Ruby=Feminist Icon
Thanks to Rachel Superstar Simmons for the heads up on this episode of Amy P.'s awesome new show, "Smart Girls at the Party."
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Love it love it love it. How awesome is it that there's a show out there telling girls that being awesome is not directly related to your boobs?
Also, I wish I had been that articulate at 7.5 years old. Damn, girl!
Smart girls totally do have more fun!
what a smart little girl! I love that the format of the show takes the girls seriously and relates to them at their level. very cool.
I love her!!! She is great!
Breaking down the F word back into something positive (for girls and boys) is definitely something you do not see every day, especially from someone with such a high profile among people who may not consider themselves feminist. The theme song is a bit much for me, though, as well as the Barbie commercials. At least Ken is always packaged separately and Barbie has her own stuff...
Love it! Too bad about the Barbie sponsorship, but it might be a good pull to get kids watching.
Really? I see it as like feminist reparations or something. They owe it to girls after years of "math is hard" and "Barbie can be a nurse but not a doctor" b/s. Just like the cigarette corporations had to pay for the anti-smoking ads, Mattel should have to give back some of the gazillions of dollars that parents spend on Barbie to make sure that they don't make the mistakes of the past with little girls' confidence.
I hear you on the Barbie thing. There's something creepy about the very first "Barbie memory" being "I always wanted the dream house." Beginning with a doll house isn't exactly the progressive, conscious marketing that the video claims to be.
Yeah, my sisters and I always preferred to build our own houses when we played Barbies. We used shoe boxes, books - I had a jewelry box that pretty much saw its only use as Barbie's front door. The "dream house" was just way too limiting. As I recall, our Barbies never did any of the stuff shown in the Barbie commercials, either. We had a lot more fun acting out our favorite books or making up our own stories. Did anyone here ever actually stick to the "Barbie goes shopping" stuff?
We had the house, but we preferred to use our couch as Barbie's house. The three cushions were three rooms and the floor in front were the other three rooms.
That is the best, most life-affirming thing I have seen in a very long time. High fives to all involved.
This should so get picked up by whatever network is most like what Nickelodeon was 15 years ago. So cool.
Disney channel. That girl would love to air along side Hannah Montana.
Definitely a step in the right direction for Barbie!
My eyes are watering with joy.
Is this show only available online?
Where was this awesome show when I was 7? I love that Amy isn't talking down to her like a lot of shows with children. I always hated Bill Cosby's "Kids Say The Darndest Things" b/c it always seemed like he was setting them up to be mocked. It just made me cringe.
This video is very cute. I am happy to see that the very the very large global Mattel corporation would sponsor such a video. But, I felt that the video reinforced stereotypical ideas about feminism, gender and the state of feminism in other countries. Furthermore, the title and theme song implies that there is something other than smart girls which the show than defines in specific ways- the writer, the musician, the feminist. To me this seems like more pop culture garbage.
I agree with what you're saying about perceptions of Feminism in regards to other countries, but I took the song differently.
It seemed to me an encouragement for young girls to use their brains when society dictates they should just be pretty and popular. Amy P. is using awesome, cool smart girls to appeal to less confident girls. That's my take.
Actually, Barbie's been stepping in the right direction few a while now. Being that I'm a bit too old, I'm not totally up-to-date, but I know a few years back they made First Female President Barbie and have generally been making her smarter and more career-oriented. Plus, even before that, they redid her bodily proportions to give her smaller breasts and wider waist and hips. And I definitely had pilot and dentist Barbies, not stewardess and dental assistant Barbies.
The point of saying all this was this: It doesn't surprise me that Mattel/Barbie would do something like this. But it does make me happy.
But I overly praise Barbie just because she's SO much better than Bratz, who only endorse being scantily clad with loads of make-up and being a rock star. Thank goodness Mattel won the case against Bratz so they have to stop selling and will be pulled from the shelves (after the holidays, though).
awww how cute! what a charming and intelligent little 7 year old!
(but where's her helmet when she's skateboarding?)
plus I agree with Lynwellyn's comment about the video reinforcing stereotypes about the state of feminism in other countries.
But do smart girls have more fun? kinda begs the question...
I agree that this is absolutely awesome. A lot of fun, without being too corny.
I'm not too caught up about the state of feminism in other countries. It's really dangerous to let children grow up without knowing the alternatives--we should be able to talk to them about the work that still needs to be done globally, so they don't take for granted what feminism has accomplished here.
If they had cited specific countries, that would be different. But getting this girl, and others, to start thinking about feminism as a global calling is important to the future of the movement.
this is the greatest thing i have seen in a long time. it really made my day.
Yay to the video itself, ick to Barbie. Because whatever new direction she takes career-wise, she continues to function as a fashion plate, a standard of what is considered beautiful and she is in no way blazing new trails on what we consider beautiful. (And her beauty standard is still impossible - some women are that skinny but none of them have breasts that huge.) To me, truly responsible marketing would have kids ooing and aahing over a doll that hadn't been seen before - maybe she's "overweight," maybe she has scars, maybe she's very short, and the hype around her will create an appreciation for these characteristics and have girls actually loving their bodies. If the introduction of western TV in Fiji could cause an anorexia epidemic, you'd think someone as powerful as Barbie could cause something healthier to spread around the U.S.
I wish that this girl was my age, I want to hang out w/her! So cool.
This is incredible...
(...but I agree that the Barbie sponsorship is weird.)