It's Baaack: Sweet Valley High Redux

Years ago my mother was an avid reader of the Harlequin Romance series, while I read what some would view as the young adult version of those books—Sweet Valley High. From about fourth through sixth grade, I was obsessed with the central characters of the series, a pair of blond, blue-eyed Southern California twins named Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Now, I’ve learned that the books, first published about 25 years ago, are back. The series has been updated to include references to contemporary technology, such as email, the Internet and cell phones. But the most controversial change is that the Wakefield sisters will now be a Size 4 instead of a Size 6. The downsizing of the girls’ much touted tan frames has sparked debates on Feministing.com, as well as at the Dairi Burger site, a blog named after fictitious Sweet Valley’s favorite teen hotspot.

I’ve been unsettled to read comments from visitors to these sites who say that the Sweet Valley series is to blame for their development of eating disorders. The readers say that the books ingrained in them the notion that Size 6 was the ideal. This isn’t surprising because, in each book in the series, the twins’ size and height (5 feet 6) are emphasized. What I’ve forgotten in adulthood, however, is that the books actually contain character after character with dietary habits that fall under the umbrella of bulimia or anorexia. One mother’s use of diet pills during pregnancy is responsible for her daughter being born deaf. And characters constantly criticize each other for doing things like eating full plates of food or looking fat in their jeans. Those who aren’t thin are almost always viewed as being impaired, if not downright sub-human.

Wrote one visitor to the Dairi Burger Web site:

“Here I was, thinking I was the only one who developed an eating disorder after reading SVH. This is fucking hilarious!”

From reading the site’s revisionist retellings of the books, not only does the Sweet Valley High series promote dysfunctional eating, they are also filled with episodes of attempted rape and sexual abuse that are completely forgotten about later. As if that weren’t enough, the books are filled with classist/racist/heterosexist rhetoric.

“I don’t know how she can date him,” a character says about a classmate who is dating a Latino student. “He’s so ethnic and working class.”

WTF? I know that Sweet Valley High got its start in the 1980s, but I’m still shocked that this line made it past the editors.



Later, the series explores the romantic relationship of the twins’ older brother, Steven, and the one black girl in town. In the end, however, Steven and the girl decide that there is no real chemistry between them and ultimately end up—where society dictates they should be—with their own “kinds.” Seems they were only together to make a social statement. What an enlightening commentary on why people enter interracial relationships. They do so to rebel, not because they actually care about each other.

In addition to the lone black girl in town, there is a Latina who passes for white. So ashamed is she of her Mexican heritage that she tells her white friends that her grandmother is her cleaning lady. This sounds like it was lifted straight out of the 1959 film “Imitation of Life.” Anyway, the character ends up revealing her heritage after she is forced to speak Spanish in a life or death situation. Not to worry, though, her friends tell her that they will overlook the fact that she’s a Mexican.

The treatment of sexual orientation in the Sweet Valley series isn’t much better than the treatment of race, as the blogger over at Dairi Burger observes with delicious snarkiness.

“Enid’s cousin Jake comes to visit, and everybody loves him, and Jess and Lila try to get with him. And Tom plays tennis with him and when he is with him, he feels warm and fuzzy …down there. Alas, Jake is GAY!!!! I didn’t think that gays existed in Sweet Valley. Or were allowed to set foot in the town. Enid is a big ol’ homophobe when Jake tells her and Tom gets all weird when he finds out because BAM! suddenly he realizes he is gay.”

God knows what effect this drivel, albeit very entertaining drivel, had on my 10-year-old brain. But the question now isn’t so much about those of us who survived Sweet Valley High when we were little, it's about the tween girls who will find themselves subject to its messages this time around. Can we expect a new crop of girls to take up bingeing and purging after their initiation into the series, where Size 4 is now the standard of beauty? And how will the new generation of readers counteract the suggestions about the superiority of blue eyes, that it’s only natural for guys to want to date rape their attractive classmates and that anyone who is queer or of color is destined for a life in the margins? Seems to me these books need to contain updates that address more than technological advances. They also need to reflect the advances that have been made in the realms of race, class and gender.

The End of Isms

Normally, I find New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to be spot on, but, after reading her editorial today, I was left feeling flabbergasted.

In the editorial “Duel of Historical Guilts,” Dowd makes the following statements:

People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny? As it turns out, making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It’s all about the past. Will America’s racial past be expunged or America’s sexist past be expunged?

Dowd makes these comments in regards to whether or not Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton will win the presidential election. My concern is that Dowd is under the impression that a win by either of the two would somehow wipe out America’s racist and sexist past. Why does Dowd believe that misogyny will evaporate with Hillary Clinton as President or that racism will evaporate with Barack Obama in the role? There is no doubt in my mind that, while women may make some advances under a Hillary Clinton administration, they will continue to earn less than men do, bear the brunt of domestic tasks, be sexually victimized and continue to struggle for reproductive rights. There is no doubt in my mind that black men will continue to make up the largest percentage of imprisoned Americans, die at younger ages than most other groups do, continue to be victimized by violence and be left behind in our schools. There is no doubt that women of color will continue to find themselves on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, earning less than black men and white women, alike, while confronting the same issues they do.

I wholeheartedly embrace Barack Obama’s message of hope, but I also strive to remain rooted in reality. A win for either a white woman or a black man will not mark the end of “isms” in this country. These constructs have been in place for hundreds of years and cannot be undone by the election of one groundbreaking candidate. Despite this, I worry that others will espouse Dowd’s view in light of a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton election. If such an election transpires, will women and those of color be told to “shut it” when they complain about the very real gender and racial constructs that they encounter in this country?

I also find Dowd’s column problematic because, for the umpteenth time, the public is being asked to choose. Which is worse: misogyny or racism? How about neither? How about we acknowledge that they are interconnected? Men are affected by misogyny and whites are affected by racism, whether or not they recognize this.

By suggesting otherwise, Dowd is engaging in what some have nicknamed the “Oppression Olympics.” Most often, I’ve witnessed the Oppression Olympics play out when slavery and the Holocaust are discussed. Those in support of the Holocaust cite the fact that 6 million Jews were exterminated. In response, those in support of slavery cite that 10 million Africans lost their lives in the Middle Passage alone. But those I admire most, such as Night author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, refuse to partake in the Oppression Olympics. He has argued that it is not conducive to healing to attempt to measure who’s suffered most. What’s important is that we have survived and that we heal.

As suffering goes, though, Hillary Clinton is a complicated symbol for women because she is so entrenched in the establishment. I do acknowledge, however, that she has been a victim of misogyny. She’s been criticized for her physical appearance, for appearing to be cold rather than nurturing, for being power-hungry. And, while I’m none too happy that she won Ohio and Texas, I find it problematic that, before these critical wins, so many newspaper columnists urged her to drop out of the Democratic race when she trailed Sen. Obama by a marginal percentage. Would a man in a close race be told to drop out? This certainly wasn’t the case for Huckabee, who had no chance of winning the Republican nomination but pressed on until yesterday.




Obama, on the other hand, is a complicated male symbol because of his blackness. Since he rose to prominence, he has been sexualized in a manner in which white men aren’t. Mitt Romney is known for being strikingly handsome. One political commentator even nicknamed him “Ken,” as in Barbie’s significant other, but Romney has never been sexualized in the same way that Obama has. I’ve seen television skits in which Obama has been portrayed as a Mandingo warrior who sexually arouses Hillary Clinton. I’ve seen pictures of Obama in his swim trunks circulate the Internet. I’ve witnessed Obama surface as the object of a “Will & Grace” character’s wet dream. Obama himself seems to be hyper aware of how he has been sexualized. Recently, he refused to divulge whether he wears boxers or briefs, dismissing the question as humiliating.

Obama illustrates more than any candidate how much race and sex are entangled. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, illustrates through the sheer amount of power she has alone, that all women aren’t victims by default. Together, they make the case that we should not vote for them as symbols. A vote for Sen. Obama isn’t necessarily a vote for blacks or a vote against women. The fact is, in contrast to Dowd’s remarks, that Obama has never campaigned on the basis that he symbolizes black progress. He’s campaigned on the basis that he symbolizes hope.