Jetix

Disney Channel was quick to recognize females would put their money where “liberation” appeared signifying that third-wave ideals of girl power are related to consumer power. Rather than use girl power as a true political stance, Disney Channel used it as an industrial strategy to cultivate their audience and justify the commodification of young females and the prioritization of consumption over substance. Having now established the feministic atmosphere that would allow for this decade of programming to thrive, this chapter addresses how the network spoke to young girl audiences as consumers. Cognizant of the buying power and influence it has over the tween demographic, Disney Channel, a powerful transmedia conglomerate, asserts its oligarchic power over a consumer base of predisposed tween girls. “The girl is currency for this exchange: self for commodity. It is through the girl that corporate priorities are inserted” (Clark, 1987, 203). Clark is reiterating a concept made by Karl Marx that a commodity is a material entity which can be bought or sold and is the core unit on which capitalist economies are built. To Disney, girls are a commodified audience segment on which the network, through programming and marketing of products related to programming, presses a fixed ideology-laden with contradictory messages that both disenfranchise and yet empower young females. The previous chapter contained an overview of Disney Channel as it related to representations of gender and…