And if we’re delighted over the representation of sassy, brave girls-if we’re still registering them as novelties and dazzling exceptions-it emphasizes the extent to which American popular culture continues to proffer an idealized version of young femininity as white, docile, and amiably stifled (Moana, after all, is one of the only nonwhite heroines Disney offers its viewers).ĭespite nearly two centuries of shifting perceptions, our ideologies of gender and emotion, and the art so finely shaped by them, derive from an enduringly Victorian perspective of little girlhood.

But our excitement over these young heroines belies their enduring paucity. Accordingly, she’s positioned neither as a damsel in distress nor as an object of desire-Moana’s romantic life receives no narrative attention, and her chutzpah saves her island, however much it unsettles her father, the film’s benevolent patriarch. The latter’s release was nothing short of sensational: here, finally, is a nonwhite female character who is reduced to neither racial nor gender stereotype. It is true that the last few years have yielded a modest offering of feminine fictional icons modeling less constrained behavior-both Brave’s Merida and Moana’s titular heroine are standout examples. The strictures of twenty-first-century little girlhood might, at a glance, seem inconsequential when set alongside the demands laid before Victorian children-including the Brontës-and yet, present-day expectations are enduringly rigid. Check out The Fraught Culture of Online Mourning, and Carly Rae Jepsen’s Exhilarating, Emotionally Intelligent Pop Music. We’ve been fortunate to publish Rachel Vorona Cote in the past. We’re delighted to bring you a brief excerpt from “Chatterbox” - chapter 2 of Rachel Vorona Cote’s excellent book, Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today.

Rachel Vorona Cote | Longreads | March 2020 | 10 minutes (2,706 words) Join Longreads and help us to support more writers.

Rachel vorona cote