It's A Girl Thing: Tween Queens and the Commodification of the Girl's Tween Market

A few years of research, thoughts and adjustments that all led to a completed film which, framed by the structure of a faux interactive website for tween girls, looks closely, and critically, at the tween market's evolution and the role of Disney and Nickelodeon's tween queens (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Miley Cryus, Miranda Cosgrove, Kiki Palmer, Selena Gomez, and more) in the market's explosion.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

It Won't Cost Much, Just Your Voice OR How does the message change when its a cute boy and not an evil witch singing the song?


A hugely popular tween boy band, the Jonas Brothers, redid the Little Mermaid song, "Poor Unfortunate Souls" but my wonder is if Disney really listened to the lyrics closely in advance and thought about the impact they might have. Tween girls are CRAZY for these boys...So is this really the best message for them to be sending?

"The men up there don't like a lot of blabber
They think a girl who gossips is a bore!
Yet on land it's much prefered for ladies not to say a word
And after all dear, what is idle prattle for?
Come on, they're not all that impressed with conversation
True gentlemen avoid it when they can
But they dote and swoon and fawn
On a lady who's withdrawn
It's she who holds her tongue who get's her man"

When Ursula sings these lyrics we get that she's a witch and that her words are not to be trusted...but can todays 8 year old girl (born in 1999), who maybe has, but maybe hasn't, seen Little Mermaid (1989), process the subtext when these lyrics are sung by cute boys in a tween pop band? My gut instinct is no.

But Id love to be convinced Im wrong on this one.

Please, convince me Im wrong.

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