Why I hate Miss Piggy: a belated post for International Women's Day

[baratron]

Some people on another forum were doing a "Which Muppet are you?" test and wanted me to take it too. It decided I was Kermit, and I was unimpressed. When I said I'm not a fan of Kermit or Miss Piggy, someone replied saying "What is wrong with you!?". This is my answer:

When I first became aware of gender, aged around 3, it seemed like just one of those things that made people different, like hair and eye colour. It never occurred to me that it should be a big deal. But I had toy cars, a garage, and a train set, and so from that early age, I had to deal with people telling me that the toys I wanted to play with weren't suitable for girls. This made no sense to me - no one was going around saying that only kids with blond hair or only kids with brown eyes could play with some particular toy, so why were toys labelled as "for boys" and "for girls"? Thus I became a feminist at the age of 3.

At primary school, I was mad about dinosaurs, cars and football. At secondary school, it was science, computers and science fiction. I spent a lot of time wishing I was a boy - not because I thought there was something intrinsically wrong with my gender, but because everyone else seemed to think there was something wrong with me. I figured that if I was a boy, I could be into what I enjoyed without anyone giving me grief for it. I wish that when I was told "Girls don't do that", I'd thought of the argument "But I'm a girl, and I do that".

So why do I hate Miss Piggy? Well, as far as I'm aware, Miss Piggy is the only female Muppet. (I've thought through the characters of the Muppet Babies cartoon: Kermit, Miss Piggy, Animal, Gonzo, Bunsen, Beaker and Rowlf; and I can't think of any other female Muppets among the regular cast, like Pepe the Prawn and the two old guys in the theatre box). I was a child annoyed at the second-class position in life that being a girl seemed to occupy, and I always noticed inequalities in stories and tv programmes. It would bother me immensely if female characters were treated differently from male ones.

Miss Piggy is the antithesis of me. Femmy, flouncy, self-obsessed, in love with makeup, clothes and boys. A total diva. She flirts with any handsome man who appears on the programme, in a silly, swoony sort of way. Not with humour, not with wit or cleverness, but purely with physical appearance. I cannot stand that character and any real-life people who are like that - like many of the girls I was at school with. They might have had brains, but as soon as a boy came along, they lost all their intelligence and turned into simpering idiots. Ugh.

I have believed for as long as I can remember that tv programmes should show equal numbers of male and female characters, and that all types of male and female should be represented. OK, you want to have a silly girl who loses her head over "boys" for some reason that will make no sense to your preschool audience - fine - but make sure there are plenty of strong women there too. (I note that many of the mothers of my acquaintance are the strongest women I know.) In the same way, make sure that strong men aren't the only type presented - give us creative and intelligent men - artists, songwriters, dreamers, crafters. The Muppets managed that side of the equation, with sensitive Kermit and dreamer Rowlf, so I don't get why they dropped the ball with the female characters. Show kids that girls should be able to do everything that boys can do - and vice versa.

And guess how the other poster replied to my explanation, over at that other forum? "lol - it's just the Muppets!".

I disagree. On one level, it is just a tv programme - but children are born with no real prejudices at all. They absorb and are taught their prejudices from the adults around them. Miss Piggy is gender stereotyping presented for generations of kids in a multitude of countries to absorb subliminally. She portrays a form of ridiculously vulnerable "femininity" that makes girls think that's what being a woman is all about. It messes with the head of any girl determined to put her brain before her beauty, and encourages us to reject femininity altogether. But just as you can be female without being feminine, you can be feminine without being silly or vulnerable. It's always possible to wear stompy boots under your skirt in case you need to run or fight.

Comments

[otterylexa.livejournal.com]

There's a female character with long hair, in the band and as a veterinary nurse in the Animal Hospital sketches. Don't remember her name.

Yes, Miss Piggy is annoyingly femmy, but on the other hand, she is clearly the one in the driving seat in her relationship with Kermit, and she has the Karate chop thing she does. So she's not totally wussy.

[otterylexa.livejournal.com]

Janice (http://www.hezzie.com/janicelarge.html)

[kiya]

I was in my twenties before it occurred to me that Janice was female, mind....

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Janice before in my life! Is she new?

[rhionnach.livejournal.com]

How familiar is this. I was always being told I shouldn't play with the "boys" toys but be a "little lady"! What a pile of poo! I do so agree with your observations.

I have to disagree.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Gonzo's chicken friends are all girls.

Janice, in the band, is definitely not a girly girl - she's a hippie!

Miss Piggy is certainly not a girly girl. She is the absolute boss in that group of puppets. NOBODY says no to her.

Re: I have to disagree.

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

She does have a tendency to karate-chop people who piss her off. I'm not sure that qualifies her as a "strong" woman though. More like an unstable psycho.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of the Male charaters were grotesque steriotypes as well the only exceptions really were Ralph and Kermit who were Frank and jim's first two charaters from before the days when they had thier own show and were just performing on the veriety scene. In effect they were Jim and Frank's own muppet alter Egos and as such made to be what they thought of as normal good people. I suppose there was also scooter who was what you would think of as a young everyman sort but then again when muppet babies came along he had a twin sister called skeeter. They were both smart and reasonably normal with lots of posertive drive. In a way they were both quite geeky (but it was in the good way).

I guess people write what they know. The base player from Electric Mayhem was female and somewhat less nuts than doctor Teeth or Animal.

The muppets is all about Mad but loverble charaters. The point of them was that despite thier floors they were all really good and worthwhile people That included Miss Piggy.

[redbird]

Are you as annoyed as I am at people who ask "What's wrong with you?" for not being a fan of something and then, when you tell them, claim that the something in question is trivial?

There are millions of people, I'm sure, who would say "it's just the muppets"--but they aren't sufficiently invested in the characters to say "what's wrong with you" to an adult who says she's not a fan of Kermit or Miss Piggy. They'd more likely be thinking something like "yeah, I liked that show when I was a kid" and wouldn't think there was something wrong with an adult for not being a fan of a particular muppet.

(What I like about Miss Piggy is that she's unapologetically fat.)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

"Are you as annoyed as I am at people who ask "What's wrong with you?" for not being a fan of something and then, when you tell them, claim that the something in question is trivial?"

That annoys me, but what annoys me more is when people ask "What's wrong with you?" for being a fan of something and demand that I justify my enjoyment of the thing. It doesn't happen a lot, but for example, once I loaned a movie that I really loved to a friend of mine and he disliked it. That's fine. However, he grilled me for HOURS about it. He wouldn't let it go. It got to the point where his wife finally told him to shut up about it. And it's not that he found it objectionable and wanted to know how I could be complicit or something -- he just didn't think it was a good movie.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I've never watched the muppets, and posted my Miss Piggy result as a BDSM in-joke.

You've met me and know I'm not even vaguely like her.

Other people I know well did much the same thing.

I know it's hard to appreciate silliness when depressed :-(

[36.livejournal.com]

Muppet Babies had Skeeter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeeter_%28muppet%29), Skooter's tomboy sister who was added to balance out Piggy. They acted much like Phil and Lil in Rugrats, in fact I always thought Rugrats was ripping off Muppet Babies as a result of this.

Also, Miss Piggy is a parody of feminine gender roles, she acts vulnerable and swoons and then beats the man over the head for not saving her properly. Of course this is a bit subtle for young kids and it doesn't particularly help when she's the only female muppet in the prime show.

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

I have believed for as long as I can remember that tv programmes should show equal numbers of male and female characters, and that all types of male and female should be represented.

Out of curiousity, do you mean that this should apply to every TV program individually, or just as an overall average? For instance, the main characters in Xena and Charmed are all female (although there are some men in the supporting cast), so do you see that as a bad thing? (I think the same applies to Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, although I've never watched either of them.)

There are similar issues for a couple of comics I've read. For instance, the premise of Y: The Last Man is that a plague has killed all male humans/animals, with the exception of one man (Yorick Brown) and his pet monkey. So, by its nature, that means that the characters are almost all female. On the flipside, Charley's War is a story about life in the trenches during World War I, so the cast is predominantly male. As I say, those are both comics, but presumably this principle would apply if they were adapted for TV, or if there was a separate TV series with the same premise (e.g. Blackadder Goes Forth).

I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just checking whether I've understood you correctly.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

When I wrote that statement, I was thinking specifically of tv for children, and in particular for young children rather than teenagers. The feeling I have is that because gender is so unimportant before puberty, there should be absolutely equal numbers of male and female characters in programmes aimed at young children. The physical differences between little boys and little girls are minimal - their sizes and muscle patterns are almost the same, so why shouldn't they aspire to the same activities and ideas? And I feel that all types of male and female should be represented so that all children feel included. Tomboyish girls and sissyish boys have enough to deal with on a daily basis, without tv further reinforcing their differences.

I suppose what I feel for adults is something closer to the idea of an overall average. I recognise that there are programmes such as Zena & Sex and the City that are pretty much entirely about strong women, and I think this is a really good thing. I also note your point about historical drama - although interestingly, when we were forced to watch Sharpe programmes by Richard's dad, I did notice how well-characterised the occasional female characters were. They weren't just wives and whores, they had plenty going on in their brief appearances.

One thing I do have a real issue with is sports programming. The majority of sports seen on television are men's sports exclusively. Look at how obsessed our country is with football - but it's always bloody men's football! Professional female footballers exist, but their salaries for a whole year are equal to what professional male footballers may earn in a week or even in a day. Why is women's football not shown along with the men's game? Motor sports, horse racing, snooker, darts, cricket... all men's sports. The only time women get a look-in will be in tennis and athletics. This does make me really angry.

By the way, I appreciate your precision in asking the question.

Muppets

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

When I watched the Muppets it never dawned on me that they had gender - I saw them as asexual beings. Although I thought Smurfette was annoying as without her there'd be 99 Smurfs and no-one would think that girls ought to be in dresses or anything. Still, I didn't identify as anything I recognised in Smurfette, so that was OK.

I was slightly older when the 'Little Miss' books came out to complement the Mr Men. Roger Hargreaves was the brother of the local GP so everyone I knew had grown up with Mr Men, but again I hadn't thought they were gendered (men as in human, I guess), until faced with the new Little Misses. I must have been 8 or so and was furious because 'little' was clearly degrading (why not call them Mrs Men if you must...) and all the cool characteristics had already been taken, leaving pathetic titles such as Little Miss Bossy, Twins, Tiny, Splendid, Sparkly...

Recently Sesame Street US has decided to introduce a pink 'girly' Muppet, arguing that some girls don't think they can be girly and be like the Muppets that already exist. This may be true, but I think there's a greater danger that girls will be convinced that they can only be like the pink Muppet not the wide range of others.

Re: Muppets

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I agree absolutely with your comments about the Smurfs and the Mr Men. Without Smurfette, I would have assumed that the Smurfs were like the dwarfs in Discworld - there are different genders, but they're not visible by looking. But silly girly Smurfette just wrecked it for me.

Actually, I think that is also true of Miss Piggy - I would have assumed that the Muppets were either genderless or like the dwarfs if it wasn't for Miss Piggy. Hrm. This warrants further thought, though I'm not quite sure where I'll get to.

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelated to your post, but I'm putting in the t-shirt order tomorrow and I'm not sure if you want one. Could you let me know?

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Heh! I'd like to see the picture before knowing if I want one. What I said in email is that I only wear t-shirts that are girly fit, because otherwise they are so enormous on me. (Dress length, and the size I need to go over my hips is ridiculously baggy around the rest of me). It's rare for people to bother to get girly fit shirts because few other people seem to favour them. And I really don't need another baggy, dress-length t-shirt to add to my pile of "things to try to alter when I have a sewing machine".

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

As it was an standard men's cotton t-shirt (http://www.artik.com/Images/FOL_images/gildan/1_2000.jpg), I didn't order one for you. If I had more volume I could have had the option of having both regular and girly fit. :/

[ailbhe]

On Sunday, Rob was in the Early Learning Centre to buy a birthday present for a child we know and there was a small boy in tears, clasping a box with a pink bouncing toy in it. His mother was telling him he couldn't have it; she eventually took it away and got him a blue one.

He had a total meltdown "I can't bear it" tantrum. She bought the blue one.

[platypus]

I was just wandering your journal, having come here via mactavish for the fortnight poll, and wow. That's exactly how I felt, growing up (and now, too). My mom called me a "women's libber" when I was small and had no idea what she was talking about, because I thought it was stupid that some toys were for boys and some were for girls. And I hated Miss Piggy.