The All-American Girl

From a young age, I became interested in gender roles and how women are represented in media. When I was in the 8^th grade, I remember watching an episode of the MTV show Made. The premise of the episode was that a girly cheerleader, with blonde hair and blue eyes, wanted to be transformed into a skateboarder. When the show’s crew interviewed the girl’s mother, she said her daughter was ‘the all-American teenage girl.’ During this time, I had been learning about genetics in my science class. I had learned that having blonde hair and blue eyes were both recessive genes. As soon as I heard that comment, I thought ‘Then I guess there aren’t too many all-American girls.’ As someone who is both African-American and Hispanic, it was almost biologically impossible for me to be the ‘all-American’ girl. I thought about my female friends, who are all different ethnicities, and realized that though several had blonde hair and a few had blue eyes, none had both. I began to feel as though the girls on television and in magazines not only didn't represent me, they didn't represent anyone.

Celebrities Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon both appeal to the public as the 'girls next door.'

From that point onward I started to pay more attention to the casts of television shows, and I became increasingly disheartened to find that the majority of the leading female roles on television shows and in movies were blonde, even going all the way back to the 1960s (The Brady Bunch, anyone?). Of course, I've always known that blondes are considered a sex symbol in American culture, and seeing a blonde female, whether in real life or on-screen doesn't bother me at all. It's the disproportion of blondes in media in comparison to every other hair color that bothers me, since it's not reflective of real life.

It's funny that this is such a bothersome issue for me. There's obviously an underrepresentation of minorities in media; usually television shows and magazines will throw in a 'token black' to appeal to multicultural audiences (such as the inclusion of a black angel in the new Charlie's Angels). And I've never exactly been skinny, yet only seeing females who weigh far less than me on-screen doesn't bother me. But I think this issue of the 'all-American' female bothers me because it doesn't just offend me personally, it offends me as a female. It makes me think about all of the women out there who have come to believe they are not 'normal.' I think of all the young women who run out to buy the best hair dye and eye contacts they can afford, just so they can finally be 'regular.' I get angry at the media machine for creating an illusion that traps females. And I always hope that I'll never be one of those girls.