In Novels for Girls, Fashion Trumps Romance

Michael Winerip

New York Times

July 13, 2008

A WHILE back, Naomi Johnson, a communications professor at Longwood University in Virginia, sent me her doctoral thesis, which she described as a feminist analysis of the new wave of teenage romance novels. I don’t read lots of dissertations, and almost tossed this one when the words “ontological,” “objectivist” and “constructivist” appeared in the same sentence, on Page 38. But I kept at it, because one of the series for teenagers that Dr. Johnson analyzed was the best-selling “Clique” books, which my 14-year-old daughter, Annie, loves and we buy the moment the newest one hits the bookstore.

As others have, Dr. Johnson questions the female characters’ preoccupation with looks, thinness, fashion, makeup, wealth — we’re talking spoiled, rich middle-school girls from Westchester County. But what grabbed me as new was her documentation of what she called the “incessant litany of brand names.” She examined three series, with combined sales of 13.5 million — “Clique,” “Gossip Girl” and “A-List” — and found, on average, there was more than one brand mentioned per page, 1,553 brand mentions in 1,431 pages of the six books she had read.

Massie, the lead “Clique” character, doesn’t wear miniskirts and sandals. She wears Moschino minis, Jimmy Choo sandals, and Chanel No. 19 on her thin wrists, rides in a Range Rover, drinks Glaceau Vitamin Water and totes her books in a Louis Vuitton backpack.

Dr. Johnson concluded that romancing boys was no longer the primary objective of this new generation of romance novels, as it had been in the good old days of the 184-book series “Sweet Valley High.”

In the new romances, she wrote, “brands are more important than romantic relationships to female protagonists’ popularity.”

“Heroines no longer become women through romance, they become feminine through consumption.”

Indeed, you can often tell the bad guys by their unfortunate brand choices. The beautiful heroine of the “A-List” series, Anna, drives a Lexus (mentioned seven times in Chapter 1 of “American Beauty”) and wears a Molinari dress and Sigerson Morrison sandals. The poor thing gets in a car crash with some idiot middle-aged woman in a rusty Honda Civic, whose gray roots are showing and — here you may want to exercise parental discretion — who is wearing a bad Chanel knockoff scarf.

But the most worrisome issue Dr. Johnson raises is whether these fashion companies paid the book publishers to have their products mentioned. The three series were written by different authors, but were created and packaged by Alloy Media and Marketing and then sold to Little, Brown publishers. One of Alloy’s chief revenue streams is product placement. As Alloy says on its Web site, it is very good at reaching the pre-teen and teenage audience — through ads in student publications, ads on hot Internet sites, even ads in school bathrooms.

Had the fashion companies paid Alloy to have their products named in these books? Dr. Johnson was concerned because of a posting on Alloy’s Web site in 2006: “Advertisers have the opportunity to get their products or services cast in these best-selling books. The value of these mentions far exceeds the hundreds of thousands of readers, creating a viral product buzz.”

Dr. Johnson says she e-mailed Alloy about its policy, but got no response.

The author of the “Clique” series, Lisi Harrison, as well as representatives of Alloy and Little, Brown all responded to my calls. They were adamant that there had never been any paid placements. “There was no product placement in any of those books, nothing,” said Les Morgenstein, president of Alloy Entertainment, a division of Alloy Media. “We never had any cross-promotion deals, no barter exchanges, nothing.”

Mr. Morgenstein said that the 2006 Web posting had been from another Alloy division. “They had at one point thought this could be an opportunity for our books, but nothing ever came of it,” he said. “No brand ever expressed interest.”

He said that there is paid product placement for the “Gossip Girl” television series on the CW network. And both he and Megan Tingley, the publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, said that while they had never done paid product placement in any book, they would not rule it out in the future. Both said that if they ever did, “transparency” would be essential. “We would make it clear that’s the case,” Ms. Tingley said.

I asked Ms. Harrison, the “Clique” author, why, then, her books named brands so often. “Details are what make the books seem so real for these girls,” she said. “It feels very current, like one of them wrote it. It’s actually the stuff they’re talking about.”

Originally, she saw it as satirical, she said, a kind of “over-the-top absurdity.” She says that growing up in Toronto (for the record, she has never lived in Westchester, just visited a few times for weddings), she was never permitted designer clothes: “To this day I’ve never bought any high-brand designer clothing.”

Critics, including Naomi Wolf in The New York Times Book Review, disparaged the books for focusing on girls with such bad values, but Ms. Harrison says that just because a popular, fashion-obsessed mean girl is the protagonist, that doesn’t mean those are the author’s values. “Massie’s a bully,” Ms. Harrison said. “But she’s insecure. She talks a big game but she can’t deliver. By humanizing the social bully, it shows her weaknesses and makes her less fearsome. It takes some of the power from the mean girls.”

Dr. Johnson doesn’t advocate — as some librarians have — pulling the books off the shelf or stopping your daughter from reading them. “Educators should not ignore the pleasures of reading romance novels,” she wrote. “Or treat adolescents as hapless victims of media influence.” She suggests that parents talk to their daughters about Massie’s values, “versus judging people by their heart and intellect and skills.”

And so, I recently read my first “Clique” book. As has been true with romance novels since the beginning of time, Massie doesn’t just speak, she blurts; Alicia gushes, Dylan snorts, Claire’s blood boils and the horses they ride along Westchester bridle paths have thunderous hooves.

On the other hand, Massie’s boyfriend Chris has eyes the color of a royal blue Polo shirt.

“Frankly, sometimes I found the books really entertaining,” Dr. Johnson told me, and so did I. While I didn’t feel the thrill I had when Annie read “To Kill a Mockingbird” for school, there was nothing in the “Clique” book that gave me pause. At her age, I read a ton of trashy sports books.

The mass media has power, but for my money, a vigilant parent has lots more. Annie may devour every word of Massie’s nastiness, but unlike Massie, Annie plays catcher on her softball team and was the only female trumpet player in the county jazz band this year and is working two part-time jobs this summer.

As for clothes, when she had her eighth-grade stepping-up ceremony last month, we didn’t go to Barneys New York and buy Prada. My wife went down the street, borrowed five dresses from a neighbor and Annie picked the one she liked best.

Still, as Annie strode across the middle-school stage in Mrs. Briffel’s borrowed dress, I couldn’t help noticing her eyes sparkled like Tiffany diamonds.