Claire Conger

You Play the Girl by Carina Chocano: You Play the Girl because that’s your only option. I read the title backwards. I read it as a young girl bossing another in a game of house. I had to finish the book before I realized “playing the girl” is all about limited options for how one might maneuver through the minefield of Madonna-whore contradictions that shade our culture.

Ms. Chocano has been a pop-culture, TV, and movie critic. In You Play the Girl she dissects popular works and how they both reflect and reinforce women’s role in our society. She questions, for example, the plot points in Frozen, in which the main character, Elsa, is imprisoned by her parents because they are afraid of her magical powers. “Power is perhaps the most unnatural trait for a girl to possess.” (page 214) Elsa’s mission seems to be to make herself exceptionally attractive. In her “Let It Go” finale, she lets down her hair and transforms herself into a hot little number wearing high heels and a dress slit thigh-high. “Natural prettiness is nice, but highly stylized hotness (available to anyone who really puts her mind and money to it) sends the message that you really care what everybody thinks of you. It demonstrates how transforming yourself into a trophy is a good outlet for any strength of will or creativity, and helps ensure that you will not be excluded from your community or abandoned by your loved ones.” (pages 214-215) Yep! I’ve spent a lot of effort trying to morph into a trophy. Until I read Ms. Chocano’s critique, I didn’t look it that way. I was immersed in the need to be accepted and admired, to be so desirable, that I would be chosen by a perfect prince and become a wife, like Hope in Thirtysomething, except hot!

But, of course, “the exceptional girl may be admired, but it is unlikely that any one person will love her” (page 215) so Elsa resorts to being useful and sculpts a skating rink for the people. I resort to being useful, too. I’m not magical, but I can bake cookies for my friends.

* Thirtysomething is among the TV shows that Ms. Chocano dissects.