Reading Like a Girl: Narrative Intimacy in Contemporary American Young Adult Literature

2. “Opening Myself Like a Book to the Spine”: Disclosure and Discretion in Constructions of Friendship

29 Chapter 2 “Opening Myself Like a Book to the Spine” Disclosure and Discretion in Constructions of Friendship In Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, a study of adolescent womanhood published in 2002 and marketed to parents of teenage girls, Rosalind Wiseman asserts, Your daughter’s friendships with other girls are a double-edged sword— they’re key to surviving adolescence, yet they can be the biggest threat to her survival as well. The friendships with girls in her clique are a template for many relationships she’ll have as an adult. Many girls will make it through their teen years precisely because they have the support and care of a few good friends. . . . On the other hand girls can be each other’s worst enemies. (3) This construction of friendships as a “double-edged sword” reflects a larger cultural tendency to understand the relationships between adolescent women as either crucial or detrimental to their psychological, emotional , and social “survival.” By framing girls’ friendships as little less than a question of life or death, works such as Wiseman’s advance the belief in 30 Disclosure and Discretion in Constructions of Friendship contemporary American culture that such friendships are necessary for, and simultaneously rife with dangers to, adolescent women’s development of identity. In this chapter, I consider how such contradictory messages about friendship are represented in fiction for adolescent women, both in the portrayals of intimate peer relationships and in the construction of narrator-reader relationships. Although this discussion is concerned primarily with fictional representations of adolescent women’s friendships, it is important to note the degree to which this subject has been examined in other media, such as television, film, and particularly nonfiction works for both parents and young women themselves. In the post–Reviving Ophelia era, these portrayals have frequently embodied the “double-edged sword” model that Wiseman discusses. Television shows have highlighted the on-again, offagain friendships of girl characters, from Kelly and Brenda on the original Beverly Hills 90210 in the mid-1990s to Blair and Serena on the current television show Gossip Girl (based on a popular series of young adult novels by the same name). Reality shows have likewise capitalized on such portrayals of friendships: the falling-out between Simple Life costars and one-time best friends Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie made headlines on tabloids and entertainment magazines for months, as did the fighting between Laguna Beach’s Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari. Movies such as Mean Girls1 and Jawbreakers have also promoted models of adolescent women’s friendships as fraught with the danger of betrayal and rejection. The recent popularization of the term “frenemies”—which refers to relationships in which the pretense of friendship is paired with passive aggressive attempts to hurt one another’s feelings—further illustrates the degree to which this understanding of friendships between young women has colored cultural representations of this form of intimacy and its potential threats.2 The degree to which young women’s friendships have served as the subject of nonfiction and self-help literature also demonstrates the prevalence of the “double-edged sword” model. To return to the example of Queen Bees and Wannabes, the discussion of adolescent friendships undertaken by Wiseman emphasizes not only the “life or death” construction but also the lifelong significance of these youthful relationships. Because these friendships act as a “template” for the friendships and romantic relationships that may develop during adulthood, Wiseman argues, “girls’ reactions to the ups and downs of these friendships are as intense as they’ll later feel in intimate relationships” (3). However, while Wiseman sings the Disclosure and Discretion in Constructions of Friendship 31 praises of adolescent friendships throughout her introductory chapter, the majority of Queen Bees and Wannabes is dedicated to a more thorough investigation of the ways in which these peer relationships can be potentially harmful to growth and development. Wiseman spends one chapter identifying and defining the primary roles girls may hold in their social groups or cliques; with the exception of the roles labeled “the floater” (a girl who moves freely between different groups rather than aligning herself with just one) and the self-explanatory “the target,” each of these categories depends upon young women’s active or passive attempts to claim social power at the expense of others. Whether a...