Nancy Drew as feminist: discuss.
Yes, I saw the new Nancy Drew movie. It’s cute and cartoonish and showcases adorable clothes. But it doesn’t capture the one thing that captivated me most when I first discovered Nancy Drew: She’s independent.
Nancy teaches important lessons to young girls: Being on your own. Doing the right thing without being told. Solving problems by yourself.
And the idea that she had her own car and kept an overnight bag in it for emergencies. Well, I’ve based my whole adult emergency-preparedness plan on her example!
I’ve been interested to see how I’d view the books as an adult. As luck would have it, my girlfriend Becca’s daughter Montana is in her Nancy Drew discovery phase and lent me six books from her growing collection. I read the first book “The Secret of the Old Clock” in about an hour and wasn’t disappointed.
Nancy did good things for good people and was infallibly polite along the way. Sure, she got some help from her lawyer dad, but mostly Nancy thought things out on her own.
It’s funny that when these books first came out in the 1930s women were still expected to stay home, raise kids and not complain. I wonder if Nancy’s independent streak played a role in any social upheaval that came later?
Has Nancy had an impact on your life? Did you see the movie? Have you reread one of the books? Is this our summer of Nancy Drew?
June 27th, 2007 at 9:32 am
I was a huge Nancy Drew fan as a young girl. I thought I would like mysteries, so I read some other authors but it wasn’t mysteries I liked. It was Nancy. She was inspiring because of her intellect, independence and individuality. She was truly a role model for young girls.
It’s unfortunate that today’s young girls are inundated with females who are the creations of men in the entertainment industry or females who choose to become jokes, such as Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and others.
Several years ago I noticed the pink explosion as well as the words on the bottoms of clothing and the use of adjectives such as “diva, goddess, princess, queen,” and so on for words to describe females. Maybe it started with the Disney cartoons and all their princess characters. It was disturbing, and it is disturbing. I find fault with parents who encourage their daughters to “think pink” instead of encouraging them to think.
Recently “The Commercial Appeal” ran a photo in a neighbors section showing little girls at a birthday party with martini glasses and being “divas.” Do these parents not remember the studies showing candy cigarettes influencing children to smoke in real life? I just wonder if these girls with martini glasses will drink sooner because of the cocktail culture they are being exposed to at such a young age.
This blog discussion isn’t new. There’s been much discussion about Nancy Drew and her influence on women, including women who have attained power in politics. There’s even a book about it, but I can’t think of the title. Nancy Drew influenced generations of young girls, and I hope that she continues to do so.