I had fun queering Kitty's New Doll, but initially I got a bit stuck because there's a lot you can do with it. My original thought was to put Kitty in pants, but the tutu made it a bit difficult, so I settled for changing all of Kitty's pronouns from female to male. This puts Kitty firmly in the realm of that special "boys playing with dolls" pseudo-queerness that isn't as abnormal as we make it out to be yet seems to set off major alarm bells for parents everywhere. What I liked about the pronoun switch was that it felt weird reading the ending, where Kitty's mother explained to Kitty that he was the doll's father. It seems normal for a little girl to hold that view, but for little boys, it's even more queer than simply playing with dolls would be. It's interesting to me that we encourage that "maternal instinct" or role in girls but don't encourage a parallel paternal role in boys.
One thing that struck me from the pronoun story with Corduroy is that there is a definite rhetoric to children's stories that children pick up on pretty quickly (if the author's daughter is any indication). Glasses are for male characters for the most part, and, if they are on younger characters, glasses denote intelligence or even nerdiness (here I am thinking of the Berenstein Bears in particular). Pants are "for boys" because that's a way of signifying gender when the characters are animals who don't have other obvious gender indentifiers, such as long hair.
But just because that rhetoric exists doesn't mean that its existence is justified. What purpose is there in overtly characterizing protagonists as male or female? Wouldn't the child find out within the story whether the character was male or female? What would happen if we were to remove these visual cues?
I like the idea of queering children's books because at first glance, their gender stereotyping is not subtle so much as harmless in appearance, and so we let it go. What saddens me is that, back in 1968 or so when Corduroy was published, the author states there were few female protagonists; yet now, when we allegedly live in a society that pays attention to feminist goals and gender equality, we're providing girls with such thrilling literature as "Makeover Madness."
I didn't mention this in class, but that trend disturbs the hell out of me. Why are we convincing little girls that makeovers are a good idea? We've started seeing the trend of children dressing up in play clothes mutating into something more sinister: children dressing up in a more "serious" and less "play" fashion, with makeup and "adult" clothes. This frightens me, primarily the makeover aspect of it.
I don't have an easy answer for how to queer children's books while still rendering them enjoyable to children, but I really would like to take a stab at making one, if only just for fun. Maybe I'll put it online if I do.
I would read (and buy) it! Please do!!
ReplyDeleteGreat, thoughtful posting here, Kelsey.
Good catch on the glasses bit! I have been thinking about all the children books I'm still familiar with since you mentioned this in class, and it really never fails. I hope it is subconscious on the authors' of these books part, but, either way, how insulting.
ReplyDeleteI'm also very disturbed by so-called "girl culture" as of late. One of my friends decided to have her 4-year old daughter's birthday party at a Libby Lu store a few years ago. Even though I don't have a child, I went along for fun. And I left feeling really uncertain and concerned for the future generations of women who are growing up with such a weird idea of what's fun and good for little girls. If you're not familiar with this freakish phenomenon, its where little girls get dressed up to look like baby prostitutes. Seriously. Do a Google image search for "Libby Lu" and tell me if you're not completely terrified of the results.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, my point here is that there are really odd impulse in our culture that, while they seem to make little girls feel pretty and princess-ey, they ultimately instill insecurities. What could possibly look wrong with a little girl that would require her to read about...and more disturbingly, want a make-over? When is a child supposed to be a child, and not care about vanity and looks? And what does this do to their sense of gender? It makes me really sad. And scared.
- terese
So much screaming in my head, Terese. I'd never heard of Libby Lu, so I googled it, and I'll probably have nightmares about it for ages.
ReplyDeleteMy main problem with makeovers (which honestly concerns me more than issues of vanity and hyper-awareness of looks) is that it's telling a girl that there's something wrong with her to begin with at an age where, ideally, parents should be helping their children (note the genderless noun) understand that the way they look is unique, special, blah blah blah. I do realize how cheesy that sounds, but I do think it's an important foundation, and if we're already telling kids, no, you need makeup to be a princess, you need to look a certain way, what's that going to do to their self-esteem as they get older? I'm totally in agreement with what you've written in the second paragraph.
The whole princess mentality freaks me out anyway. It's not like we are (or should be) teaching boys to be princes... Seriously, where the hell does that even come from?
Your last point is an interesting one - what DOES that do to their sense of gender? Obviously it puts too much emphasis on their looks and appearing pretty (in addition to implying that their normal appearance isn't pretty or "princess-like" enough), but how does that transfer to gender? I'm guessing it's at least enforcing current gender roles, and it's certainly objectifying them (OBJECTIFYING A 4-YEAR-OLD). (Not to be rude to your friend, mind; I have the same reservations about, say, beauty pageants.)
Should probably stop writing now. Thanks for the questions, Terese.