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| Photo by Simon Schluter. The Age |
Last week the Sidhe Literary Collective put on the conference Tights and Tiaras: Female Superheroes and Media Cultures at Monash University, Clayton. As one of the conference organisers I am proud to say it went off without a hitch and attracted a lot of media attention to boot!
Details of the conference are available here:
I also had the opportunity to discuss the conference with Lindy Burns from ABC 774's "Drive" program, which was my first ever live radio interview (scary!) Our keynote speaker, Karen Healey, was also interviewed on ABC's "The Book Show" about the status of female characters and female artists in comic book culture.
My paper was on The Powerpuff Girls and it was a lot of fun to present. The abstract for the paper was as follows:
Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: How the Perfect Girl is Three.
The Cartoon Network’s television series The Powerpuff Girls had a profound impact on children’s programming for young female audiences. While many other superhero programs aimed at girls feature adult role models, or adolescents trying to negotiate their powers alongside their developing sexuality, The Powerpuff Girls provides three kindergarten age superheroes forced to ask “Teacher, may we please be excused to save the world?” These girls challenge the ideals of femininity by demonstrating that there is no “perfect girl,” but rather many different ways to express girlhood. While the Powerpuff Girls do not exist in a traditional family, they do form a sisterhood that is particularly effective at fighting crime, with Blossom (the brains), Buttercup (the brawn) and Bubbles (the beauty), all working together to bring criminals to justice – particularly those that are “insensitive, derogatory and insulting” towards women! Unlike the passive female characters in many other children’s programs, these girls do not rely on rational arguments to make others realise the errors of their way, instead being more than willing to use the kind of superhero violence Lisa Hager claims is usually restricted to male-oriented programs (Hager, 2008). This paper will explore some of the central issues raised in The Powerpuff Girls, including the female superhero in community, challenging stereotypes of femininity and appropriating the superhero tale for young girls.
And this is a picture of me presenting...
That is all.
