Drag or Drugs

*scratching my head and looking puzzled* - Um, I don't want to sound completely ignorant or anything, but who/what are/were the "Famous Five" (besides being a book)?

As a role model for me, well, I kind of always liked superwoman (her lasso was quite entertaining), but, more seriously, I liked Nancy Drew because she used her intelligence to figure-out things, and, well, I liked most of Judy Blume's female characters. And, well, I was always annoyed by Alice - it seemed to me that she needed to curb that curiosity a bit - I had no sympathy for her. But now as "an adult" (I hate that phrase!) I find her to be endearing. Go figure.

I think it should be specified that this is about girl role models for girls, because of course kids can and do use ole models of a different gender to them (though sadly probably some kids fail to do so in some way, or altogether??).

Other suggestions: from literature = Pippi Longstocking, Harriet the Spy.

Short shameful confession: As a child watching the Star Wars movies I somehow thought that Chewbacca was supposed to be a female wookie. And I identified with "her" -- even though she was ugly she was strong and could stand up for herself, and went and had adventures rather than being a pawn the way Leia was. This misinterpretation probably explains a lot about why I turned out the way I did.

chewbacca was hott

j. lu - when we played "star Wars" I was usually assigned the "Leia" role - and then the boys stopped doing that 'cause I kept beating them in fights. So I got to be Luke and all was well - I miss my old cardboard lightsaber these days *sigh*

But Judy Blume's characters are all so stupid! Like, the books were great fun, especially Forever, but the lead characters were so uninspiring - I thought that part of the idea when she wrote them was for the reader to be able to relate to their weaknesses etc. but to not idolise them because they were so imperfect.

Famous Five - Enid Blyton series with a two brothers, Julian and Dick, their younger sister Anne and their tomboy cousin, George - oh, and Timmy the dog.

Julian was the oldest and he was big and blonde and strong. Dick was kind of quiet and had dark hair. Anne was blonde and girly and quite pathetic. Those three all went to boarding school and spent the hols at Georges. I don't think they ever saw their parents.

George had short, dark, curly hair; negelectful parents; a great cook; didn't go to boarding school and was SO COOL!

There were very few parents in Enid Blyton's books.

I agree about the "Forever" girl - Katherine, I think (I actually named my guppies after her and her boyfriend when I was 11 - then the female at the male and I became disillusioned with relationships).

And I actually meant "Beverly Cleary" instead of Judy Blume (I'll blame that on the late hour). I loved Beezus and had a lot of admiration for the stuff that Ramona did (I actually squeezed out a whole tube of toothpaste, to see what it was like, but I squeezed into the toilet bowl, followed by multiple flushes, so my mother just thought she'd misplaced the tube). But I did like some of Blume's "supporting" female characters, though for the life of me I can't recall any exact names or details at the moment.

I also liked Trixie Belden; Annette (yeah, Funacello [spelling?] - they were a series of books based on her character); and Jo from "Little Women."

Of course, I have to admit that I "permanently borrowed" a neighbor's copy of "Fear of Flying" at age 11 - that kind of warped my view of potential role models - I wanted to have weird sex and write about it - took me years to learn the literary references Jong included. Anyway, having her as a partial role model pretty much made me an odd duck at school - I was always quoting some of the choicer passages to horrify other girls. Couple of years later the boys thought it was great that a girl would say such things. But by then I thought that boys were idiots and only wanted older men. My poor mother.

I like the sound of the Enid Blyton's books - I remember a series by Monica Dickens called "World's End" or something like that. Four kids, parents basically absent (they occasionally show-up but are pretty laxidasical about supervision), who lived in a ramshackle old house, full of all sorts of adopted animals and basically raised themselves. The girls there were pretty strong, as far as I can remember.

This is my last post for the evening - it's 2:30 AM here and mybed is loudly calling my name. Have a great day!

I would fear for the sanity of any girl who wanted to be Anne from the Famous Five.

Faced with the lack of good female role models, smart girls will always start identifying with the coolest boy. Hence why I think there are so many female bassists of A Certain Age - blame John Taylor.

Me, I wanted to be one of the Three Investigators. Nancy Drew was lame and Trixie Belden, well, she so bloody GINGER...

But the characters I most identified with were the girls from The House At World's End. They were dead cool, they were not wimps and they collected animals and ignored their step-parents.

I've never read a Famous Five book. Will I have to return my British passport?

i identified with kimber from jem and the holograms. hence i had the doll.

sabrina from charlie's angels, because she kicked arse compared to the other two long-haired idiots.

LCD: you mean Wonder Woman. She was helpless when bound by a man, you know. I think they quietly dropped that weakness some years ago.

I wanted to go to Sweet Valley High. Read a bajillion of those and the Twins books. Thought of myself as growing up to be just like Elizabeth, the wiser, more stable, and slightly older of the two.

Will everyone lynch me if i say that I just wanted to be a beautiful little fool, like, say, Barbie?

did no-one want to be Velma?

Only to get closer to Shaggy...

My role models:

Cimorene from Dealing with Dragons, who was very common sensical and funny. She outsmarted a bunch of dragons and princes and ended up marrying the king of the Enchanted Forest, who wasn't too bad at all. Also Emily from L.M. Montgomery's Emily books, because she was so creative, and I wanted to be creative. And King Arthur, I was obsessed with that story.