Clare Greeman – Girl Boss

Feminism has been turned into a meme, and a funny one at that. If you, dear reader, have ever been called a girlboss without a trace of irony, you might be entitled to financial compensation. It is not a compliment, rather it denotes a woman who co-opts feminist langauge to turn a profit, usually without being an “actual” feminist, or at least one who hates trans and non-white women.
And as a gender studies major, I’m all for it! I had the misfortune of attending the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, and if I had a word to denote the white women who marched on Washington with their own self interests at heart, wanting to hear their girlboss anthems and to see Jake Gyllenhall walk by the stage, I might’ve felt a little better about being in that crowd. Because for all of the long speeches by Scarlett Johanssen about the time her friend got an abortion and signs with ifunny Leslie Knope memes on them, I was ready to leave the march and even my “sisterhood” after my deaf cousin was yelled at for trying to get through the crowd to the hard-of-hearing section.
Maybe that’s why I’m so critical of “for profit feminism,” because underneath ever pink pussy hat or sparkly sign is a woman who doesn’t really want feminism for all, she just wants it for herself. That goes double for big companies.
Sadly but unsurprisingly Disney was the primary example I thought of. Some of their efforts come across as sincere and full-hearted, and others come across as downright embarrassing and insulting; adding insult to injury when so much of their practices go against feminism and inclusivity.
When I searched for any variation of ‘girl power pandering’, the scene in Avengers: Endgame was the first thing that came up. Maybe it was because I had lost interest by then, or because it was lost in a sea of other fanservice but I didn’t remember this until I was caught in a storm of negative reactions from 2019. Part of the reason why the backlash was so large is because the attempt was so blatant that even the older female fans who usually buy into the “girl power” messages were awoken to the hypocrisy.
After waiting years for their first female solo superhero movie, Marvel either killed their female protagonists or shoved them off to the side over the two part finale, only to bring them together during a surge of music in the middle of a 30 minute greenscreen battle finally revealed how little care was put into their female characters up until this point. When the long awaited Black Widow movie did grace the screen, the cast was stacked with white actresses, trying to redeem Natasha from paper thin femme fatale-ery to a complex character after she had already passed in-universe.
Disney’s second 2019 feminist push was with Disney’s live action Aladdin. They ramped up the already fully assertive and strong Jasmine to cartoonish levels, even giving her a song to show off her feminism and whatnot. Rather than just having her exist as she did in the animated movie, Disney armed her with a pink pussy hat to wave in the audience’s face, begging for you to admit that Disney isn’t as sexist and racist as you think.
I can acknowledge all of the good done by introducing this message of empowerment to little girls, but I find the blatant messaging to be a pandering marketing move that is insulting in its obviousness and simplicity. Jasmine and other #girlbosses as blatant as her show a lack of good writing and actual thought behind characters, because waving a picture of Rosie the Riveter is much easier than adding actual depth to female characters or adding any intriguing messages about feminism. I found this attempt to be even more insulting as the original Jasmine was already quite self-possessed, and in producing this new version not only did they not add anything, they didn’t fix the culturally insensitive issues with the first version. And I have similar problems with all of Disney’s reduxes: not only are they girl power pandering, but the issues surrounding the films still stay the same, if not exacerbated by their marketing ploys.
I’m not advocating against feminist messages in movies and shows, I’m just asking for there to be a modicum of sincereness to be behind them. Because not only do these blatant passes insult the watcher, but they insult all of the non-white viewers watching. Putting thought into strong female charcaters rather than some white flag waving shows actual commitment to equal practices and inclusive feminism, because running in a line together across a green screen does a lot less for women and the young girls watching than they think.