Interpellation
through Material Culture
Jessica Tate
Honors Children’s Literature
Professor McGee
December 13, 2005
Each
day, millions of people pile into their automobiles and travel to grocery
stores, restaurants, gas stations, and other stores to spend their hard-earned
cash on life’s necessities: a McDonald’s Happy Meal, a DVD player, Nintendo
systems, Barbie Dolls, Power Rangers, Tommy Hilfiger clothing, Nike shoes; you
get the picture. As a society, we are
culturally trained to contribute our money to the economy by silhouetting the
consumer role. We are advised through
commercials, radio stations, movies, magazines, toys, and our family and peers to
decide what to wear and say and how to act.
If we choose to ignore popular culture’s recommendations, we then subject
ourselves to accept being labeled as “uncool”,
possibly bullied, and missing out on the latest and hottest attractions: at
least according to the media.
Popular
culture has never before been so admired and bowed down to as it is nowadays. Interpellation is the idea that we are
brought up to fill particular roles based on characteristics that identify our “jobs
and responsibilities” in life. Factors
that define our societal roles include race, religion, and gender, and I would
like to focus on the latter.
Interpellation intertwines with popular culture, and both contribute to
shaping our very thoughts and wants during our existence on this planet we call
home. Because interpellation is a socialization
process in which we are encouraged to accept a culture’s standards, it affects
us even before we are born and continues to influence our roles in society
throughout the rest of our lives with assistance from consumer products, the
media, and our social surroundings.
To
begin, gender socialization is the process by which social expectations are
taught and learned. Although our culture
undergoes change rapidly, children have been
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for years and are currently still being raised with gender in
mind instead of as people. Because of
this, children learn certain expectations and roles linked with sexes. It is important to be aware gender is learned
behavior because society decides what is considered masculine and feminine
(“Gender”). Even before birth, gender
differentiation is revealed through the interior design of the baby’s room,
clothing, and toys. Girls’ rooms will
more than likely be painted pink and decorated with dolls, whereas blue and
sports symbols dominant the walls, furniture, and clothing in a boy’s room.
The
family plays an exceedingly significant role in children’s lives. Because parents are the primary source of outside
influence in an infant’s life, parents are the first to interpellate
the child into the feminine or masculine mold he or she will soon conform
to. Childhood is one of the most
important stages because this is when the child is guided by either the mother
or father through distinct and noticeably different activities. Mothers will allow their daughters to experiment
with make up and observe as they spend several hours primping. Fathers will emphasize masculinity by playing
with some kind of sports ball or taking their son on an outing, such as fishing
or camping.
Before
describing a variety of methods the media uses when assisting the
interpellation process, it is important to discuss gender stereotypes in order
to compare them to that of the economy’s products. Is a gender bias really present in material
culture for children? Gender stereotypes
are typically used in ads to sell products to those the company thinks would
find the most use out of the product.
Juliet Schor notes “with the exception of food,
almost all products, messages, and campaigns are subjected to gender analysis
that asks, Is it for boys, or it is for girls?” (44). Common stereotypes include the
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idea that females are emotional, quiet, child-rearing,
artistic, and enjoy house cleaning.
Males are often thought as aggressive, loud, messy, athletic, and the
financial root of the household.
Therefore, the market attempts to reach out to their customers through
the use of themes. For instance, kids
yearn for love; the economy uses toys such as stuffed animals and baby dolls as
affection items. Success is also desired
by many children, and consumer products that allow children to aim and achieve
satisfying success can be displayed in challenging video games (Schor).
The
media exploits goods through commercials, radio shows, movies, toys, and
clothing. Television shows and movies
are among the most popular contributors to influencing peoples’ personalities,
thoughts, and actions. For example,
within the first thirty minutes of the movie Thirteen, the viewer is already subjected to the heavy influence
peers in the school setting have on one another. One scene shows a not-so-popular young lady
staring down the most popular girl in school and examining her belly button
ring because the popular girl wears a shirt that does not cover her entire
stomach. The camera also focuses in on
what is considered to be “popular” jewelry: large hoop earrings, beaded
necklaces, and thick bracelets.
When
social and economic changes occur, childhood is subject to alter. Home
Alone is a movie which follows this theme and shows interpellation. Steinberg and Kincheloe
found “given the prevalence of divorce and households with two working parents,
fathers and mothers are around children for less of the day” (31). Home
Alone concretes this theory by using a boy about the age of eight as the
main character and writing a script in which he is left at home by himself
while his parents and siblings are
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away in
While television is sometimes
referred to as a child’s teacher, magazines also assist in interpellating
children to form to their specific gender roles. For instance, magazines involving wrestling, such
as Wrestling
Interpellation
is easily noticed through articles of clothing according to pattern, design,
color, and size. Interpellation begins
as a baby. Parents pick out outfits in
blue for boys and pink for girls, and many infant and toddlers’ clothing has
been designed by brand name businesses. Companies
such as Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger design infant clothing because they
assume parents want to provide their babies with the very best. Also, these companies believe if the baby
grows up wearing brand name gear, he or she will continue to purchase from
those specific companies (Linn 42). Baby
boy
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clothing is also fashioned with pictures of trains or action
figures, symbols also found in toy aisles dedicated solely to boys. Baby girls are decked out in lacy hair bows
and wear outfits decorated with animals or dolls. Also, the majority of parents will have their
baby girl’s ears pierced at a very early age.
Since
the 1950’s, clothing for both men and women has drastically changed. Skin used to be covered and women wearing
skirts above their knee was unheard of.
Nowadays, mini skirts are currently in style and can be seen everywhere
on high school and college campuses during the spring and summertime. Clothing for teen boys has gone from being
well-fitted to overly baggy. Many boxers
can be viewed if walking in a high school setting because pants are bought too
big in order to “sag” below the waistline.
Because
popular culture is easily accessed nowadays, children who were once seen as
innocent and dependent upon parents are expressing much more independence and
rebellious actions. Besides television
contributing to this, toys are the next important product to pay attention to
in the marketplace. The gender
differentiation in toys is highly noticeable even as one glances down aisles in
Wal-Mart or Toys-R-Us. Interpellation
begins as a toddler when boys are taken to the park to play catch and girls are
handed dolls and encouraged to play the princess role. When walking down toy aisles in a store, the
girl’s aisle is covered in mainly pink, and dolls and pets are the most obvious
toy present and appealing to the female.
This is because females are encouraged to be loving and caring towards
creatures, and they have a desire to nurture things as exampled by their mother. A boy’s aisle contains darker colors such as
blues, greens, and
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blacks. Toys for boys
include action figures, race cars, sports equipment, and fake guns indicating
that the stereotypes for men are quite true: loud, aggressive, and possibly
more violent.
Interpellation
is observed in toys in quite a number of ways.
For example, notice Barbie. “She is a singular phenomenon in the toy
world, accounting for sales of nearly $1 billion annually for her manufacturer,
Mattel… Barbie has become far more than a mere consumer item. She has become a
totem, an icon” (McDonnell 57). Why has Barbie become so insanely popular,
especially within the last twenty years?
Because females are interpellated to being
sweet, loving, and performing certain tasks such as housekeeping and taking
care of the husband, Barbie products
offer little girls the ability to practice these emotions by using their imagination
in creating an entirely new world. Girls
look to Barbie as a way of escaping
the childhood role and becoming independent from their parents through fantasy
and daydreams. Barbie also interpellates girls by
showing them how the female body should look and what kind of clothing should
be worn. Barbie does anything but deny
female gender stereotypes. Instead, she
serves as an example of what it means to look like a grown-up woman; large
breasts and a very slender waist is greatly desired (Cross 172).
Toys
designed primarily for boys tend to hold true to male gender stereotypes as
well. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are
one of the most commonly played action figures since they first came out in the
1980s. Ninja Turtles have two themes;
they give boys the opportunity to gain control by pretending to fight off evil
and their movies indicate that boys should grow up to become loving fathers
(Cross 137). Wrestling figures are also
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popular among boys because wrestling is mainly devoted to good
versus evil. Boys can use their
imagination when challenging the wrestler who stands for justice against
another who hopes to gain control of the world in order to create evil (Steinberg
and Kincheloe 167).
Even fast food restaurants segregate gender differences by providing
toys such as versions of Barbie and miniature Hot Wheels cars when ordering
Happy Meals (Cross 6).
Children have become more
independent and imaginative than ever before as a result of popular culture
becoming increasingly easily accessed.
By pressing a ‘POWER’ button, children can view things on television,
such as violence, and think what they are seeing is okay. Our media defines how girls and boys are
supposed to dress and act simply through the use of commercials and magazines. There is a huge and obvious gender gap when
walking through toy aisles. Boys are
urged not to play with baby dolls because they are interpellated
to being more masculine through aggressive sports and fake guns. Interpellation is everywhere in our society,
and even if desired to avoid, it is most seemingly impossible unless you accept
being labeled “uncool” by society.
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Works Cited
Cross, Gary. Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of
American Childhood.
"Gender." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 11 Dec 2005. 12 Dec 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender&oldid=30903442>.
Linn, Susan. Consuming Kids: The
Hostile Takeover of Childhood.
McDonnell, Kathleen. Kid Culture: Children & Adults
& Popular Culture.
Schor, Juliet B. Born To Buy:
The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture.
Steinberg, Shirley R., and Joe L. Kincheloe. Kingerculture:
The Corporate Construction of
Childhood.