{"title":"Tweenhood: femininity and celebrity in tween popular culture","authors":"L. Phillips","doi":"10.1080/14680777.2019.1648098","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The tween—and for definition it would be “easy” to say “prepubescent, likely between the ages of 9 and 14” or “consumer demographic”—has been growing increasingly visible in Western popular culture since the early part of the twenty-first century. However, academic considerations have hitherto been limited, either neglecting the tween by failing to separate her from her younger (child/children) and older (teen/teenage) sisters or by devaluating the discursive group because of its association with popular culture (consumerism, celebrity) and the feminine (pink, sparkles and princesses), especially where the two intersect. Tweenhood not only refuses such narratives by demonstrating that the tween is more than just a biological moment or consumer demographic, but it also refutes them by locating the tween at a critical juncture of neoliberalism and post-feminism. Indeed, Kennedy astutely names the tween post-feminism’s ideal subject (4). Across five chapters, the final two of which are case studies (of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers), Kennedy identifies and interrogates the features of tweenhood: same-sex friendships, a concern with authenticity, the makeover as a continuous project of the self, the role of celebrity, and the prominence of a father-daughter bond. Crucially, these readings do not seek to “fix” the tween or tweenhood into or as a stable or unchanging concept. Rather, Kennedy “traces the emergence, increased visibility, and conflicting and contradictory meaning” of tweenhood in popular culture since the mid-2000s to read the tween—in her words, as “contested, shifting and dynamic” (2). The Introduction offers a foundational, incisive and engaging account of the tween and tweenhood, one that is essential reading for anyone working not just in the burgeoning field of tween studies but also, for example, girlhood studies, adolescence, young adult literature, popular culture, and media studies. One of Tweenhood’s most significant achievements is Kennedy’s establishing of a distinct tween post-feminist sensibility à la Rosalind Gill 2007. For Kennedy, the post-feminist discourses of tweenhood are:","PeriodicalId":47795,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Media Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"914 - 915"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2019-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14680777.2019.1648098","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Feminist Media Studies","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1648098","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
The tween—and for definition it would be “easy” to say “prepubescent, likely between the ages of 9 and 14” or “consumer demographic”—has been growing increasingly visible in Western popular culture since the early part of the twenty-first century. However, academic considerations have hitherto been limited, either neglecting the tween by failing to separate her from her younger (child/children) and older (teen/teenage) sisters or by devaluating the discursive group because of its association with popular culture (consumerism, celebrity) and the feminine (pink, sparkles and princesses), especially where the two intersect. Tweenhood not only refuses such narratives by demonstrating that the tween is more than just a biological moment or consumer demographic, but it also refutes them by locating the tween at a critical juncture of neoliberalism and post-feminism. Indeed, Kennedy astutely names the tween post-feminism’s ideal subject (4). Across five chapters, the final two of which are case studies (of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers), Kennedy identifies and interrogates the features of tweenhood: same-sex friendships, a concern with authenticity, the makeover as a continuous project of the self, the role of celebrity, and the prominence of a father-daughter bond. Crucially, these readings do not seek to “fix” the tween or tweenhood into or as a stable or unchanging concept. Rather, Kennedy “traces the emergence, increased visibility, and conflicting and contradictory meaning” of tweenhood in popular culture since the mid-2000s to read the tween—in her words, as “contested, shifting and dynamic” (2). The Introduction offers a foundational, incisive and engaging account of the tween and tweenhood, one that is essential reading for anyone working not just in the burgeoning field of tween studies but also, for example, girlhood studies, adolescence, young adult literature, popular culture, and media studies. One of Tweenhood’s most significant achievements is Kennedy’s establishing of a distinct tween post-feminist sensibility à la Rosalind Gill 2007. For Kennedy, the post-feminist discourses of tweenhood are:
期刊介绍：
Feminist Media Studies provides a transdisciplinary, transnational forum for researchers pursuing feminist approaches to the field of media and communication studies, with attention to the historical, philosophical, cultural, social, political, and economic dimensions and analysis of sites including print and electronic media, film and the arts, and new media technologies. Feminist Media Studies especially encourages submissions based on original, empirical inquiry of the social experiences of audiences, citizens, workers, etc. and how these are structured by political, economic and cultural circumstances. The journal invites contributions from feminist researchers working across a range of disciplines and conceptual perspectives. Feminist Media Studies offers a unique intellectual space bringing together scholars, professionals and activists from around the world to engage with feminist issues and debates in media and communication. Its editorial board and contributors reflect a commitment to the facilitation of international dialogue among researchers, through attention to local, national and global contexts for critical and empirical feminist media inquiry.
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