The Great Retweening and Why Boys Won't Read

Reflection: “Sweet Valley High, the Great Retweening and Why Boys Won’t Read.” By K. Baker. (April 5, 2010). Retrieved December 10, 2010 from the awl.com

Subjects: Boys and Media Messages, Male characters in literature,

Baker points to the different ways that tween girls are flexing their power in the tween market:  The increasing numbers of Disney characters specifically targeted to the tween girl age group; American Idol contestants with talent, losing to those with tween girl appeal aka having the “pop boy idol look”; The re-marketing of 80s girl icons such as Strawberry Shortcake and the Baby-sitters Club girls.  Everywhere you seem to look in television and books, characters and role models for girls seem easy to find.  If these characters are sending the right media messages to tween girls is another discussion altogether.  Check out my discussion on “The Impact of Disney Stars on Tweens” or “What Advertisers Know about Tweens” for more information.

But Baker asks the question, what about the boys?  Where are they being represented?  Where are the role models for boys that are more than just sidekicks?  My mind jumps to books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Kinney or The Lightning Thief by Riordan and then to shows like Drake & Josh and Avatar: The Last Airbender.  As a girl growing up, I always thought it was difficult to find girl characters I could relate to.  Girls were rarely represented as the hero.  It wasn’t until later that I was able to sort through books more efficiently to find characters that appealed to me.  So as an adult, I automatically assumed that the opposite must be true for boys and there must have been a large variety of good characters out there for them to relate to. 

But I’ve come to realize over the semester that we need to look at how boys are represented in television and literature just as much as we look at how girls are.  As people worry about too many images of skinny, fashion obsessed, and weak female characters, we also need to worry about too many muscle bound school slacking goofy male characters.  “Boys are besieged by images and messages from marketers and the media that encourage slacking over studying; competition over teamwork; power over empowerment; and being cool over being oneself” states the Packaging Boyhood website.  If they can’t be the superhero, the buff hyper masculine person that saves the day, then boys are encouraged to be the slacker or the sidekick (Meredith, 2009).  Whether for girls or boys, we should strive to find a rounded variety of character types for both genders to experience.  Otherwise I am afraid we will create a self fulfilling prophecy where boys will feel they need to be the slacker or the hero, and never look to explore themselves out of those labels.