Conclusion Thus far, the top three Disney Channel programs from 2001-2011 demonstrate post-feminist viewpoints represented by each of these girls’ double lives. One life is a home life or private life where she is relegated to traditional—even stereotypical—female duties yet can be herself and use her powers. The second life is a public one where she must hide her capabilities, yet has the freedom to do activities in which she finds personally satisfying or empowering. The double life allows girls to multiply their power, but yet sets up parameters of their girlhood experience. The double life exposes their subjectivity and agency. The power these girls have ultimately do not equal empowerment when used in a public setting. In fact,
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The first is accepting the incompatibility of work and family and choosing just one of them. The second is superheroically/superficially collapsing the two and refusing the choice altogether. The third is highlighting the struggle, contradiction, and anxiety that the pursuit of “it all” creates in individuals’ lives (Bickford 78). By the end of each series, all three of the girls seem to ultimately be straddling the last two ideas, and as a result, causing constant inner tension for them. At the end of That’s So Raven, Raven does not necessarily make a choice to choose to keep her physic power or not because it is something within her she can never rid herself from. Instead, she accepts that her power comes with pros and cons and so she continues to move forward with life as is: living life with conflict and dealing with the fact the dichotomies that do exist in life, such as public and private life, are essentially mutually exclusive. Raven’s life is continually filled with struggle rather than resolution. Alex being crowned the Family Wizard in the series finale is the opposite of the female Singleton. Instead, by choosing an oath as the family matriarch she is now next in line for a life of conventional feminine motherhood. While it can be argued Miley Stewart decided not to have the best of both world’s but head off to college, she does so begrudgingly, her motivation …show more content…
These programs are unique to their time and a particular age group so, therefore, they are linked to the historical situation for that generation and are what dictate possibilities and problems for tween girls from 2001-2011. Society’s shift given girls’ roles, and changing notions of female identity, are creating new lives for tweens. “The intense interest in them, and specifically, the new depictions of girls as either “can-do” or “at-risk,” suggest that what it means to prevail or lose out in these new times has become bound up with how we understand girlhood. The public presence indicates that both actual young women and the symbolic value of girlhood have been deeply invested in and that they have come to stand for a number of hope and concerns about late modernity” (Harris 14). Young people are a source of moral panic, yet viewed as “the future”, and with tween girls strong, pioneering attitude, society, at least as portrayed on these programs, is not yet ready for such an
The first is accepting the incompatibility of work and family and choosing just one of them. The second is superheroically/superficially collapsing the two and refusing the choice altogether. The third is highlighting the struggle, contradiction, and anxiety that the pursuit of “it all” creates in individuals’ lives (Bickford 78). By the end of each series, all three of the girls seem to ultimately be straddling the last two ideas, and as a result, causing constant inner tension for them. At the end of That’s So Raven, Raven does not necessarily make a choice to choose to keep her physic power or not because it is something within her she can never rid herself from. Instead, she accepts that her power comes with pros and cons and so she continues to move forward with life as is: living life with conflict and dealing with the fact the dichotomies that do exist in life, such as public and private life, are essentially mutually exclusive. Raven’s life is continually filled with struggle rather than resolution. Alex being crowned the Family Wizard in the series finale is the opposite of the female Singleton. Instead, by choosing an oath as the family matriarch she is now next in line for a life of conventional feminine motherhood. While it can be argued Miley Stewart decided not to have the best of both world’s but head off to college, she does so begrudgingly, her motivation …show more content…
These programs are unique to their time and a particular age group so, therefore, they are linked to the historical situation for that generation and are what dictate possibilities and problems for tween girls from 2001-2011. Society’s shift given girls’ roles, and changing notions of female identity, are creating new lives for tweens. “The intense interest in them, and specifically, the new depictions of girls as either “can-do” or “at-risk,” suggest that what it means to prevail or lose out in these new times has become bound up with how we understand girlhood. The public presence indicates that both actual young women and the symbolic value of girlhood have been deeply invested in and that they have come to stand for a number of hope and concerns about late modernity” (Harris 14). Young people are a source of moral panic, yet viewed as “the future”, and with tween girls strong, pioneering attitude, society, at least as portrayed on these programs, is not yet ready for such an