Disinterring Ophelia

"It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter."

Bristol Palin's coupe de mere this week, the ubiquitous airing of Mel Gibson's verbal sexual abuse, and my accidental viewing of Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" video have convinced me that it's time to re-empower those who mother adolescent girls. I am reared up over the cynical forces that undermine and threaten to bury the tender developing selves of our daughters, so break out your copy of Hamlet (or watch any filmed version other than Gibson's); it's time to disinter Ophelia.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia's fate demonstrates the fragility of a young girl's hold on stability and safety. In adolescence, she begins to live for the approval of her father and of Hamlet, with whom she has fallen in love. Hamlet is pre-occupied with his own demons and rejects her; subsequently she loses her grip on reality, dresses in her best and drowns herself. Hamlet comes upon the gravediggers; here, Shakespeare inserts a cruelly ironic moment of graveyard humor before he allows Hamlet to discover for whom the grave is intended. Ophelia will haunt you forever once you know her story.

In 1994, Mary Pipher, PhD, published Reviving Ophelia: Saving The Selves of Adolescent Girls as a wakeup call to families, fingering modern media and culture for increases in the rate of depression, anorexia, and suicide attempts in teen girls.  The book made its title a household phrase and Mary Pipher was deluged with speaking requests. I recommended the book to dozens of families who were trying to save their girls from illnesses exacerbated by America's sexualized marketing of teens. It pleases me to report that many families realized how wisely, carefully, and persistently they were going to have to fight in that cause; they were able to shut down the gushing well of exploitation that was drowning their daughters. 


Other families, sadly, felt helpless; their attitude was, "If she doesn't get it on MTV (or through the internet, magazines, books, etc.) at home, she'll just get it at her girlfriends' houses." They didn't realize that, if they could set and hold strong boundaries at home, they could give their daughter a critical safe port. The daughter could then internalize the concept of herself as precious. The sense of being worthy of careful nurturing, of possessing a selfhood worth fighting for, could operate to help a girl protect herself as she moved toward womanhood. 

I happened to see segments of Stefani Germanotta's (Lady Gaga) music video for "Alejandro" (a worthless waste of audio perception) on the screen of an adjoining exercise bike at the gym. The rider of that bike looked to be about 40 and perfectly normal, but she was glued to the video.  I have to admit, it was the proverbial train wreck; my neighbor's screen was so hard to ignore, I almost missed the news on my own screen that the BP oil well had just stopped gushing. Imagine what the Gaga video would be like for a thirteen year old girl! You can see it on YouTube here, but approach with caution. It's not that the video is objectionable in a new way (it pretty much struck me as picking up where Madonna left off), but that it is objectionable in the same old way.

I often despair at how each generation has to relearn lessons that the previous generation sweated to master.  Not only did absolutely NOTHING change in the exploitation of teenage girls since Pipher's book was published, but the trend has accelerated. The age of menarche has declined across the decades, and secondary sexual characteristics (telarche) appear even earlier due to rising obesity in children; tracking along with these changes, America's media, driven by an unchecked profit motive, reaches further into childhood to sexualize and exploit our daughters.

In Bristol Palin's passive aggressive decision to alert Us magazine, instead of her parents, about her decision to marry the father of her son, I see the fear and anger of a daughter whose family failed to protect her adequately. Bristol learned from her mother to live an overexposed life, and she applied that lesson to her television debut on the reality show "The Secret Life of The American Teenager." Specialness that special can only be learned. To me, it all further demonstrates the Palin family's willingness to exploit its most vulnerable members relentlessly. The Palins seek celebrity rather than substance.

There is a segment of the country's middle and lower class women who slavishly worship Bristol's mother; in their idolization of her, in their--typically inaccurate--identification with her, I see a feminine cohort that Feminism has failed.  Perhaps especially when they try to wrap the cloak of Feminism around themselves.


In the huge popularity amongst teens of Stephani Germanotta's pornographic music video, I see another failed crop of adolescents, both male and female. The lyrics of "Alejandro" are explicitly aimed at a young audience: "She's not broken, She's just a baby. But her boyfriend's like a dad, just like a dad/ and all those flames that burned before him. Now he's gonna fight your fight, gonna cool the bad."


Now, listen to Mary Pipher, PhD.  The video will sound and look a little dated, but its message is more applicable now than when it was filmed.




Who do you know that needs to hear it?