A puff of power for girls

By Florencia Gonzalez and Karina Moreschi

In the late nineties, a new cartoon appeared on T.V. It caught the young audience from the very beginning with its well known opening:

Sugar... spice... and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction...Chemical X!-- Thus the Powerpuff Girls were born! Using their ultra-superpowers, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil! 

Who dare say that the mixture of nice things together with an accidental drop of “X Chemical” would turn upside down the ideas about gender role in children cartoon.

Until 1998, superheroes used to be played by males characters and if there was a woman with superpowers, she always had his male counterpart. Let’s take Wonder Woman and She-Ra as examples. She-Ra was He-Man’s sister and Wonder Woman was the only of her gender among all the members of the League of Justice. But The Powerpuff Girls broke this pattern in which women, even the strongest, had only a supporting or passive role.

Created by Craig McCracken, The Powerpuff Girls’ cartoon was broadcast for the first time in November 1998. Its author didn’t have on purpose to cause such a shift of paradigm in children cartoon. The three little heroines, Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles, have well defined characteristics: the sweet Bubble, the irritable Buttercup, and the intelligent Blossom. With this clear opposition of sweet and spicy features, they play the role of protectors of Townsville without loosing their femininity. The novelty of The Powerpuff Girls is given by the performance of the female characters.

The Powerpuff girls don’t always have to use violence or their superpowers to defeat their enemies. They take advantage of their sex attributes becoming stronger by employing the intrinsic power which lies on them as women. An example of this is the way in which they beat the Rowdyruff Boys in the episode number twelve. Kisses were the girls’ secret weapon on that occasion. 

Not only are the three girls portrayed in a distinctive superheroe role but also the women in the supporting characters. Ms. Keane is one of them. She is the Powerpuffs Girls’ kindergarten teacher. And she provides a good example for the three little girls. The reason why, is that she is very intelligent and frequently advices her students to change the perspective from which they can attack the villains, by using methods which avoid the use of brute force. One instance of this can be found in the episode where the superheroines defied the Gangreen Gang to be their opponent in a video game competition.

The other secondary character that is worth to be mention is Ms. Bellum, the Mayor’s assistant. Sexuality is the quality which defines her. She has a voluptuous body which is her only part shown. Her face has been never revealed maybe because that is not necessary to know that she is beautiful according to the cultural-social standards of society. But that is not her only virtue. In her person, the forces of beauty and intellect merge to prove that women can be sexy and clever at the same time. In contrast with her perfection, the Mayor is a bald old man, short both in height and mind, who depends on her assistant and the Powerpuff girls to solve all the problems of the city. Returning to the example found in episode number twelve, it is Ms Bellum who helps the girls to discover the power of kissess to destroy the Rowdyruff Boys[1]. 

Perhaps, it is not easy to perceive the relevance of the effect of these changes in the characters that play the leading role in children cartoons. However, it is important to consider that this is the reflexion of a society which is evolving. And this is also, the new model of superheroes for children, a model without gender distinction. 

To summarize, the Powerpuff girls have turned weakness into opportunity and threat into strength by capitalizing femininity. As a consequence, this cartoon displays a new range of possibilities for the females in the role of superheroes.

[1] References: The Powerpuff Girls: A Society of Girl Power by Krissy Naudus. http://www.urbangeek.net/writings/academic/powerpuff.html