Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This study explores how popular culture disciplines intersectional feminism by subjecting empowered girl protagonists to the gaze of white boys who are infatuated with them. We look at Project MC, Bureau of Magical Things, Free Rein, and Wednesday, all of which star a teen girl protagonist who has caught the attention of an adoring white boy. These teen girl protagonists create drama and mayhem in the pursuit of truth and justice; however, in an era of popular feminism, their empowerment and capacity for agency is seen as the cause for the dangerous and erratic behaviour. White boys positioned as heteronormative romantic interests are typically waiting patiently for her to come around–loving and affectionate, neither violent nor aggressive–and serve as emotional anchors and safe harbours to occasionally provide emotional shelter in an otherwise threatening world. The docile white male characters wait while she figures herself out, explores the world, and experiences an identity crisis created by feminism, and when her journey is complete, they are ready to domesticate her to white heteropatriarchal monogamy. While it seems there has been a gender reversal of sorts with he lay waiting, so to speak, and it appears as if he is there to listen attentively and be directed, his behaviour also should be seen as erratic by disrupting the narrative flow and demanding immediate attention to his confessions of love.