Angela McRobbie’s Analysis of Jackie Essay

This essay will be exploring Angela McRobbies analysis of Jackie and why the snip has seen a reinvigorated found popularity in juvenile years. Jackie was a popular British hebdomadary teen time missys magazine make by Scottish company D.C. Thomson which was published from 1964 up until 1993. It was named later the childrens author Jacqueline Wilson who worked for D.C. Thomson at the period. The magazine was most popular with daughters in the age range of 10 to 14. forrader Jackie made its de merely when, magazines aimed at teenaged girls were unremarkably romance orientated comic strips much(prenominal) as Mirabelle, Romeo and Valentine. Although Jackie did indeed attribute amatory stories, they were not the main focus of the magazine. Features that had commonly antecedently vauntd only in womens magazines such as hassle pages, fashion pages, readers reliable life stories, and hair and beauty advice were at unrivaled time introduced to a teenage population. Inde ed Jackie was create verbally by the womens magazine section of D.C.Thomson rather than the one focus on childrens comics such as The keno and The Dandy. Taking all this into consideration, it could be argued that Jackie provided the blueish print for the modern teenage girls magazines. In her analysis, McRobbie says she feels that Jackie tapped into the biological constitution of teenage girls, when they saltation to be go down to a greater extent curious well-nigh their changing bodies and start to show an interest in the other energize. The Cathy and Claire caper pages were a popular device characteristic with readers of the magazine, and many a(prenominal) problems readers wrote in with mainly foc utilise on boys and other common problems that come hand in hand with growing up. McRobbie believes that one purpose of the magazine was to build up girls for the brief flowering period that many new-fashionedborn functional class women in that time had before spousal s but after they had just left educate and started work and so had freedom and a disposable income to go out with their friends to pubs and dances and deprave adult items such as frock and make-up.Richard Hoggart discusses this period in his analysis of working class teenage girls in his word of honor The Uses of Literacy. One feature Jackie was famous for was its moving picture stories that provided a stepping stone to fame for celebrities such as Fiona Bruce and Hugh Grant, which were usually of a romantic nature, in the style thought to appeal to the unexampled women of the target audience. These provided girls with a romantic noble-minded which McRobbie discusses in her analysis of the magazine, McRobbie believes that young girls atomic number 18 conditioned to seek romantic baserelationships instead of sexual ones and that romantic stories identical the ones that featured in Jackie and other magazines aimed at teenaged girls at the time helped to strengthen this. Again, these flowerpot wait comically clichd and dated by the standards of instantly.In fact, one of the discernments that Jackie may ease up regained popularity is that this style of name, although plausibly reasonable at the time written, seem almost laughable and maybe withal politically incorrect by todays standards (for example one article featured in The beaver of Jackie one-year on ways how to attract boys suggests that a girl should try sitting on a park bench feel tearful, and a fashion feature refers to plus sized girls as fatties and real slim girls as existence outride comparable). To many flock in 2012, these almost seem like satire. Indeed, on the popular bookselling website Amazon, The Best of Jackie Annual and its spinoffs such as Dear Cathy and Claire The Best of Your Favourite Problem Page can be found under the sub-category indulge.A feature that can be found in The Best of Jackie Annual, which had previously been published as a image of an ac tual Jackie Christmas annual, on how to survive Christmas parties advises the readers to be wary of drunken bosses and uncles making passes at them. This is disturbingly mentioned in a unconcerned and almost light hearted fashion, like it is a common occurrence to be expected, and maybe even tolerated. The idea of a girl so young being arrogate in a vulnerable fructify with a much elder man, in particular one who is in a mystify of authority or a relative, would be un in all probability to be treated in this fashion today. This article may look humorous to some people in a dark way, simply because it is so shocking and highly inappropriate by todays standards. Another reason why Jackie may have seen a new increase in popularity is because older women, who would have been readers of Jackie in the past, may indirect request to look back at their spring chicken and remember a much simpler time before they had children to worry over, bills to pay, jobs (or lack of them) and m ortgages. face back on the past is something which has eer been precise popular with people and becomes more than common during times of economic recession, like the one Britain (and Europe in general) has been essay with in recent years. There be numerous discussions on the internet in forums with older women talking fondly about their experiences and memories of reading Jackie. When Jackie stopped being published in 1993, D.C. Thomson realised a new magazine aimed at teenaged girls called telephone,which could perchance be seen by some people as a rebranding of Jackie. Shout is quiesce being published today and I comp ard a recent copy of Shout from May 2012 to a copy of Jackie from June 1981. both magazines feature a famous person on the front cover, with Shout having Cheryl Cole and Jackie having crack Ant, and both also have plug adverts on the back covers. A similar layout to that which Jackie used, and which McRobbie discusses in Jackie An Ideology of Adolescent Fe mininity, is used in Shout.Problem pages, fashion pages, celebrity gossip, hair and beauty advice, pin-ups of attractive antheral celebrities, horoscopes and readers true-life stories all feature in both magazines, although in that respect are clear generational differences in these articles amidst the two magazines. Advice given in the problem pages of Shout is more concerned with more serious issues such as sex and alcohol abuse and also offers life history advice. In the days of Jackies popularity girls were not often encouraged to stay on to do further education after the compulsory school leaving age and usually got married at an age which would be considered very young today, whereas today many girls go on to go to college and university and choose to put off marriage and having children to a later stage in life, if they opt to at all.Jackie also contained fix and knitting patterns, which are things which are no longer common hobbies with teenaged girls today. This is lik ely repayable to fashionable clothing being sold cheaply in supermarkets and high-street stores such as Primark and Asda. The popularity of teenage magazines is currently on the decline, with many once popular magazines no longer being published. This is possibly due to the fact that the features of teenage magazines such as celebrity gossip, hair and beauty tips and updates on the latest fashions are readily ready(prenominal) on the internet. Even if a young girl finds herself in need of advice there are now websites such as Yahoo Answers, Girls Ask Guys and Answerbag where she will be able to get (possibly dubious) responses to her question right away from a variety of people across the world and there is also websites pitch up by charities offering advice on more serious matters such as abuse, bullying, drugs and sexual health.It is also worth having a brief look at the scene of the magazines existence, with the early-mid 1960s being a reasonable period of growth in Britai n. In the nation of travail leader Harold Wilsons white affectionateness (Sandbrook, 2005737) a nation still getting over the war, butproudly (if cautiously) march on in what historian Dominic Sandbrook called a new era of creativity and progress (Sandbrook, 2005737) it is only natural that Britains young women would have a need for their own frolic and place for advice. While it is true that this is not the intended focus of the essay, such a background should not be ignored, and may go some way towards explaining the magazines eventual demise(arguably, rebranding) in the very different world of the 1990s.