For as many interesting contrary ideas as this post inspires in its entirety, it is a mistake to generalize the role of children's media as a solely money-making venture. It-- like all other media--is both reflective and influential of the society that surrounds it. Our media shapes how we think, just as we shape what it portrays. A "vast media conspiracy run by the government" is indeed ridiculous, but not only is that not even vaguely insinuated by Dettmar, but government has nothing to do with it.Therumancer said:
Rather, I think the question that should be asked goes deeper than both Therumancer's point and Dettmar's. I feel that Therumancer treats the entire scenario with too simple an outlook and too simple a set of terms, while Dettmar's points feel as though they are based on straightforward literary analysis instead of complex cultural analysis. Instead of examining the superficialities and general themes of American and Japanese girl's media and drawing conclusions about disparities in societal expectations, or making generalizations about how developing humans are "wired" and drawing the conclusion that there is a singular commercialized media interest at the expense of social impact, it would instead be far more illuminating to make a catharsis-mimesis comparison. Instead of assuming a particular media example in a certain society is indicative of how girls are expected to act in that society, perform a more thorough comparison between the example and the society that contains it as a whole, and then decide whether girls are supposed to mimic that example--or treat the example as an unrealistic and unattainable escape scenario in order to avoid the impulse to indulge in such detrimental tendencies within the society proper.
From there, instead of determining that Culture A believes girls should act as Archetype X and Culture B believes the contrary--tending instead towards Archetype Y--the right set of mind could lead to a conclusion concerning the specific mimetic or cathartic tendencies in girl's media in each culture, how they compare and contrast against one another in that regard, and what that means for the girls themselves in relation to their societies. Hopefully, that would instead result in a narrower conclusion with a much more logical dualism that is easier to rationalize and has an easier time integrating counterexamples, instead of something that attempts to be all-encompassing of a society's outlook on how girls should act.
The largest influence behind suggesting such a radical revision of Dettmar's initial topic is because I do not imagine that either American or Japanese societies are so simplistic that they do not have some idiosyncratic contradictions concerning girls' mannerisms and demeanors. As an American surrounded by American society, I can see that girls are constantly tugged in several directions by numerous formative influences. I definitely would not conclude that American girls are expected to "get mad and then get even" in any given situation; we might expect more sass and guts out of them than the Japanese might, but only when it is appropriate. When it is appropriate, we reinforce it with media examples that are crafted to encourage mimesis. When we would rather a woman shut up and make her husband a sandwich, the media might craft that same example in a way that encourages a cathartic reaction--through violence, perhaps (the movie Kill Bill comes to mind as a particularly fitting example).
tl;dr: good article, wrong topic.