The Culture of Mean

Emily D. Ryalls

The Culture of Mean

Representing Bullies and Victims
in Popular Culture

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Frankfurt • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ryalls, Emily D., author.
Title: The culture of mean: representing bullies and victims in popular
culture / Emily D. Ryalls.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2018.
Series: Mediated youth; Volume 30
ISSN 1555-1814 (print) | ISSN 2378-2935 (online)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017038561 | ISBN 978-1-4331-4618-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4619-0 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4620-6 (ebook pdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4621-3 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4622-0 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Bullies in mass media.
Bullies—United States.
Bullying in schools—United States.
Bullying—Social aspects—United States.
Teenagers in mass media.
Classification: LCC P96.B852 U679 | DDC 302.34/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2017038561
DOI 10.3726/b12950

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

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About the author

Emily D. Ryalls received her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida. She is an assistant professor in the Communication Studies Department at California Polytechnic State University.

About the book

The Culture of Mean is the first book-length feminist critical exploration of representations of youth bullying in media. Bringing into conversation scholarship on feminism, media, new communication technologies, surveillance, gender, race, sexuality, and class, Emily D. Ryalls critically examines the explosion of discourse about youth bullying that has occurred in the United States during the last two decades. Countering the monolithic and extreme cultural reaction to narratives about bullying, Ryalls argues that, while it seems common sense to view bullying as always wrong and dangerous, not all aggression is bullying and it is problematic to assume so, because it becomes very difficult to differentiate between healthy conflict and unhealthy (potentially violent) torment. Moreover, since the label “bullying” often does not differentiate between teasing, conflict, sexual harassment, and violence, increasingly the most common way to deal with young people accused of bullying is to criminalize their actions. Through an analysis of books, film, television, and journalistic accounts of bullying, The Culture of Mean shows how constructions of bullying in popular culture create an overly simplistic binary of good and bad people. This process individualizes the problem of bullying and disallows a more complex understanding of the structural issues at work by suggesting that putting an end to bullying simply requires incarcerating those evil teens who are prone to bullying behaviors. This critical perspective of bullying will be of interest to scholars and students interested in the fields of girls’ studies, cultural studies, communication, education, sociology, and media studies, as well as parents of school-aged children.

“The Culture of Mean offers a sea change, asking us to reconsider everything we think we know about bullying. Through careful analysis of both public policy and media myths about bullying—that relational bullying is carried out only by girls and that it is more damaging than physically violent bullying, that bullying and suicide are inextricable, that youth inevitably use new communication technologies to cyberbully—Emily D. Ryalls makes clear that our current cultural response to bullying not only is ineffectual but also perpetuates troubling sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia. A cutting-edge and unwavering media analysis useful for media scholars, policy makers, parents, and the countless of us who have both been bullies and bullied.”—Sarah Projansky, University of Utah

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction Mean Girls, Cyberbullying, and Bullycide: An Introduction to Bullying Culture

Chapter 1 Empowering Ophelia: Postfeminist Empowerment in the Mean Girl Discourse

Chapter 2 Bullies in the News: The Tyler Clementi and Phoebe Prince Suicides

Chapter 3 “I Can Be a Bitch When I Wanna Be”: Queering “Mean Boys” Through Social Aggression

Chapter 4 The Hierarchy of Victimhood in Bully

Chapter 5 “Beware of Young Girls”: Millennial Mean Girls in Scream Queens

Chapter 6 Prepping the Queen Bee: Mean Girls and Bad Wannabes on Gossip Girl

Conclusion Trumping the Myths of Bullying

Index ←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Acknowledgments

During my doctoral program at the University of South Florida, a professor questioned how we found ourselves in a class doing media criticism. “No one dreams of being a film critic,” he opined, but he was wrong. I did. My earliest passion was popular culture. On Saturday mornings, when my peers were watching cartoons, I was glued to the TV watching Siskel & Ebert. I am grateful to them for showing me at a young age that nerding out over popular culture could potentially be a career choice. I try to always remind myself how fortunate I am to live a life in which I love and critique popular culture and get to share that passion with my students who consistently turn me on to new shows and movies that I would certainly miss if left to my own devices.

While my family undoubtedly thought it strange that I spent my days off from school walking to the local video store, they have shown me unconditional love. I thank my father who I am slowly but surely turning in to, and Aunt Lorraine who I always hoped I would become. I thank my brother for never hesitating to make fun of me and, in doing so, reminding me to not take myself too seriously. I thank my godmother for continuing to beg me to not become too liberal (it’s too late, Aunt Donna), and Aunt Debbie for being always willing to see a movie with me, without asking questions, even though she knows that odds are she won’t “get” it or it will make her uncomfortable.←ix | x→ Although often exasperated by my political leanings, my family never misses a chance to tell me how proud they are of me for which I am forever grateful.