I wrote this piece months ago. I thought it was pretty good and submitted it to a few publications, where it was quickly rejected. I meant to share it in my blog, but never got around to it. Sadly, it is still relevant, maybe even more so. I have included a related poem below as well as a side note about a book I started reading a couple weeks ago.

Young people are often discounted and dismissed. Their youth and experience, we assume, cannot compare to the wisdom of adults, especially in times of crisis. This might be why—as more and more Americans compare the current COVID-19 crisis to end-of-the-world stories—we ignore what young adult dystopian novels have to teach us.

One of the reasons we dismiss YA dystopian literature might be that the overwhelming majority of young adult dystopian novels are written by women, and even more feature female protagonists. Women and girls—so often the victims of patriarchal violence, so often the glue that keep families and communities together in times of crisis—know about the hardships of dystopia. We live the impacts of our dystopic patriarchal world every day, especially if we are further marginalized by race, class, or sexual orientation. So why are our Girls on Fire stories dismissed when the real world is faced with real dystopic crisis?

Lurie Penny describes, in “This Is Not the Apocalypse You Were Looking For,” an article  for Wired, how we Americans like our end-of-the-world stories: “Our heroes—usually white, straight men with traditional nuclear families to protect—are cut off from the rest of the world; the daydream is of finally shaking off the chains of civilization and becoming the valiant protector and/or tribal warrior they were made to be.” These heroes dominate our cultural landscapes and imaginations.

A Facebook post, from a self-proclaimed retired high school librarian who had read her fair share of dystopian literature, encapsulates the very problem with patriarchal imagination and adults’ attitudes: “don’t worry… somewhere a seventeen-year-old girl is working on a cure for COVID-19, if only she can decide which boy she is in love with first.” Even those who are familiar with the stories of YA dystopia are quick to dismiss the Girl on Fire.

This kind of attitude is common among adults. This kind of attitude will be our undoing. It is true that many of these novels have romantic plotlines, but these books are also about self-discovery, survival, resilience, freedom, hope, community, and the power of love. Penny notes that the current COVID-19 crisis has brought out a different story. Those on the front lines “are not fighters. They are healers and carers.” But this insightful article does not cite any of the stories that are over-shadowed by these powerful cultural myths, rendering them further invisible.

We see this tendency to turn our attention to the texts that have been inspired by, and produced in, our patriarchal American culture in some of the dystopian venn diagrams that have been circulating on social media. Typically, the only book that appears on such lists that was written by a woman is Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, which makes the list as a token representation, at least in part, because of its popular television adaptation. It also makes the list because it is about the control and forced pregnancy of women’s bodies, which becomes more and more relevant every day. It is allowed to exist alongside the other texts that erase women from our visions of the future.

So, if we were able to step outside the boundaries that patriarchy has created for our imaginations, what might we learn from the end-of-the-world texts that center girls?

Community is important and we can only succeed if we work together.

The battles scars of trauma are real and lasting.

No matter how powerless we feel, there is always something we can do to make things better.

It is important to take care of other people, but it is also important to take care of ourselves.

No matter how dire circumstances may seem, there is always hope. We can always build something new.

These are only some of the lessons that YA dystopian literature can teach us, but we have to be willing to question some of our long-held beliefs about who we are as a country and who we want to be when the current COVID-19 crisis tapers off.

In order to better understand who we are and where we are going, we need to read new stories, and Girls on Fire stories are a great place to begin. Unlike adult dystopian stories, these stories have hopeful endings. We can teach these stories, and I’m hoping that the young people who read these stories, who take these stories to heart, will be the next generation of leaders who don’t get stuck in the tired old narratives that have shaped our contemporary patriarchal dystopia.

This Girl (Is on Fire)

A sense of humor

is important
in trying times--
 
toilet paper shortages
and social distancing
are fair game.
 
But when a retired
high school librarian
claiming vast knowledge of genre
posts:
“don’t worry
right now a 17-year-old
girl is working on a solution, but first
she has to decide
which boy she is in love with”
 
The joke’s on us.
 
Because belittling young adult
dystopian literature
is one thing
 
but trivializing girls
is the death of us all.
 
Side note: A student asked me if any of the YA dystopian novels I had read for my research took up subject matter that might compare to the pandemic. While plenty deal with similar scenarios, I could not think of any that really spoke to the current moment… until I picked up the book Recoil by Joanne MacGregor a couple of weeks ago. First published in 2016, this book is a little too close to home. So, if you like that kind of thing (like I do), check it out.

While I have enjoyed many novels considered “classics,” and many books in the capitol-L literature category, young adult dystopian literature is my go-to for pleasure reading. As I explain in my forthcoming book, Girls on Fire: Transformative Heroines in Young Adult Dystopian Literature, my obsession with YA dystopia became the subject matter for a class and for a book. And as I argue in both these settings, YA dystopia’s Girls on Fire provide a powerful lens for thinking about the future. But the stories of girls in the worlds of YA dystopia often share important similarities with their counterparts in dystopian Literature.

In Girls on Fire I analyze some of the similarities and differences, connections and inspirations, between and among young adult dystopian literature and dystopian Literature by women.* Several of these adult books feature teenage protagonists—usually just at the cusp of adulthood. In addition to the books I write about in Girls on Fire (like California by Eden Lepucki as well as In the Heart of the Valley of Love by Cynthia Kadohata), there are several interesting contemporary examples of adult dystopian stories that center not-quite-yet-adult protagonists like Memory of Water (2012; 2014 in the U.S.) by Finnish author, Emmi Itäranta and America Pacifica (2011) by Anna North.

Our vague cultural markers, like the age of eighteen, supposedly imbue a teenager with adult status though the reality of adulthood does not hinge on this marker. In the realm of dystopia, our protagonists have adult responsibilities and adult worries beginning in childhood, but they are often ignorant in the bigger picture of their society—the ways in which the past has shaped the present and the ways in which power and corruption have done the shaping. Becoming an adult—in both YA dystopia and adult Literature—means having the blinders removed and finally seeing reality for what it is, not what we have been brainwashed to believe.

This is the case in both Memory of Water and America Pacifica. In the former, the protagonist has been interning as Tea Master, an ancient profession reserved for men. Noria is almost through her training when her world shifts; her father dies, her mother moves away, and she is left to protect and discover secrets that change the course of her life as well as her community. In America Pacifica, Darcy lives in a world that revolves around her mother and their bare level of subsistence. When her mother disappears, she is left to uncover the secrets her mother has kept, secrets that not only reveal her mother’s hidden past, but also the potential for revolutionary change for the oppressed of Darcy's world.

Both girls, who are also women, put into motion the possibility of change in their oppressive societies. Both societies have reached the point where extreme corruption and greed have made life unsustainable; both Girls on Fire influence the tipping point in an attempt to restore balance. For Noria, the price is death, which comes about mostly through lack of communication and misunderstanding. But she leaves behind key information that shifts the roles of power and possibility by revealing the government’s generations of lies. For Darcy, the price is losing her mother and almost losing her life as she helps to topple the corrupt regime and then follows her principles and sets out on a lonely, dangerous journey to find people on the mainland.

In both cases, there is much more work left to be done. Though circumstances force these girls to grow up—to take responsibility not just for themselves, but for their community—their coming of age is similar to the coming of age for a society or culture. That shift toward hope for something better happens, but more development is needed. It takes time to mature into adulthood just as it takes time for a society to mature into a just, free, equal community. Girls on Fire survive their toxic, abusive, violent societies and spark progressive change. They provide inspiration and incentive for us to do the same.
 
*The main difference between young adult dystopian novels is the role of sex and romance. Typically, there is far more sex and far less romance. This is the case in America Pacifica where Darcy has very little experience outside of her life with her mother, but has still made out with a number of boys and agrees to have sex with a guard to get the information she needs. This is not, however, the case in Memory of Water where there is no sex and no romance besides the hint of love disguised as friendship.

A foundational question asked of all sci-fi fans: Star War or Star Trek? Of course, there is no need to choose. And if you had asked me a few days ago, I would have answered Star Trek without hesitation.

Despite being a professor of popular culture (more or less) I am never current on popular culture. Even the stories I love best are rarely seen before they come to DVD. When I watched the Hunger Games films, after much anticipation, I fell asleep every time. I could stay awake on re-watches, but I hate to admit that I did not make it all the way through Mocking Jay part two until a few months ago.

I wanted to stay awake only to see what choices they made at the end of the film, and whether these choices matched my thesis in my forthcoming book, Girls on Fire: Transformative Heroines in Young Adult Literature. They did. I could have said a lot more in my book about the way in which this ending illustrates just how much the absence of the voice and countercultural strength of Katniss makes the movies a rather empty and superficial representation of Katniss.

But such a critique does not ultimately matter because our culture is not ready for the voice and force of Katniss. It might just be enough to have the equal presence of girls and women in films to start making a dent in the patriarchal strangle-hold on popular culture representations.

Which brings me back to Star Wars. After the disappointment of the new Star Wars films, I did not pay much attention to the newer Star Wars films. I heard echoes of strong female protagonist, but I did not pay much attention. I hadn’t had a chance to watch The Force Awakens until visiting my sister and her family at the beginning of my sabbatical this winter.

We watched the film with plans to go see the new release of The Last Jedi in the theater during our visit. At first I was not excited about this plan, and I watched the film out of the corner of my eye while finishing breakfast. But soon I was hooked, with my eyes glued to the screen. I had found another Girl on Fire.

But Rey, as a Girl on Fire, is only the most obvious aspect of this film’s feminist activism. (And she is totally awesome.) Girls and women pepper the second film in a variety of roles. Women are old and young. Good and evil. They are leaders and heroes. They solve problems and they make mistakes. They are present. They are stock characters. They are role models.

Such representation is exactly what I argue and illustrate in Girls on Fire: Transformative Female Protagonists in Young Adult Literature. We don’t look to girls to lead us—in the present or the future—because we have not been given the opportunity to see girls and women outside the narrow confines of sex symbol and side story.

Before the film began, there were a variety of sci-fi themed films with Girls on Fire at the helm. There were, of course, plenty that did not feature girls at all, but we don’t have to be and do everything. We just have to get the opportunity to be seen as equals, to be equals as the norm rather than as the exception.

The Baby Boomer generation is having trouble accepting equality as fact. Generation X is trying to live within contradictions. But we can see hope when we see that the next generations see women in the world at every turn and in every position. Girls and women are the phoenix rising from the ashes of a world that has silenced us for too long.

“Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”
—Katniss in Mockingjay

“And it would do nothing at all. It would change nothing at all. It would move no one at all, and so it really wouldn’t be art, would it?”
—June in The Summer Prince

“We were going to change how people think…. You can’t transform a society with violence, Ashala. Only with ideas.”
—Ember in The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf

American dystopia is a long-standing tradition, and Trump’s appearance on the scene of American politics has inspired many references to dystopia (like on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and in liberal campaigns). But we have long been a dystopia in the United States, and many brilliant authors have shed light on this quality from a variety of angles. War, apocalypse, unchecked technology, disease, climate change, natural disaster, invasion, slavery, violence, reproductive slavery, sexual violence, decimation, devastation.

When we talk about American dystopia today, we talk about George Orwell. We talk about the classics. We talk about men and power and the end of the world. And Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale is back on the bestseller list and being made into a television series in Trump’s dystopia. We need to look to other stories as well. We need to tell more stories.

The major issues of our times point toward a country, and a world, that we can find in the books of Octavia Butler, Suzanne Collins, Sherri L. Smith, Ambelin Kwaymullina, and Alaya Dawn Johnson. Many “Girls on Fire” tell us stories that speak to intersectional futures—to multifaceted ideas, people, and movements and to the possibilities of change in many possible futures.
*
This collection seeks critical and creative explorations of dystopia: short stories, essays, graphic art, interviews, poems, testimonials, or any format that uses dystopia as a means for understanding the present moment. This collection seeks the stories, the images, the ideas and ideals of “Girls on Fire”—to inspire hope, vision, and action through the power of dystopic visions. To get us all through the fear, disappointment, anger, and anxiety.

Tell a compelling story that sheds light on our present moment and inspires us to work for a better future. Write a scathing commentary that exposes the problems of the present and the possibilities of the future. Capture a moment, an image that speaks to today’s dystopia. Imagine a manifesto, a moment, a movement. Create an image that moves us and makes us think. Use your arts—your mind and your heart and your skills and your training—to speak back to the present through the lens of tomorrow.

Imagine what the future of America looks like—30 days, 4 years, or several decades or centuries into the future. How has Trump’s reign shaped our cities, the country, the world? How have we been divided; how have we been united? What is the state of the climate, our social and cultural institutions? What dystopic future grows from the present moment? What challenges do people face? Where is there hope? What are Girls on Fire making from this future?

This collection is intended as a sort of companion piece to (working title): Girls on Fire: American Dystopia and Intersectional Futures, Sarah Hentges’ forthcoming book from McFarland Publishing, Inc. This book explores the ways in which young adult dystopian texts with female protagonists can inspire social justice. It considers foundations and possibilities. It looks to “Girls on Fire”—in fiction, and in life—to lead the way to a better future.

See http://www.cultureandmovement.com/ya-dystopia.html for more information about Girls on Fire: American Dystopia and Intersectional Futures

pdf call for submissions
5,000 words maximum. Images should be high quality.
Inquiries and ideas can be emailed to sarah.hentges@maine.edu
Submit to: sarahdwh8@gmail.com by January 20, 2018

My newest research venture is, by default, YA Dystopia. And "by default" I mean because I am completely obsessed with dystopia in general, but I am particularly addicted to YA dystopia with female protagonists. I call these my "crack books" because I quite literally cannot stop reading them. I can't stop reading without concerted effort and when I put down one and pick up another. Life isn't the same without being engaged in this other world for part of the time. And so of course that obsession extends itself into a kernel for teaching and research.

My real interest in dystopia came via Octavia Butler's novels and Star Trek fantasies (next Gen, of course!). My YA obsession began, predictably, with the Hunger Games. Before I was a third of the way through I ordered the next two books because I didn't want to have any interruption in my reading experience. I read straight through. And I had to find more. I worried I would never find another  reading experience like HG. While I read plenty of books that did not fall into this "narrow" category, some related and some not, I read books like the Birthmarked trilogy and the Chemical Garden trilogy and my less favorite works that focus more on boys: the Maze Runner Trilogy and the Ender's Game series. But there is so much more!

When I began to find monotony in the plot and characters/characteristics of the protagonists, I was floored when my friend forwarded me a link to a blog via Bitch Magazine. This was exactly what I had been looking for, hoping for, longing for--books that had protagonists who were girls of color. Visions of the future that consider how race, ethnicity, and identity are factors in the future. This discovery is what sparked my interest in looking at YA Dystopia as more than just an obsessive fan. There is way too much to explore (and that's exciting!).

In the spring of 2015 I will be teaching an online topics course called "Girls on Fire: Gender, Culture, and Justice in YA Dystopia." When I proposed this course one of my colleagues suggested I spell out what "YA" is. Half joking, I told him that anyone who doesn't know what YA is, I don't want them in this course! There are so many other  readers out there who are interested in this genre and read just as--or almost as--voraciously as I do. I know this class will be in demand.

This interdisciplinary course is cross-listed between American studies, English, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies and will consider the topics in the title as well as race, community, power, sexuality, technology, the environment, politics, etc. I am excited about the projects that we will engage with to explore this rich body of work. I'll be teaching online and developing resources related to the genre, including a guide to the best books.

Inevitably I'll be working on a book project related to this work as well. In many ways it mirrors the body of work that I explored in my first book, Pictures of Girlhood: Modern Female Adolescence on Film. YA Dystopia has many of the same themes--coming of age, absent parents, violence, limited representations, etc.--but it also has the context of the future and the bigger picture of the fate of the world (or at least a little piece of that world). These "girls on fire" give us hope in the present for the future.

Charlyne Yi’s film Paper Heart pushes at the edges of popular ideas of romance and love as well as the boundaries of “girls’ film.” In its mix of scripted plot and documentary, this “mockumentary” style  film not only complicates ideas about girls’ film but also ideas of love and romance and the expectations that we have for girls in American culture.
Yi first gained mainstream recognition for her “stoner” role in Knocked Up which helped to gain some attention for her film, Paper Heart. In fact, many of the friends interviewed in Paper Heart are also comedians and several are in recent films and TV shows. And all of these friends are men. At one point, Yi and her director (fellow actor Jake Johnson playing Nick Jasenovic) comments that she wants to be one of the guys and she says that she is one of the guys. And as a quirky, goofy comedian, singer, songwriter, painter she fits right in. This film firmly establishes her talent amongst the popular young comedians who dominate film and
TV. Both Yi and the real Jasenovic won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for the dramatic category at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. 

Charlyne Yi plays a scripted version of herself as does Michael Cera while Jake Johnson plays a scripted version of director, Nick Jasonevic. In the midst of this scripted film, Yi also plays herself making a documentary where she interviews an assortment of people about their views on love. The DVD also provides a variety of deleted scenes and other special features that offer a closer look into the film, and into Yi’s comedy, and also reveal some insights into what went into making Paper Heart. Even with all of these pieces, Paper Heart defies categorization and definition. It ironically challenges the omnipresence of film crews in the lives of celebrities and reality TV stars and deliberately mixes fact and fiction. Yi’s talents are showcased, real ordinary people’s ideas are considered, celebrity is tapped, and the audience gets an entertaining and thought-provoking film. 

Aside from the film there are other aspects that must be considered when looking at Paper Heart as a girls’ film. As mentioned above, all of the other actors and comedians in this film are young men and Yi fits right in. She fits in with her sarcasm, wit, humor, and style and she is accepted amongst her peers. And as a peer she establishes a sub-narrative in this film about love as these young men see it. She questions the existence of love in the midst of men who assure her that love does exist; in fact, the only female friend who is consulted gives her take during a phone conversation with the director-actor. In some ways this depiction of love is a kind of role reversal from masculine and feminine stereotypes and in other ways this exploration of love allows Yi to exist almost completely outside of her gender and race.

If the subject of  the film was not “love,” then perhaps Yi might have been able to escape the familiar traps of gender. But in many ways she complicated, diverts, or undermines gendered expectations. For instance, when Yi does what can be expected in a film about a girl searching for love—like trying on a wedding dress—the brief moment that this scene occupies, and the total lack of interest or comfort that this ritual conveys, subverts the usual high-pitched ooing and awing that often accompanies such displays of heterosexual normality. Yi’s gender identity is made virtually invisible in this film and in her professional persona. She retains her status as one of the guys throughout the film as Nick fulfills the role of best friend and her pursuit of love happens almost reluctantly. Michael Cera’s character reveals heterosexuality and their courting (for lack of a better term) which includes very few stereotypical feminine/masculine roles, perhaps in part because of Michael Cera’s perceived innocence and awkwardness and Yi’s own awkwardness and sexlessness. The ever-present cameras help to increase the awkwardness and are a good excuse for a lack of physical expression, even if these elements are scripted.

In addition to invisibility concerning her gender identity, Yi’s racial/ethnic identity is also made invisible, even more so than her gender. Despite the fact that Yi is of mixed racial heritage and “looks Asian”, her ethnic/racial identity is never a topic of a joke or any conversation in the film. It is never mentioned and she is, for the most part, the only non-white comedian in the film or in her cadre of peers. This is, of course, refreshing to an extent. Yi is allowed to just “be herself” and she has control over the persona we are seeing. This alone accounts for the lack of stereotypes and casting limitations that are typical for girls and women (particularly girls and women of color) in film and especially in comedy. It is because of this lack of engagement with
racial or ethnic identities or issues that Yi is able to maintain her racial/ethnic invisibility and her uniqueness. She is just one of the (white) guys who happens to be a cute/nerdy girl.

Charlyne Yi might be talking to people about love, but because this is an abstract idea, she is able to mostly detach love from the body. In fact, initially the film that Yi intended to make was a documentary and she did not intend to be on camera.  Love is discussed for its physiological and neurological effects (physical qualities that are independent of physical appearance) as
she interviews scientists, but love is mostly discussed abstractly, mostly heterosexually, and mostly romantically. The brief departures are too far and few between—when she interviews a gay couple (men) and when biker’s tell her that their friendships are the truest kind of love, for instance. Yi’s spontaneous interviews with children also provide for a variety of
view points on the subject of love and reveal just how much children internalize cultural messages about love and romance.

Part of the beauty of this film is that amidst these conflicting cultural massages about love is a film that purposely confuses the line between real and not real. Because of this confusion there was also confusion over just how much of the film was “real,” particularly regarding the fictional romance between Cera and Yi that was purported as real in a variety of film reviews and promotions. At least some of the film’s success can be attributed to the role that Cera played by playing himself and that many fans and critics confused the film for reality. In a N.Y. Times article published just before the theatrical release of Paper
Heart, Dave Itskoff writes: “Ms. Yi’s choice of Mr. Cera for this role would seem deliberate, even daring, given that the two are widely reported to have been romantically involved in real life. But Ms. Yi declined to discuss her history with Mr. Cera. ‘Whether or not me and Michael are together or were ever together is irrelevant,’ she said. ‘We’re acting, and we’re also friends, so that doesn’t make it difficult.’” And, yet, even the press for Paper Heart seems to be contradictory as Yi has had to answer questions about her relationship with Cera and most of Yi’s post-film press has been about this relationship. Cera, on the other hand, has other films and his growing fame to talk about. Being linked with Yi only gives him more star power, especially since the tabloids report how he dumped her because of his mega-fame. 

And yet, I think Yi holds her own against these interrogations (and perhaps as a result doesn’t seem to get a whole lot of post-Paper Heart work). In an interview in August 2009, Yi remarks, “Someone sent me an article that I was really sad. It says that
I'm sad that we're touring together.” She dismisses this conjecture with the fact that Cera is working on another film, only one answer in her arsenal. The public interest, verging on obsession, with the status of Yi and Cera’s relationship not only speaks to our celebrity-obsessed culture but also to our obsession with romance and sexuality—at least the fictionalized versions.