A Chronology of Pop Culture Heroines

By
Heidi
 – September 13, 2011Posted in: Columns, Stacks

Part One, Ages 6 to 18

Age 6

Frances

She is funny, imaginative and makes up great songs.

Age 7

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Trying to come to grips with the fictional character I was named after. I read this on the sly when my work is done in class or when they send me  to the year above for English. I imagine being wholesome and hearty and offering goat’s milk to all the suffering children of my school, especially Wayne who is always getting sent to the office and Mary, who I accidentally hit in the face during dodgeball.

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Age 8

Little Women

Oh, how I want to be a March sister! Despite my burgeoning feminism and love of books, I aspire to be the pretty and dutiful mother of a lot of babies, like Meg. It may be that I’ve already figured out the reason that I was put on this earth, but there is also something tender about Meg giving into her vanity and behaving foolishly at the party and being quietly good most of the time. Another lesson: I am not a tomboy.

Madonna

One of the happiest moments of my childhood comes when Santa Claus brings me Day-Glo socks, bracelets and a black netting half-top like Madonna wears in Lucky Star. My mother lets me wear this one day to school with purple corduroy trousers. I am both embarrassed and fiercely proud.

Age 9

 Anne of Green Gables

Smart, bookish passionate, dreamy and loves clothes —   few characters have resonated with me more than Anne Shirley. The books and the mini-series with Megan Follows are burned into my brain. The search for bosom friends and kindred spirits commences.

Gone With the Wind/Pride and Prejudice — 1940 film with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier

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I also read the books. Even as a kid, I seem to realize that Gone With the Wind is not a great book; I mostly like to brag that I’ve read something that is a 1,000 pages long. Appreciation of Austen’s writing will come later, but I’m in love with the films and watch them over and over with my cousin (When we pretend we’re in the stories, we have to make Scarlett O’Hara and Elizabeth Bennett into twins). I imagine having a clever twinkle in my eye and a quick tongue like Garson’s Lizzie and I practice raising my eyebrow like Vivien Leigh. Sadly, to no avail.

Miss Piggy

Age 10 to 12, Musical Theater Nerdom

Les Miserables, Into the Woods and Phantom of the Opera

I’m obsessed. I memorize the librettos, sing On My Own when I’m on my own, read the books and learn everything about the actresses. Les Miserables feels like the first big, important book I’ve ever read. I am slightly conflicted by Cosette’s lameness in the musical, but goodness in the novel.

J.B. Fletcher, Murder She Wrote

Watch this every Sunday night with my dad or grandparents. Fletcher is unceasingly cheerful, clever and helpful. Everyone is always trying to put her in her place because she is an older woman, but she always figures shit out and saves the day (on top of her day job as a successful novelist).

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Ages 13 to 14, Discover rock music and listen to a lot of dudes, but learn about it through the cool older sisters of my friends.

Ages 14 to 16

Sonic Youth

Kim Gordon is impossibly cool, tough and sexy. When I hear her snarling, “Hey Kool thing, come sit down beside me … are you gonna liberate us girls from male, white corporate oppression?” I miss that she is speaking ironically about some hipster dude and imagine that she is speaking directly to me and believe she is the kool thing doing the liberating.

Liz Phair

Much has already been said.

Juliette Binoche in Blue

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Search for a long brown coat and imagine that I am a sexy, mysterious French widow.

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The Gamines and Perfect Ladies — Audrey Hepburn, Jean Seberg and Grace Kelly

Watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Rear Window and Breathless obsessively.  Begin wearing dark glasses and vintage coats, but I am not gamine or perfectly put together and find myself slightly filled with self-loathing.

Ages 16 to 18

PJ Harvey and Joni Mitchell

In Harvey, I find an outlet for the white-hot rage of adolescence. I listen while driving around on the dark empty roads near my house.  I listen to Mitchell on my Sony Walkman  during long walks in the woods behind my housing development.

Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks

She isn’t dull with permanently trembling lips like Donna or a victim like Shelly. She  is tough and naughty  and, most importantly, I  can  live out my teenage crush on Agent Dale Cooper through her teenage crush on Agent Dale Cooper. Begin wearing loads of red lipstick and practice tying a cherry stem into a knot.

Celine in Before Sunrise

Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction

Get white button-down shirt, dream of dying my hair black. Practice talking like a Tarantino character, but sound ridiculous saying, “Could you hand me that book, cowboy?”

 

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