
placement gives a sense of reality to the lives of fictional characters in movies—while
(conveniently enough) advertising products. We can approximate ourselves to the
characters thanks to the fact that they are surrounded by the same products and brands as
we are. A fan of Sex and the City (both the movie and TV series) can look like Carrie and
feel closer to living like her with a trip to the mall. This way, not only are the characters
of the films affected by the persistence of an industry focused on marketing expensive
products to women, but their audiences are also affected by the same phenomenon
through product placement. Consequently, a sort of metanarrative is created where the
fictional character and the film’s audience are affected and oppressed by the same
capitalist system—though neither is encouraged to critique that system.
Vicki Coppock, Deena Haydon, and Ingrid Richter pay special attention to the
role of the media within feminist discourse by emphasizing its role in women’s
perception of themselves, the world, and their place in it. The authors argue that the
media should be analyzed and studied especially because of its ideological influence.
They explain that “[t]he imagery associated with femininity, which defines the ‘ideal’
woman, is so all-pervasive, in newspapers, magazines, on television and radio, at the
cinema and theatre and throughout advertising, that its messages are taken for granted”
(106). They add that “[w]hen media messages coincide with and reinforce existing ideas
and values widely held in society, the effect is cumulative and powerful” (111). The
media’s inaccurate representation of the image of the ideal woman and its potential to
influence women demand that it be studied and challenged. Images of women as
compulsive, irresponsible shoppers who are dumb, ditzy, submissive, fragile, and
desperate for a relationship deserve to be disputed, challenged, and changed. Therefore,
although I see aspects of myself represented by the protagonists of Bridget Jones’s Diary,
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Confessions of a Shopaholic and Sex and the City: The Movie, I refuse to see myself, my
female friends, and all women in general as Bridgets, Rebeccas, and Carries of the world.
I find extremely problematic and cannot accept the limited definition that these
aforementioned films offer of women. Their characters are not realistic role models. They
are idealized images produced by a system that refuses to empower women and instead
relies on outdated stereotypes to inaccurately and unfairly represent them. I would love to
see women challenge these narratives and their characters, break free from the oppressive
image of women that they propose, and offer an alternative by analyzing them critically.
Unfortunately, I too often see them get excited over Chick-Flicks and gaze at the screen,
their eyes filled with hopes that one day their prince charming will put a ring on their
finger and Manolo Blahniks on their feet.
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CONCLUSION
CHICKS JUST WANNA HAVE…BEER?
Checking my Facebook just the other day, I saw a post by Sociological Images (a
University of Minnesota website) entitled “Guy Wine and Chick Beer… When Will It
End?”20 I could not believe my eyes. Chick beer? Yes. Immediately, Confessions of a
Shopaholic came to mind. The release of this beer heightens women’s role as consumers.
It also serves as example of the prevalence of Chick culture within popular culture,
mostly as a device for the marketing and selling of commodities. The post was the fuel I
needed to write this conclusion.
Chick culture is all-encompassing and it only grows with time. Not only does it
consist of books, movies, commercials, and ads. Now, food can also be added to the list.
Each text that is part of Chick culture is representative of it as a whole. Chick Beer is no
exception to this rule. The packaging of said beverage follows every convention of Chick
visual rhetoric. Like Chick-Lit novels and Chick-Flicks, it can be easily distinguished
from among the pool of other non-Chick items. Firstly, the bottle’s label and six-pack
carton are mostly pink. Secondly, both the beer bottles and the six-pack carton display
fashion-related iconography, a common staple in Chick branding. Women’s clothing and
accessories are present in Chick Beer’s packaging. The silhouette of the popular LBD (or
little black dress) and a purse can be seen in the bottles and carton, respectively. Thirdly,
the beer relates directly to Chick culture through the use of the word chick, which is
displayed in big, white letters that contrast with the black background of the labels and
carton. The website of said product states that the Chick Beer “celebrates women:
independent, smart, fun-loving and self-assured women who love life and embrace all of
the possibilities that it has to offer.” The makers explain that they aim to “give women a
female-centric choice that reflect[s] their tastes.” They are also aware of the connotations
of the word chick and inform their audience that they intend to “turn the pejorative Chick
upside down, and to use the word as a statement on the strength and power of women”
(emphasis in original). Although the makers are aware of the negative meaning of the
20
For information on the Sociological Images post see
<http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/09/13/guy-wine-and-chick-beer-when-will-it-end/>.
146
term chick and plan to appropriate and subvert it, their intentions are not laudable. How is
beer supposed to make women stronger and more powerful? How is this product
empowering for women? And also, what need is there to gender food? The aim is
evidently that of selling the product to a target audience by employing and appropriating
popular rhetoric that is commonly associated with women.
Chick Beer’s slogan, its intention to celebrate “independent, smart, fun-loving and
self-assured women,” is reminiscent of Radway’s description of the heroine of romance
novels as fiery, independent, and rebellious—categories that make the predecessor of the
Chick-Lit heroine a personable character. Unfortunately, the Chick-Lit/Flick heroine,
liker her precursor, is not an accurate, positive representation of young, single women
struggling to make their way in the world. This popular character is materialistic, selfish,
ditzy, and barely self-sufficient. Unfortunately too, beer is not a magic potion that will
make the women who ingest it independent and smart. The rhetoric employed by the
makers of Chick Beer is nothing but postfeminism in action: a mix of the rhetoric of
change and empowerment and a contradictory return to traditional girly femininity.
Like beer (or chocolate or yogurt or any food popularly gendered as feminine),
Chick narratives are not empowering for their audience. Although feelings of
empowerment and hope might arise after the formulaic happily-ever-after ending takes
place, one must keep in mind that this conclusion is seldom a truthful reflection of real
life. Most Bridgets of the world do not find their happily-ever-after next to a man.
Instead, they keep enduring the adverse effects of their inability to gain control over their
lives. They also continue to deal with eating disorders and complexes that are seldom
completely cured or resolved. Bridgets are also likely to consider male objectification and
harassment in the workplace a form of flattery, remaining oblivious to the fact that their
inaction positions them in an unequal power relationship in relation to the instigator. In
like manner, the Rebeccas of the world are likely to remain in debt all their lives. They
are also likely to get fired from their jobs as a consequence of their ditziness and lying.
And, unfortunately, the Carries of the world are prone to remain in relationships with
men who infantilize them in exchange for financial security, all the while unable to
realize that they are victims of an economic system that puts working women at a
disadvantage in relation to working men. These characters’ stories might be of comfort
147
for women because through them they can live an alternate life of their own, one where
engrained ideologies regarding normative gender roles and sexuality are harmoniously
acted out. As such, Chick narratives, much like Harlequin novels, provide their
readers/audiences with a source of escapism. Nevertheless, they are more than mere
entertainment. They are representative of a real community of women, one that is far
more diverse and complex than these narratives make out.
I started this project with an analysis of the figure of Margaret Tate, main
character of the movie The Proposal. She is the stereotype of the single working woman:
bossy, bitchy, conceited, cold-hearted, and conniving. She mirrors Miranda Hobbes and,
like Miranda, finds happiness through a newly-found romantic relationship. Thanks to
their male love interests, these characters recognize their mistakes and reform
themselves, leaving behind the “devil” and landing on the “angel” side of the devil/angel
gender informed binary. Like so many other female characters in Chick narratives,
Miranda and Margaret are middle class, Caucasian, able-bodied, and heterosexual. It is
rare to find a Chick heroine who breaks this mold. Given the recurrence and acceptance
of characters like Miranda and Margaret in Chick texts, it is important to study them from
a critical perspective and ask ourselves: What is the definition of woman that Chick
narratives are putting forth? Unfortunately, this definition is limiting and exclusionary,
and the answer to the question at hand is disappointing. Chick narratives define woman
as ditzy and stupid, as insecure and unhappy, as materialistic and selfish, as conniving, as
threats to men, as vulnerable and frail, as needy and relationship-obsessed. These
narratives are not empowering but rather disempowering, as they offer little space to gain
much needed distance from normativity and negative gender informed stereotypes.
Chick texts, specifically narratives like novels and films, widen the divide
between femininity and masculinity, as well as that between men and women. They
emerge as and remain binary opposites, for one quickly notices that males in said
narratives are represented as foils of the female characters. Therefore, if the heroine is
vulnerable and frail, the hero is invincible and strong. Likewise, if she is needy and ditzy,
he is self-sufficient and rational. This being the case, the popularity of chick narratives
should give pause to feminists. The allure of these texts and the grounds on which they
are popularly regarded as a source of empowerment for women invite critique and
148
resistance. I hope that one day women will realize that traditional romance (an element
ever-present in Chick-Flicks and Chick-Lit novels), Chick narratives, and the rhetoric of
empowerment that accompanies them are nothing but “candy-coating” underneath which
lie incredibly oppressive messages. I hope that one day women will realize the obstacle
that these narratives represent for true empowerment and liberation. Like alcoholic
beverages—like beer or Cosmopolitans—they should be consumed in moderation, or not
at all.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Vivian Ruiz holds a BA in English from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
Campus and a MA in English from the University of Central Florida. She now teaches
English and Humanities at Valencia College.
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