American sweethearts : teenage girls in twentieth-century popular culture / Ilana Nash.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nash, Ilana.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Girls in literature.

Young adult fiction, American--History and criticism.

Young adult fiction, American.

Teenage girls--Books and reading--United States.

Teenage girls.

Teenage girls--Books and reading.

United States.

Drew, Nancy (Fictitious character).

Drew, Nancy.

Teenage girls in popular culture.

Teenage girls in motion pictures.

Teenage girls in literature.

Physical Description:

viii, 264 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2006]

Summary:

Teenage girls seem to have been discovered by American pop culture in the 1930s. From that time until the present day, they have appeared in books and films, comics and television, as the embodied fantasies and nightmares of youth, women, and sexual maturation.

Looking at such figures as Nancy Drew, Judy Graves, Corliss Archer, Gidget, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Britney Spears, American Sweethearts shows how popular culture has shaped our view of the adolescent girl as an individual who is simultaneously sexualized and infantilized. While young women have received some positive lessons from these cultural icons, the overwhelming message conveyed by the characters and stories they inhabit stresses the dominance of the father and the teenage girl's otherness, subordination, and ineptitude.

Contents:

Radical notions : Nancy Drew and her readers, 1930-1949

"Pretty baby" : Nancy Drew goes to Hollywood

"Delightfully dangerous" girls in the 1940s

The postwar fall and rise of teen girls.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-257) and index.

ISBN:

0253346592

0253218020

OCLC:

58985765