The Powerpuff Girls: Equal Fights

9/21/2011

Tags: children/youth, discourse/language, gender, media, critical theory, media literacy, feminism, 11 to 20 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 17:28
Access: Vimeo

Summary: At least in the genre of children’s animated series, it appears that narrow representations of women and femininity are being seriously challenged. It is no longer wholly uncommon to learn of a show that depicts girls as heroic and powerful, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls, which ran from 1995 to 2006. While the series generally challenges dominant representations of femininity, one of the episodes, titled "Equal Fights," functions more as a morality tale meant to caution young women against a radical feminism and against pursuing any fundamental challenges to patriarchy. The episode can be used by instructors who seek to promote media literacy, and in this case, arm their students with the ability to spot content that works to uphold the patriarchal status quo (even when that content is otherwise lauded as socially progressive). In the episode, the young superheroes capture the villain, Femme Fatale, but they immediately free her after she convinces them that women are underrepresented as superheroes and villains. Femme Fatale's observation makes a lasting impression on the girls, and as the story develops, they are shown overreacting and misapplying their knowledge of patriarchal injustice. In the final act, the mayor's assistant and the girls' teacher intervene, and effectively condemn the girls' behavior. In her paper on the series, "Saving the World before Bedtime," Lisa Hager similarly takes issue with the "Equal Fights" episode and points out that it never confronts the question raised by Femme Fatale—who, besides Wonder Woman, is a heroine in her own right? It is my view that "Equal Fights" also adds fuel to a discourse, which attempts to equate feminism with male bashing. It is a discourse which seeks to supplant a moral outrage against patriarchy with an outrage against the "injustices" visited on men when women go too far. The moral of this story seems to be that the girls need to be more cautious about their activism; when women are too feminist—when they want too much equality—everyone loses.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

17 Comments

Lester Andrist link

9/23/2011 04:54:10 pm

Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency takes up "Equal Fights" episode in a recent post too. She notes that the episode draws on the "Straw Feminist" trope http://youtu.be/tnJxqRLg9x0

Mere link

11/12/2011 06:31:28 am

To answer the question of why the girls never discussed any other female super-heroes, this may be a bit of an issue of copyright rather than the writers being unable to answer the question.

If I am not mistaken, by this time the show was produced, Hanna-Barbera, which from the start was the company that produced the PPG, had been bought out by Warner Brothers who now had its name on the show (I can't remember if this is correct but a lot of the later PGG episodes as well as any other HB series were being made by WB) and if I also recall. WB OWNS DC, which ironically is the publishing house of all the super-heroes named in the episode.

Why didn't the girls say Storm? Or any other super heroine who didn't have a (c) of DC on them? Because more than likely, WB would have had to PAY to mention these names. Storm, a super-heroine they SHOULD have mentioned in my mind, belongs to MARVEL (this was WAAAAY before it was bought by Disney mind you) which meant that in order to say her name, WB would have to give a little cash to Marvel in return. Once you look at this, it makes sense and you start to realize that there are other people pulling the strings besides the writers.

HOWEVER, given the amount of Super-heroines in the DC library ALONE that aren't just deviations of a male counterpart, they could have said more than just the FAMILIAR; Everyone is familiar with Batgirl, Supergirl, and Wonderwoman...What about Zatana? Black Canary? WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER ONES?! Justice League was running around the same time I believe and by this time, kids should have been more familiar with some of the other female DC heroes. But then again, I wasn't in charge of the show and had the PGG proven her wrong, well....it would have been a short show from the start.

And why do the female distaffs have to be picked on? So everyone thinks that the female distaffs are bad but AquaLAD, BatBOY (yes, there was ONE), SuperBOY, SPEEDY, KID Flash get a pass because they are male? That's not fair to me. If people are going to make fun of the 'girl versions' for being lame, then the same sort of anger should go towards the boys as well since they're nothing more than 'younger, hipper' versions of the original, OLDER male version. :|

Getting back to the original post however, I know people who love this episode but after watching it again, I'm a bit wary of it mainly because how it splits people down the middle in how it portrayed feminism. The thing is, the more I look at it, the more I see Femme Fatale as the type of person who rides on causes, the type that goes around screaming they know what they are about but doesn't full engage in them. Considering this, Femme was no represntation of Feminism but rather the type that do abuse the meaning for their own good. The thing is, isn't this the type of thought process that DOES hurt feminism and aren't other feminist trying to combat this by showing the real face? While Femme was a STRAW, the girls combated this by showing a more 'real' face; people who are knowledgeable in people who have sacraficed their own well-being for the sake of equal rights. As I recall, Femme didn't know who Susan B. Anthony was, only that, at the time, she was the only woman on US currancy. The girls tell her who she is and she's shocked to find that Susan took her punishment like a HUMAN BEING instead of asking for favors because she was 'one of the girls' In this light, it showed the Femme wasn't willing to take everything equally which in whatever context it is put in means that you have to accept the ups and downs with it. In her case, she was robbing stores but in order to be EQUAL with men, that means she has to take punishment like them to...and for her wrong-doing, she got the same treatment the PGG did as everyone else was sent to jail for it.

Thought I can see how people are upset at this episode and how it portrays feminist, I have to disagree that Femme was the writers attempt to show a feminist but rather, someone who DIDN'T know anything about feminist and took the term, only to have it backfire on them in the end. But I have to say it was kind of hard to watch after reading these discussions but I will say that THIS portrayal was no where near as bad as a few other 'jokes' about feminism. At least with the PPG, they ATTEMPTED (I say ATTEMPT in the loosest of terms) to show a lesson but other shows just go out and say 'Feminism sucks because it makes all men doormats' or some other bullocks. The PPG example seemed to have more of 'Before you go out claiming to be a feminist, know what it is.'

cub

9/11/2012 07:46:01 am

the unfortunate implication here is that any form of feminism or womanism *needs* a takedown at all. here's why that's a problem:

imagine a hypothetical episode called Civil Fights, with villain named Soul Brother, and he asks the PPGs why there aren't very many black male heroes, yada... then the writers could claim that they weren't making an "attempt to show a (civil rts. activist) but rather, someone who DIDN'T know anything about (civil rts.) and took the term, only to have it backfire on them in the end."

no problem there, i'm sure!

Jeremy

12/23/2012 10:22:13 am

As a PoC (who is also gay just to throw that in), I think a plot like that could have worked just fine. There are plenty of minorities who abuse the system to try and advantage themselves. Civil rights isn't some hallowed issue that noone can talk about. If a villain were committing crimes and then pulling the race card to get out of it then that's something that could relate very well to a modern day America.

cub

1/8/2013 03:09:47 pm

@jeremy (the comments don't give a reply button this far down):
the furor wouldn't come from actual people of color, but rather hand-wringing white people, who do, in fact treat civil rights as separate and holy and at the same time do not view the rights of women as civil rights; the two have a long, intertwined history, but as a poc, surely you know that the lives of women and gays within the the communities are still fraught with a greater struggle in addition to that which is assumed to be the province of straight men.

tl;dr: whitey is afraid of black america, but not afraid of women. nuff said.

Dante

11/18/2012 12:58:53 am

I find this analysis to be quite biased, as the episode did not promote the idea that "patriarchy" doesn't need to be challenged, OR that girls can want too much equality. It was a lesson against self victimisation. and using victim status to push forward agendas, something which sadly occurs in current discussions, and not many people are bold enough to discuss out of fear of being demonised (such as women only help programs and shelters, the imaginary gender pay gap (which used to be a problem, and isn't anymore, now it's a strawman). What powerpuff girls did push with this episode was the idea that feminists should aim for real equality, not a reversal of roles where men are bashed and belittled while women are put on a pedestal that makes them unable to do harm or commit sexism and so on. If i need to point out a case that's very similar to what's exposed in this episode, it would be a relatively recent case where an 11 year old boy was stripped by a couple of girls and was humilliated when the girls posted it on youtube. The police charged them for this as a misdemeanor. If the roles were reversed, the boys would have been tried as sex offenders, and sent to disciplinary school/prison.

cub

11/18/2012 05:00:54 am

these claims of "imaginary gender pay gap (which used to be a problem, and isn't anymore, now it's a strawman)" are unsupported.

the gap most assuredly does exist.
http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/news/gender-pay-gap-jumps-1-3pc/1626816/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2012/10/24/gender-pay-gap/1652511/
http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/simpleTruth.cfm

Dante

11/18/2012 05:21:51 pm

It's actually supported if you read any economical study done by government officials. This "pay gap" is on a nation scale, and not men and women working the same job at the same place. The factors are that women stay away from dangerous jobs that pay more, a higher percentage of women don't work rather than men, women also have maternity leave of about 1 year or more to take care of their children, which lets men in the same position advance faster, and most women have more than 1 child. Also, what also makes point is that women would rather invest more in job benefits while men want the cash instead, and men are also more likely to do overtime.

All of this adds up to the "pay gap" which is nothing short of imaginary. If there was no pay gap concerning this, men would be underpayed.

cub

11/18/2012 11:50:33 pm

i provided urls to support my argument. it's okay that you didn't, but it reduces your post to one person's opinion.

Dante

1/12/2013 09:06:59 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-gap_b_2073804.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/

Me not providing links doesn't reduce it only to an opinion, just like you not following an education in a certain field does not make that field an opinion.

I operate under the assumption that anyone not willingly ignorant on a matter will pursue some knowledge, if he truly desires it.

Lester Andrist link

11/25/2012 02:23:23 am

Dante - While the pay gap varies by industry and occupation, it doesn't go away. The workforce is segregated by gender, but even when women work in jobs dominated by men, they are paid less than their male counterparts. Here is yet another link that will allow you further investigate the issue: http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/1/post/2012/07/do-men-really-earn-more-than-women.html

Dante

1/12/2013 09:12:52 pm

Considering the fact that this disparity has been show to come from women and men's career choices, and not some illegal discimination, (link above), i cannot help but call bullshit.

Read them, and this one too: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-07-26/commentary/32859540_1_gender-wage-women-staffers-higher-paying-fields

If you want to further investigate the issue.

Lester Andrist link

1/15/2013 10:27:46 pm

The article you cite from Market Watch is commentary, so before I respond, let's just agree not to get bogged down in a debate about the rigor and accuracy of the information reported there. First, this article and ones like it mention that that wage gap varies when you change the definition of "full time." The wage gap also varies by industry. Note that this doesn't mean there is no gap; It only means that--not surprisingly--the gap varies when you change the terms of the comparison. However, even if the gap completely disappeared after comparing women and men working identical hours, we can still wonder why women don't work as many hours as men. For example, could it be that women are disproportionately burdened with unpaid labor expectations at home?

Similarly, many authors (and you) note that the gap is the result of men and women simply choosing to work in different industries, and the industries women choose pay less. Again, the wage gap doesn't completely disappear after controlling for industry, but it is certainly true that women tend to work in industries that pay less. One very important question is why do we have such a profoundly segregated labor market? To the extent that occupational sex segregation is all due to personal choice (but let's be honest, where one ends up working is not always or even often a simple matter of choice) we can still be critical about the processes of socialization that leads to those choices.

cub

1/20/2013 06:29:34 pm

additionally, once a certain occupation becomes "feminized" the pay tends to stagnate = teaching, and once an industry that began as a low-paying job for women gets masculinized, the growth is legitimized by the business patriarchy = women directors in hollywood used to be commonplace in the early silent era.

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The Powerpuff Girls: Equal Fights

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