We often talk about how the media we consume treats women horribly these days. There are few shows and movies that really celebrate women in a respectful way and let women be women that don't revolve around men. But that's not really my memory of TV growing up.
One of the first shows that comes to mind when I was young is the Rugrats. The Rugrats, with Angelica, Susie, Lil, and Kimi. They were infants and toddlers, but had very distinct personalities. And Angelica, even as the "mean girl," was never excluded or fully left out. Her faults were accepted and her softer, nicer side was shown through out the show and movie. They also had their mothers - Charlotte, a no-nonsense business woman who empowered and spoiled her daughter; Didi, the loving mother who goes back to college; Betty, a "masculine," empowering woman; and Kira, a loving, understanding stepmother. The show featured religious diversity, character diversity, racial diversity, family diversity, and class diversity throughout its run. The adult women on the show had wildly different lives and passions and all of them were ready to empower their daughters.
There was also The Wild Thornberrys. Eliza and her family traveled through the wilds of the world, making nature documentaries. Eliza and her sister had immense freedom, but it was also clear their parents loved and supported them, even if they were kind of out there. In fact, their mother is the "strong" one. She's more responsible, more structured, more ready to discipline. She's the logic to her husband's wild ideas. And while the sisters are drastically different, they aren't really painted as enemies and they support each other when it's necessary - it's a realistic teen sister relationship.
I think about getting older and the shows that dominated my life. All That, The Amanda Show, That's So Raven, The Proud Family, Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The Disney Channel movies, like Cheetah Girls, Zenon, Cadet Kelly, Twitches, Gotta Kick It Up, Quints, Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, The Color of Friendship, and Halloweentown that were focused around a variety of girls rocking the world. And that's just a small sampling of the movies that I remember and loved dearly. These shows and movies I watched between ages 5 and (to be honest) 15 had girls being real. Funny girls, creative girls, sassy girls, quiet girls, spunky girls, trouble makers, divas, perfectionists. Girls as singers and cadets and psychics and witches. These girls were powerful and independent and friends with other girls. These girls were allowed to be funny and have fun and have silly crushes and make mistakes and learn from them and it was all totally okay. They were teen girls or even younger and they were strong and they were leaders and they were diverse. All That had such a diverse cast! That's So Raven and The Proud Family featured black families with token white friends. Gotta Kick It Up's PREMISE was an underfunded, predominantly not-white school having to find a way. The Color of Friendship was ABOUT APARTHEID. Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior is about a Chinese-American homecoming queen becoming a badass warrior. Not only that, but originally Brenda Song, the main character, was cast to be a supporting role with a guy as the main character, but after seeing her skills, they SWITCHED IT so the movie would be about a girl and a guy would take her former role.
Even expanding to when I was 12 and up or so, Hannah Montana was kicking ass with her double identity. Miley was the main provider for her family and she could have the boys she wanted, but they damn well better treat her right. And The Suite Life of Zack and Cody featured a book-smart blonde working class girl and a "dumb" Thai-American heiress and they became friends.
The Disney and Nickelodeon I grew up with were mostly about girls and their stories. Girls being friends and being diverse and amazing and just normal girls. They were never belittled or demeaned or pushed down and if they were, they fought back. They were the protagonists and they got incredible story lines and romances. I mean, the Lizzie McGuire movie? C'MON TELL ME THAT'S NOT ONE OF THE MOST ROMANTIC MOVIES EVER. On top of that, romance wasn't always the goal. In a lot of these movies, the girls don't end up with anyone and it's 100% okay.
Now, lets not kid ourselves. Most of these weren't perfect. There wasn't really any diversity in sexualities, but it's understandable since in some of these cases, the characters were too young for it to really come up. A number of the shows and movies lacked real racial diversity or only had a token character or two, but then there were other shows and movies (some of which I didn't list) that were incredibly diverse. Body diversity could've been better, but it is still Hollywood. There wasn't much religious diversity, but several shows brought in Kwanza or Judaism from time to time. But they were all about empowering young girls and women and telling us we could do whatever we want and that friendships with other girls were A+ ideas.
I think this media we consumed at a young age is what really helped shape my generation and what created so many feminists - even if there are still plenty that won't take the title or reject feminism. These shows and movies did incredible good and it saddens me that kids
and teen girls aren't getting these same messages now. It's baffling
that after the cult success of these shows and movies, the media for us as adults won't continue to reflect what we had growing up. As I've seen, we all still love those shows and movies, but we don't get them anymore for grown ups. It's why so many of us still go back to them.
But I think the focus and general favor of the non-diverse shows/movies (because, let's face it, the shows featuring mostly white people got more regular play in most situation) is what enabled so many feminists to become White Feminists and ignore anyone who wasn't a straight, white, cis feminist. A lot of the shows that challenged these ideas and introduced other religions and races and bodies were That's So Raven and The Proud Family, Gotta Kick It Up and The Color Friendship - "diverse" movies that you could skip over. It wasn't built in to the programs with predominantly white casts and easy to miss.
TL;DR - We had some badass, woman-positive programing for girls and women in the 90s and early '00s, but it wasn't diverse enough within programs to get feminists to be fully open and accepting to women who aren't straight, white, and cis.
