Beautification of Self-Identity

What I found interesting in the Gill chapter on magazines is the significance of the teen market to magazines. Because magazines cultivate a certain identity for a certain group of people, teenagers, specifically girls, become the target for products that relate to beautification in creating the female teen identity today. Over the years there has been and increase in girls concern for how they look. Magazines, like the conduct books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, have become an avenue, which dictate appropriate behaviors and acceptable appearance for teenage girls through purchase power.

This ability to buy beautification increases significantly during this time of a person’s life as the period of adolescence is linked to the identity vs. role confusion stage of development. During this time teenagers are concerned with determining and establishing their identities and magazines contribute to this by suggesting to the consumer how they could be and look if they adhere to what the magazine is saying and promoting. With the focus on exploring identity comes the willingness to try different things out making teenage girls likely to consume products, furthering their identity search, aiding teenage girls in formulating a concept of what it means to be feminine. Teenage girls become easy targets for the beautification products as they generally have freedom because of their age and lack of responsibilities in life and because of the link to their parents who endow them with the power to purchase. Magazines like Cosmo Girl, Seventeen, Teen Vogue fill the minds of teenage girls with the suggestions of how to be a woman; magazines have become n influential factor contributing to the American culture as it relates to the teenage population.

Sabrina the almost feminist role model?

I found the ideological analysis to be an interesting way to analyze not only gender, but also, all of media in a society. This form of analysis tends to take a Marxist position when it comes to analyzing meaning making. I would agree that meaning making is a result of power structures within our society. Whoever has political power or financial power is in a position where they can buy air - time and pay for a certain idea that they have to be portrayed. Media is also one of the easiest ways to convey messages, and if you have the means, you can easily spread out your ideas in a variety of media texts. I found it interesting to pair the ideological analysis approach to the show ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch.’ This was one of my favorite TV-shows when I was younger and I liked it because Sabrina was so independent.  As described in the article there was gender equality portrayed in the show. Sabrina had a boyfriend, but did not obsess about it. She was also incredibly different from Libby the annoying cheerleader who ridiculed people who were different from societal norms. Sabrina is an example of how those in power (i.e. producers/screenwriters) can construct meaning and mass-produce it. Here they are changing the traditional roles from previous witch shows, like ‘Bewitched’ where she wasn’t supposed to demonstrate her talents, towards a new girl exploring her capabilities. I did, however, find it startling though to realize that the show was predominantly white. This is an issue that third wave feminism most likely noticed, but nothing was done in the series to fix that. I was startled that I had never really thought about that in the show until I had read about it in this article. The TV show ‘Sabrina the teenage witch’ did a phenomenal job in reconstructing and delivering an image of the ‘new woman’ but it still lacked important issues that feminism hopes to address.

Challenging Gender Roles is Only a Fantasy?

I really enjoyed Projansky and Vande Berg's article on Sabrina the Teenage Witch because it made me realize and understand things about the show I didn't quite grasp when I was a kid. When I watched the show when I was younger I loved Sabrina because I could relate to her but I also looked up to and admired her. She was kind of dorky but didn't really care, wasn't the popular girl but still had friends, she made mistakes but was strong enough to fix them. I loved that the show was a little quirky and weird but still relevant, and I think it took reading this article to understand why it was so successful.

One thing I didn't understand (or really couldn't because I was a kid) was how the show challenged gender roles. The article points out that Sabrina takes on many male roles, while her boyfriend, Harvey, plays traditionally female roles. I like how this was pointed out in the article because it made me realize how strong of a feminist character Sabrina really was. Even the small details like how she was good at math and science, or that she was the one saving Harvey from trouble, prove that a seemingly average girl could have really strong feminist qualities.

Another really interesting thing the article points out is how they relate the secret of being a witch to the struggle of homosexuality in adolescents. I found it really interesting how the way they portray Sabrina telling her grandmother she is a witch to be comparable to a teen coming out to their parents. This was something I wouldn't have been able to piece together when I was younger, but the show still taught their audience the importance of self-confidence and acceptance of others.

I was also really interested by the comparison of Sabrina's aunts Hilda and Zelda as a lesbian couple. They were at times concerned about what others would think of them living together, but the show also positively presented them as loving caregivers neither playing the mother or the father role.

Still I wonder if challenging these gender roles and presenting a young teenager as a strong feminist could only be done through the fantasy of a teenage witch. She lives in half a fantasy world, so would that suggest that two women can only live happily together in a fantasy world? Can a girl be stronger than her boyfriend only through magic? Is there another show that compares to Sabrina's character where magic is not used?