The Girls and the Others: Racialized Anthropomorphism in the First Season of The Powerpuff Girls

Jalen Thompson

doi:10.4148/2373-0978.1053

Abstract

The Powerpuff Girls (1998) chronicles the lives of three kindergarten-aged girls with superpowers. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were conceived in a laboratory by a scientist, Professor Utonium, out of “sugar, spice, and everything nice” with an accidental spill of “Chemical X” which in turn gives the girls their superpowers to “fight the forces of evil.” As protectors of Townsville, the suburban community in which they reside, each episode shows the girls battling with various villains (usually men) who are established as outsiders to Townsville. The villains are represented as ethnic minorities through racialized anthropomorphism which associates their evilness to their ethnicity. The girls’ fight against “the forces of evil,” then, is a fight keep to maintain a society in which ethnic minorities are not welcome, conveying racist and classist messages. In this paper, I argue that Creator Craig McCracken produces a series in which places white male figures—Professor Utomium and the narrator—establish a white, middle-class, patriarchal society, or a “Townsvillian” society, that the girls must maintain. In a series that appears to pass as a girl power text, the stereotyped representations of the villains relate the series with problematic and less progressive messages, ultimately making it a non-feminist text.

Highlights

The Powerpuff Girls (1998) chronicles the lives of three kindergarten-aged girls who are conceived in a laboratory by a scientist, Professor Utonium,[1] out of “sugar, spice, and everything nice” and an accidental spill of “Chemical X.” With these elements, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are given their superpowers to “fight the forces of evil” (The Powerpuff Girls)
If the creator of the series is unaware that the type of feminism his characters represent is rooted in less progressive messages, one must be critical of how girl power functions in the series as a whole
Throughout the years, The Powerpuff Girls has acquired a breadth of scholarship praising its girl power prose; despite this praise they have been very critical of its failure to engage with intersectional feminism and portrayal of minority characters as villains

Summary

Racialized Anthropomorphism in The Powerpuff Girls

Mojo Jojo (see Fig. 1; referred to later as “Mojo”) is a green-faced, mad scientist, monkey “with narrow eyes and thin lips, whose costume incorporates a flowing cape and turban” combines “caricatures of African, Asian and Middle Eastern races and cultures with a notable, if unplaceable, foreign accent” (Kirkland 255-56) that associates him as a racial Other and a disruption to Townsvillian society. In the concluding seconds of the episode, we hear the narrator say his salutation that is repeated in every episode, “And once again the day is saved thanks to the Powerpuff Girls” (“Monkey See, Monkey Doo”) This repeated ending restates the Townsvillian society that the Powerpuff Girls continually restore—one in which white men are in charge. With the “light” gone from Townsville, Townsvillian society has been overthrown, this causes the narrator to exclaim, “ morning will never come to Townsville and these nocturnal nightmares will be free to hunt the darkness forever!” (“Boogie Frights”) To the narrator, these multicultural “freaks” are taking over the city with their Otherness and their disco music. Like “Monkey See, Monkey Doo,” this episode reveals how the white male voices of the series, manifested in Professor Utonium and the narrator, utilize the Powerpuff Girls to oppress Townsville’s racially anthropomorphized villains

Class and Citizenship

Conclusion

Works Cited