Prom Dreams and Prom Reality: Girls Negotiating

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“Perfection” at the High School Prom*

Nichole Zlatunich, University of California, Santa Cruz

Adolescent girls are often assumed to be extremely vulnerable to media influences;

however, this study argues that girls actually negotiate meaning from media texts.
Content analysis of teen prom magazines is combined with ethnography to explore how
magazine texts operate within their readers’ worlds. This article argues against two
commonly accepted dictates. First, I propose that popular magazines for adolescent girls
are more complicated than previously acknowledged and do not rely on a singular message
of perfection derived from beauty and heterosexual romance. And second, how girls engage
with the magazines is more complicated than prior research has argued; girls use “strategic
selectivity” (a term proposed to explain how girls make meaning of cultural texts) to
negotiate the dominant meanings found in prom magazines and other cultural texts.

Introduction
After Westmont’s prom lets out, I am walking through the lobby of the hotel
and see a girl who is also leaving. Tears stream down her face and another girl
is consoling her. I hear the crying girl speak a few phrases between bursts of
tears, “It’s supposed to be so perfect. So perfect . . . I spent so much money on
him, on this . . . But he’s such an asshole . . . I can’t fucking believe him . . . that
whore . . . And to fucking do it now. . . . ” I conclude from their conversation
that her date has left her for another girl at the dance. She’s upset, not just
because he has broken up with her, but that he has done it at the prom, a time
that is supposed to be perfect and romantic. It strikes me how opposed these
two things are: her desire for perfection and the reality that is not at all perfect.
This article is about adolescent girls’ experiences of the high school prom
and their engagement with prom media, specifically prom magazines. As seen
in the above excerpt from my field notes, some girls expect perfection from the
prom—an evening filled with beauty and romance—so they invest considerable
time, energy, and money in the hopes of fulfilling these expectations. On the
surface, it appears that girls’ desire for perfection is created and perpetuated by
teen prom magazines. But the story is much more complicated. I analyze how
the concept of “perfection,” as the path to happiness and personal fulfillment, is
maintained and challenged by both prom magazines and the girls the magazines
target.

Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 79, No. 3, August 2009, 351–375

© 2009 Alpha Kappa Delta
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-682X.2009.00294.x
352 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

The influence of the media has been a particular concern for popular and
scholarly voices in public culture; much of this discourse assumes that girls
are especially vulnerable to the media’s influence and thus have little ability to
contextualize media messages. Catherine Driscoll argues, in Girls: Feminine
Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory, that “Girls and their lives
have repeatedly been represented as more closely framed by institutions than
other groups. Indeed this is one of the defining features of public discourses on
feminine adolescence, often attributed to a psychological structure particular to
girls” (Driscoll 2002:157).
Girls, like other groups in society, are not cultural slaves to the media. A
fruitful model for examining the relationship of audiences to media texts is
Stuart Hall’s “Encoding and Decoding.” Hall (1980:136–38) develops a model
of three ways of receiving media messages—“dominant-hegemonic,” “oppositional,”
and “negotiated.” Hall argues that the processes of cultural production “encode”
particular meanings into texts—these “preferred meanings” support the interests
of those already with power. When readers agree with the preferred readings,
their engagement fits into the “dominant-hegemonic” model. But Hall
acknowledges that audiences can decode texts from alternative and oppositional
positions that contradict and even challenge the preferred readings. Stuart Hall
(1980:138) uses the term “oppositional code” to describe how viewers actively
resist dominant messages. “Queer” readings—when readers reconstruct
heterosexual relations as homosexual or queer—are good examples of how
readers apply oppositional codes (Doty 1993; Russo 1987). People can also
combine the use of “dominant” and “oppositional” readings to assume yet a
third “negotiated” position. “Decoding within the negotiated version contains a
mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements . . . It accords the privileged
position to the dominant definition of events while reserving the right to make
a more negotiated application to ‘local conditions’” (Hall 1980:137). Thus,
negotiation occurs when the reader understands and believes the “dominant-
hegemonic position” at an abstract macro level, but believes and acts in a more
oppositional way at the local level.
Through combining textual analysis and ethnography, many scholars argue
that audiences “negotiate” meanings from cultural texts. Janice Radway’s
(1991) Reading the Romance is an attempt to contextualize the relationship that
female readers have with romance novels. Radway found that women reading
romance novels create spaces of resistance based on their lived experiences.
Radway (1991:221) asserts: “Commodities like mass-produced literary texts are
selected, purchased, constructed, and used by real people with previously exist-
ing needs, desires, intentions, and interpretive strategies.” Radway (1991:210)
argues that, if she had looked only at women’s readings of the romances, she
would have concluded the “act of romance reading is oppositional because it
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 353

allows the women to refuse momentarily their self-abnegating social role.”

Similarly, Radway (1991) acknowledges that she would have found that the
texts were oppressive if she had conducted only a textual analysis and ignored
how women actually engage with the texts. In other words, the “negotiated”
position is most identifiable in the interaction between media and their users.
In contrast to most cultural studies scholars who see audiences as
negotiating meaning from cultural texts, some research on girls’ media assumes
that girls passively accept the “preferred” meanings about beauty, heteronorma-
tivity, and romance. These scholars have concluded that adolescent girls’ media
uphold hegemonic notions of gender, placing the most emphasis on securing
and maintaining a romantic heterosexual relationship and achieving conventional
norms of beauty through the consumption of advertised products such as
clothing and makeup (Carpenter 1998; Christian-Smith 1988; Currie 1999;
Duffy and Gotcher 1996; Durham 1998; Evans et al. 1991; Garner, Sterk, and
Adams 1998; McRobbie and Nava 1984; Peirce 1990, 1993, 1995; Signorelli
1997; Tait 2003; Willemsen 1998). Most of these textual analyses of teen
magazines find only the presence of oppressive gender norms. Durham (1998:386)
contends that teen magazines “sustain and support the social power dynamics
that keep girls sexually subordinated and constrained.” Some ethnographic work
supports the argument that adolescent girls are not critical readers of magazine
texts. Finders’ (1996) research with young teens found that girls who read teen
magazines uncritically adopt the messages and advertisements as truth and as
instructions on the essentials of teenage life. Kaplan and Cole (2003:141) argue
that the “magazine’s message to teenage girls of gaining self-worth through
emphasized femininity seems to resonate with these girls regardless of class
and race.” This scholarship claims that girls’ reading is dominant-hegemonic.
Other recent scholarship on girls and popular culture follows the negotia-
tion model in understanding the text-audience relationship. This research shows
how girls and women are able to negotiate and sometimes resist mediated
images despite powerful social and cultural forces within and outside the texts
(Cherland 1994; Chow 2004; Frazer 1987; Holm 1997; Hubler 1998; McRobbie
1994; Milkie 1999; Stern 2002; Wray and Steele 2002). For example, Angela
Hubler (1998:281) argues that when girls read cultural texts they “commonly
focused on aspects of texts that confirmed female behavior they found desirable
while ignoring or forgetting aspects that undermined these behaviors . . . it is clear
that girls are not blank slates that unthinkingly reproduce the ideological
messages written upon them.” While acknowledging the ability of girls to
negotiate meanings, some scholars suggest that oppressive structures inside the
magazines (or the “normalcy constructed by the text” [Currie 2001:277]) can
overpower whatever resistance readers may have (Christian-Smith 1990; Currie
1997, 1999, 2001; Duke and Kreshel 1998).
354 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

With a few notable exceptions, the high school prom has not been a
popular site of scholarly research. One of the most in-depth examples of
research on the prom is by Amy Best (2000). Her study Prom Night: Youth,
Schools, and Popular Culture was conducted over 2 years at multiple school
sites; it examines the history, culture, and customs of the modern high school
prom. While Best’s research is ethnographic and did not specifically look in-depth
at teen and prom magazines, it does mention prom magazines in addition to
analyzing other cultural media about the prom. Sharon R. Mazzarella’s
(1999) article, “The ‘Superbowl of all Dates’: Teenage Girl Magazines and the
Commodification of the Perfect Prom,” is based on content analysis of teen
prom magazines. Mazzarella (1999:98) argues that teen magazines operate in
three main ways when they talk about the prom: They create the image of the
prom as “the night of your life,” they emphasize the achievement of the perfect
body through consumer products, and they place great importance on romance.
Although Mazzarella’s work clearly identifies some of the strongest themes of
prom magazines, she does not place the magazines in the context of readers’
lives and thus, like many of the researchers who look only at texts, she concludes
that the magazines are oppressive in their rhetoric of beauty and heterosexual
romance. Academic research like Mazzarella’s has condemned girls’ magazines
because they promote dominant beauty standards and emphasize heterosexual
romance. Implicit in these critiques are two assumptions: First, that there is
only one message in prom magazines (and it is oppressive) and second, that
girls can only see the most dominant messages of gender and are unable to find
inconsistencies and spaces for negotiation within the texts. My research
differs from Best’s in that I specifically look at both textual media and how
girls negotiate messages from the media. It is different from Mazzarella’s in that I
also examine how readers look at the texts and apply those texts to their
lives. Thus, my research occurs at the interaction point between Best’s and
Mazzarella’s work.
As with recent cultural studies scholarship on media and audiences, this
article seeks to construct the audience as a participant in a dialectic relationship
with cultural forms. My research argues that the domination/oppositional
paradigm is inadequate for showing how girls actually engage with and use the
media. Moreover, adolescent girls’ media are not as simplistic or monolithic as
others have assumed. I show how even at the prom, arguably the quintessential
ritual of adolescent gender conformity (Best 2000), that girls actively accept,
reject, and modify the images presented to them in the media as well as create
their own conception and experience of the event. My focus is on prom magazines
and girls’ actual prom experiences. First, I contend that the messages in prom
magazines are more complicated than previously acknowledged and do not rely
on a singular message of the importance of beauty and romance to adolescent
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 355

girls. My second argument is that how girls engage with the magazines is more
complicated than the dominance or oppositional models acknowledge. I
propose the term “strategic selectivity” to explain what goes on during this
process as adolescent girls negotiate meanings from prom magazine texts.
According to Stuart Hall (1980), when people employ a negotiated under-
standing, they often hold contradictory ideologies. An example of contradictory
ideology would be if a girl believes in dominant ideology about the importance
of female beauty at the macro level, but in practice makes decisions that are in
contradiction (or resistant) to this ideology, for example, choosing not to wear
makeup. The term “strategic selectivity” describes a more nuanced understanding
of how girls negotiate meanings from prom magazines. When using strategic
selectivity, girls disagree with some part of the dominant macro ideology such
as romance and thus may disregard all examples and discussions of romance
while agreeing with other dominant ideologies such as beauty. Both negotiation
and strategic selectivity employ some level of resistance to dominant meanings
constructed in media texts, but the reasons for the employment of resistance are
varied; in a negotiated understanding, readers may not be conscious of their
resistance or accommodation to dominant messages but when employing
strategic selectivity, readers are conscious of both the dominant ideology and
their reasons for acceptance or rejection at both the macro level of ideology and
the micro level of application. When using strategic selectivity, girls choose to
ignore some messages that do not “fit” rather than believe in a contradictory
ideology. The prom is constructed as the greatest gendered ritual of adolescent
high school life in which dominant, oppressive views of beauty and sexuality
operate. But even in this “hard case” I show how girls combine negotiation and
strategic selectivity to create their own prom realities that reference dominant
representations but are not limited by them.
Methods
“There is no clear sociological divide between ‘lived experience’ and
‘texts and representational forms.’ The one is always merging with the other”
(McRobbie 1994:192). Thus, I am concerned with not only interpreting prom
magazines, but also with how girls read the magazines and make decisions in
relation to the magazines. In order to address the common criticism that textual
analysis claims too much autonomy for texts (Driscoll 2002) and does not
adequately consider the social and material conditions of readers that exist
outside of the text, I have combined my textual analysis with ethnographic work
on readers of prom magazines at two high schools in the spring of 2003 to
consider how magazine texts operate within their readers’ worlds.
By using the methods of in-depth interviewing, observation of girls’
behavior, and examination of the prom magazine texts, I name and describe the
356 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

dominant themes that emerge from the magazines and compare them to the real
experiences of girls. The four magazines I chose for this study were prom-
specific teen magazines: Your Prom, Teen Prom, Seventeen Prom, and YM Prom
from three consecutive years, that is, 2002, 2003, and 2004.1 In addition,
although most teen magazines are read by a younger readership than the
apparent target (Driscoll 2002; McRobbie 1997), prom magazines are also read
by the targeted readership (girls from 16 to 18 years attending the prom).2 My
examination of the magazines began with a close reading of all written texts
and all images, advertisements, and editorial content. I scrutinized the texts for
dominant ideologies about the prom and adolescent girls, and for possible
spaces where readers might negotiate these dominant beliefs.
In addition to the textual analysis of magazines, I conducted fieldwork and
interviews. In the spring of 2003, I interviewed 23 girls—13 from Westmont High
School and 10 from Jefferson High School. The interviews were semistructured,
with a range of open-ended questions; the interviews lasted between 35 minutes
and 2 hours, with most lasting around an hour. Each girl was interviewed once
before the prom and once after. The earlier interviews focused on the girls’
expectations and hopes for the proms and their opinions on the prom magazines.
The latter interviews centered on the girls’ actual experiences and their percep-
tions of the differences between their prom expectations and reality. I observed
the two high schools’ proms in addition to spending time with some of the girls
outside of their interviews. In total, I spent over 20 hours doing field observation
in addition to interviewing each girl and two adults associated with the two schools
(the principal of Westmont and a teacher at Jefferson who was involved with the
planning of the prom). Detailed observations were written up immediately after
leaving the field.
The two school sites have different economic and social makeups. Westmont
High School is located in a predominately white middle- and upper-class bedroom
community of a major city in Northern California. Jefferson High School is
located in a working-class metropolitan area in Northern California that is more
diverse—Latino students make up the largest percentage of the school, followed
by white and African American students. Although nonrandom, the interview
sample was relatively diverse and representative of the schools’ populations: Of
the 13 girls from Westmont, 10 identified as white, two as Asian, and one as
Latina. The girls from Westmont were predominantly upper-class although five
were middle-class. Of the 10 girls from Jefferson, two identified as white,
one as Filipina, four as Latina, and three as African American. Seven were
working-class, two were middle-class, and one was upper-class. Social class
was determined from the girls’ parents’ occupations, education, and the specific
locations where the girls lived (in the area where the study was conducted,
3
neighborhoods are divided along both race and class lines). The two schools
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 357

were chosen to prevent bias and allow for comparisons across girls’ social
positionalities (including variation in social class and race/ethnicity). This
diversity allowed me to note under what conditions particular readings of prom
magazines transcend race and class lines. After interviews were conducted, I
read each girl’s transcript multiple times and coded the girls according to their
level of resistance to the magazine (see Appendix A for a list of interviewees by
school). To preserve the anonymity of participants, pseudonyms are used for all
of the girls and both research sites.
I analyzed my field notes, interviews, and the magazine texts from a
“grounded theory” approach utilizing data reduction and interpretation (Glaser
and Strauss 1967). Thus, the themes explored in this research should be viewed
as general patterns, rather than as quantifiable data. The field notes and inter-
views conducted in the spring of 2003 were transcribed verbatim and carefully
read multiple times. I next created an initial list of codes and coded the data.
Over time, the list was collapsed and refined to produce common themes across
the magazines and girls’ experiences.

Findings
The Perfect Prom
The quest for perfection is the most obvious path to happiness in prom
magazines. The magazines set up two main criteria for the achievement of
perfection at the prom: female beauty and heterosexual romance. Readers are
instructed that beauty can only be achieved through body work, and heterosexual
romance is dependent on securing the appropriate male date.
Prom magazines define the prom as an event that requires girls to invest
time and money in order to achieve success. “Perfect” is one of the most common
descriptors in prom magazines. Prominent headlines in the magazines include:
“Find Your Perfect Prom Look” (Your Prom 2004:cover), “Perfect Prom Hair”
(Seventeen Prom 2003:cover), and “Postprom Perfection” (Teen Prom 2004:35).
The use of the word “perfect” is pervasive and is not only used to describe the
event itself, but also to describe the right dress and perfume: “Expert advice on
how to pick the perfect outfit” (Seventeen Prom 2004:124), “Find the perfect
scent for you” (Seventeen Prom 2004:262). Advertisements in all four prom
magazines also use “perfect” to describe not only the prom, but also their
product in relation to the prom. They use headlines such as “Picture Perfect
Prom 2002” (Your Prom 2002:1) and “Prom Perfect: Get Glam Girl Looks with
the Perfect Prom Dress from JCPenney” (Seventeen Prom 2003:49).
The need for perfection is underscored by accounts of “prom trauma.”
These are short stories that warn girls that their prom night could be ruined if
certain disastrous events occur. Examples of “trauma” stories included: ripping
358 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

a dress (Your Prom 2003:98), hair catching fire from a candle, dress being
pulled down and breasts exposed (Teen Prom 2003:320), and having fake
breasts “explode” (YM Prom 2003:20). Pattee (2004:14) writes that the
embarrassing stories featured in teen magazines teach female readers to
“associate some of her natural inclinations (menstruation, sexuality) with
inappropriateness.” While many of the stories do reinforce social norms to teen
readers, they also create a space for girls to share their experiences and, thus,
create a space for shared sympathy. Prom horror films help buttress the popular
culture conception of the prom as needing to be perfect. In Prom Night, Amy
Best (2000:24) argues that the prom “horror stories” in movies such as There’s
Something about Mary (1998) and Never Been Kissed (1999) mockingly con-
struct the prom “as a moment besieged by teen angst and tumult—so profound
disaster and disappointment are inevitable.” According to the magazines and
popular movies, if the prom is not perfect—it can only be a disaster.
The fact that the prom does not always go “perfectly” is also acknowledged
in other ways. The 2003 issue of Seventeen Prom contained an advice section
about “Post Prom Depression” that gives advice such as “Accept that everyone
feels this way,” “Focus on the next big thing,” “Take care of yourself,” and
“Adjust for the anticlimax” (Seventeen Prom 2003:74). YM Prom (2003:28)
also featured a quiz that exemplifies its attitude toward the prom: “Are your
prom hopes too high?: It’s going to be a perfect fairy-tale night of romance and
fun, you say. Forgive me for laughing hysterically.” The quiz advises readers
who are not all that interested in the prom not to go and, instead, throw their
own party. It also tells readers who are perfectionists about the prom that
“Expectations as high as yours can’t be met. As a result, you’re going to be
miserable” (YM Prom 2003:28). Many of the magazines also have end-of-
article qualifiers about the prom after dispensing much advice to ensure the
“perfect prom.” For example, at the end of an article titled “How to Find Your
Dream Date,” readers are warned: “Don’t expect it to be the greatest night of
your whole life. . . . Just think of it as a special, fun night with friends and you’ll
have a much better time” (Seventeen Prom 2004:44). Thus, these magazines
appear to create an irreconcilable contradiction between creating “the perfect
prom” and just having a “special, fun night.”
The Perfect Look
In order to achieve the “perfect prom” look, magazines instruct girls on
what to do and on what to buy. The physical modification and labor required to
achieve this end result is often called “body work” in feminist publications
(Gimlin 2002). Body work is the unending bodily modifications and beauty
rituals that women and girls perform in order to fulfill gender stereotypes, gain
acceptance, and/or win approval for their physical appearance. Examples of
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 359

body work include applying makeup, purchasing and using beauty products such
as wrinkle cream, dieting “to lose that last 10 pounds,” and cosmetic surgery.
An article in the 2003 issue of Seventeen Prom advises different underwear
for different dresses (backless, plunging, one-shoulder, slip dress, strapless) and
different figures (butt-lifting, control-top pantyhose, minimizing bras, push-up
bras). It is entitled “Prom Figure Fixes: The Perfect Dress Is What They’ll See.
What They Won’t: The Few Well-Chosen Pieces Underneath—They Make the
Difference between Looking Good and Looking Amazing” (Seventeen Prom
2003:39–42). Implicit in this advice is a critique of girls’ bodies—that even the
bodies of 17- and 18-year-old girls need improvement. According to prom
magazines, all girls need to perform body work—no matter how close a girl
already is to the ideal of perfection. “Even the exceptional woman whose face
and body approximate the textual images closely is always imperfect. There is
always work to be done” (Smith 1988:49).
Beauty work is also often coded in terms of fun and pampering. “Prom:
It’s your chance to play pretty!” (Teen Prom 2003:45); “Pamper yourself with
an at-home facial and deep-conditioning hair treatment” (Your Prom 2004:20).
The magazines declare that beauty work is always enjoyable. But a liminal
space exists between pleasure and commodification. Girls consume many
products and purchase cosmetics, dresses, shoes, and accessories in their
pursuit of pleasure in preparing for and attending the prom. But is pleasure
erased or rendered meaningless just because it is derived from commodities and
the use of commodities? Many of the girls I talked with enjoyed doing body
work. They said that they had fun getting ready for the prom—shopping for a
dress, doing their makeup, and painting their nails. Although this body work
can be stressful and create worries for girls, most said that they were not jealous
of their male friends’ lack of planning and preparation.
Body work is a way that girls can become a “better version” of themselves.
The prom becomes the location for this body work because the prom is defined
as a site to reinvent the self. The dominant message in the prom magazines tells
girls that they can only achieve power, control, and independence through
achieving beauty and a perfect body. The body work presented in the prom
magazines often involves actual physical change to the readers’ bodies. Most of
this body work involves dieting (“eating healthy” as the magazines say) and
exercise in order to achieve the prom body. Many of the magazines include
actual exercise routines including aerobics and weight lifting. Teen Prom
(2003:312–13) couches the performance of body work under the guide of
confidence-building, rather than for the sake of vanity, repeating the common
call for improved self-confidence in adolescent girls. On the surface, encourag-
ing exercise in adolescent girls appears to be a positive thing; Americans are
bombarded with messages that we are overweight and that this epidemic starts
360 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

early in childhood. But the inclusion of these workouts in prom magazines only
increases the demands of body work for adolescent girls while heightening
cultural preoccupation with female beauty and physical perfection.
Although prom magazines emphasize physical attractiveness and beauty,
this dominant message is not always the only one present. The magazines often
disguise beauty ideology in irony and detachment. Thus, the reader is not
expected to take all the body work seriously. The detached ironic tone of girls’
magazines allows “readers to position themselves at a distance from the
subordination of being ‘just’ a fan or just a silly girl” (McRobbie 1993:23). The
beauty layout in an issue of Your Prom (2002:246–47) proclaims “The Heart-
break of Hair Gone Flat! The Attack of the Mongo Zit! Beauty 911! Oh, the
Horrors that Can Strike When Prom Night Looms.” This sarcastic tone allows
readers to distance themselves from being seen as caring too much about their
appearances or being seen as “superficial.” It also allows some readers to view
body work as ridiculous, thus opposing the assumption that body work is
valuable and important. Although editors may not have intended this potentially
resistant reading, it does exist and thus allows some girls to reject dominant
ideologies that tie beauty to femininity.
All 23 of the girls with whom I talked were clear about the difference
between the cultural images of the prom and reality. Although not all of the
girls had gone to the prom before, all were skeptical that the prom could be a
“perfect” event. Of the 17 girls who had gone the year before, 13 admitted
that their hopes for the prom in prior years were too high. Their experiences
differed from the images that the magazines perpetuate. Twenty of the 23
girls reported they had a “fun” time at the prom, but none told me during
their second interview that their date was “perfect” or that it was a “perfect”
evening.
Nineteen of the 23 girls thought that the media, and prom magazines in
particular, portray the prom as a “perfect” evening, one that can be achieved
through proper planning, time, and money. Lisa, an upper-class white girl from
Westmont, who had not gone to the prom before, spoke in detail in her first
interview about her impressions of the prom magazines she had purchased in
anticipation of her senior year prom: “They [prom magazines] say that you have
to look beautiful. . . . Everything is like supposed to be perfect this one night.”
Although Lisa is critical of all the “body work” that prom magazines encourage
their readers to do, she finds herself pushed into fulfilling many of them
because it is easier than not doing so. Lisa strategically selects what she does
and does not agree with in the magazines, yet she still feels forced into per-
forming some of the body work that she opposes. Many other girls concurred
that acceptance within high school peer culture is often impossible if one’s
appearance falls far outside the norm.
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 361

I interviewed Kristin and Anne together at Anne’s house. The two friends
are both Westmont students; Kristin is white and upper-class, while Anne is
white and middle-class. Although neither had attended a prom before the first
interview, they were aware of the difference between prom magazine ideology
and the realities of prom. Kristin said: “I think that stereotypically it’s like, you
think of it [the prom] with a perfect dress, perfect date, a romantic, beautiful
night. I dunno. I know that it’s not perfect and that’s okay. It’s still fun.” Anne
agreed: “The magazines make it out to be like ‘oh, it’s so perfect’ but it’s not.”
Both Kristin and Anne read prom magazines “mostly for the fashion and stuff ”
as Anne said, but take the messages about the prom as unrealistic. Kristin and
Anne employ strategic selectivity to negotiate meanings; they read the prom
magazines as entertainment and oppose many of the dominant gendered
messages of beauty, sexuality, and perfection.
Maribel, a working-class Latina student at Jefferson, articulates her con-
cern over the prom magazines’ preoccupation with “perfection.” She stated in
her first interview: “The word ‘perfect’ in there [the magazines] upsets me.
Like perfect arms, legs, for your dress. I mean, oh, that’s nice. And there’s about
eight pages about how to tone your body.” Maribel reads the magazines with a
high level of resistance and thus refused to put much effort into primping for
the prom—she borrowed a dress from her sister and wore only her usual lip
gloss rather than a full face of makeup to the prom. She uses strategic selectivity
to counter dominant messages of perfection dependent on feminine beauty
ideals. Maribel is representative of how many of the girls use strategic selectivity—
10 of the 23 girls emphasized that they mostly read the magazines for one or a
few select parts and ignore the rest.
Some girls appear to follow the messages that prom magazines perpetuate.
But when listening to the girls explain how and why they do certain things
this assumption is unwarranted. The girls appear to buy into the messages in
the prom magazines; they buy the beauty products advised, they work out and
diet, they tan so they do not look “white” in their dresses, and they often pick
dresses based on what the prom magazines suggest works best for their
body type. But they also clearly articulate their concerns over the body image
problems they think they have. They are conscious that our culture rewards
women for their appearances. “Recognizing that normalizing cultural forms
exist does not entail, as some writers have argued, the view that women are
‘cultural dopes,’ blindly submitting to oppressive regimes of beauty . . . People
know the routes to success in this culture—they are advertised widely
enough—and they are not ‘dopes’ to pursue them” (Bordo 1993:30). They
enjoy most of the “body work” that they do perform, but they feel depressed
and ugly when their “body work” is unsuccessful. In the first interview with
Julie, Genny, and Erika, three middle- to upper-class white girls from Westmont,
362 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

it becomes apparent that, for these girls, looking attractive is closely linked to
self-confidence:
JULIE: What’s sad is if you don’t like your hair, you don’t like your makeup, it can ruin your
evening.

GENNY: Yeah, it can ruin everything . . .

JULIE: It happened to me [at the Homecoming dance]. I didn’t like my hair, I didn’t like my
makeup, well, I did kinda like my dress and my date. But I wasn’t happy all night because I
felt like I was ugly. I got my pictures back and I was ugly.

ERIKA: That’s totally not true. You’re too critical of yourself.

JULIE: No, it was bad, I had like brown blush on. My face was like darker than it actually is.
Like, I dunno. It wasn’t cute . . . I wasn’t happy.

Even though Julie was pleased with her dress and even her date, she felt that
her whole evening was ruined because she disliked her hair and makeup, even
though she had both done professionally. But despite her efforts, she dwelled the
whole evening on how her physical appearance did not match her preconceived
standards. “Discontent with the body is not just a happening of culture, it arises
in the relation between text and she who finds in texts images reflecting upon
the imperfections of her body” (Smith 1988:47–48). Although Julie did not
explicitly state that her disappointment with her physical appearance stemmed
from her perception of the difference between her body and the ideal body
promoted by the media, she did later say in her second interview that much of
her desire to change her appearance was fueled by continually seeing “more
beautiful girls on TV and in magazines.”
The Perfect Date: Heteronormativity
Prom magazines perpetuate myths about the importance of heteronorma-
tivity and romance at the prom. Heteronormativity “is the view that institution-
alized heterosexuality constitutes the standard for legitimate and expected social
and sexual relations” (Ingraham 1999:17). Heteronormativity serves to reinforce
and naturalize the institution and ritualized practice of heterosexuality.
Most of the prom magazines assume that readers are heterosexual and
want to attend with a romantic male date. Teen Prom (2004:378) advises girls
they can “Get a date . . . no matter what! worried you’ll be flying solo—or stuck
at home—when the big night rolls around? Not if you follow these no-fail steps
to finding the perfect prom date.” Another article in the 2002 issue of Teen
Prom advises girls that their “best bet” is to ask their “dream dude,” a “second
try” is to drop hints and give him extra attention, and a “third try” is “Who
needs guys to have a great time? Grab a bunch of friends and make it a fun-filled
night for all” (Teen Prom 2002:258). Going with a group of friends is an option,
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 363

but it is a last resort. Attending the prom with another girl as a couple (whether
the reader is homosexual or not) is not an option.
Although heteronormativity is pervasive, YM Prom is an exception
because it does not stress heteronormativity and romance in the same way or to
the same degree that the other three magazines do. The first most obvious
example of this is YM Prom’s (2002:88) positive discussion of a gay prom—
“Tuxes, watery punch, and bad music. There’s only one thing separating this
prom from the one at your high school: Most of the couples are gay.” The 2003
issue of YM Prom encourages girls not to feel pressured into having a date, but
rather go to the prom by themselves or with a group of friends. The article leads
with, “Who needs a date? Meet five girls who showed up at the prom without a
guy” (YM Prom 2003:90). Rather than making it a “last resort” to go without a
male date, YM Prom makes it a choice.
Spaces for resistance to heteronormativity also occur in the other magazines.
Your Prom (2002:250) declares: “Best friends. Sure, there’s the date. But c’mon,
prom’s about laughing it up with your favorite pals, too. So put on that party
dress, grab your bud and bond, baby!” Nevertheless, the general pressure to
have a male date that is reflected in the prom magazines is felt by girls.
Elizabeth, an upper-class white girl, spoke in her first interview about the
anxiety that she felt to get a male date for Westmont’s prom: “And I need to get
a date [laughing]. I think that’s the biggest thing I need to do—get a date.”
Erika, a middle-class white student at Westmont, said in her second interview
that the prom is the one dance of the school year when it is expected that
everyone who attends has a date: “It’s just assumed that you would have a date.
’Cuz it’s like a whole part of like the prom thing.” Leesa, a middle-class white
girl, spoke in her second interview about how her friends at Jefferson set her up
with a date: “I think maybe for prom it feels like you need a date . . . And for
Senior Prom I guess people don’t want it to be known that for their last dance
they didn’t have a date. And so, everyone has a date and I think only a couple
of them are boyfriend and girlfriend.” Elizabeth, Erika, and Leesa experienced
pressure to secure a male date for the prom, reflecting ideas about gender and
heteronormativity that are perpetuated in the magazines.
Angelina, a working-class African American girl also from Jefferson,
attended with a boy with whom she is “just friends.” She said that not having a
date reflects one’s social status: “It’s like you must be really ugly if you can’t get
a date for prom.” For Angelina, the issue of social standing and physical attrac-
tiveness comes into play. Being unable to secure a date for prom would indicate
to others that a girl is a social reject and horribly unattractive. But Angelina’s
concerns show how heteronormativity is linked to appearance, and social status
as part of the status-making enterprise within high schools. This status matrix
was felt also by Michele, a middle-class Latina at Westmont, who said: “I’m not
364 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

like the most popular . . . All these other girls, they go get their hair, their nails
done and they’re all cute and here I am with chipped nails . . . It’s kinda like
sometimes you don’t fit [in].” Status depends on class position and distinction,
because conventional attractiveness demands the purchase of products and
services such as clothes, makeup, and perhaps gym membership. Upper-class
girls have more economic capital to acquire the cultural capital necessary to
achieve popularity and heterosexual romance.
Heteronormativity is often accompanied by certain racial expectations.
Eighteen of the 20 girls I interviewed who attended with male dates went with
a boy of the same race. The two exceptions were Renee and Paris. Renee, an
upper-class white girl, went with a Latino boy to Westmont’s prom and Paris, a
working-class African American girl from Jefferson, attended with a boy of
mixed Latino/white heritage. Renee did not speak much about the racial
dynamics of her coupling, but did say that her date was just someone that hung
out with her circle of friends at school and race was not a large factor in her
decision. In contrast, Paris said that Jefferson is racially divided and thus her
decision to attend with her date was talked about by people at her school.
When I asked other girls how they decided on their dates, most said that
race was not a factor, but that youth generally tend to date people of the same
race, so it makes sense that their date for the prom would be of the same race.
Noelle, a middle-class white girl from Westmont, put it this way: “It’s not like I
would have said no like if someone that wasn’t white asked me, but kids tend
to stick to going out with kids that are the same. I mean, there are exceptions,
like, there are a few black and Latino kids that hang out in white groups, but
they, like, act white, so it’s like, well, like ‘they’re Oreos’ or ‘they’re Twinkies’.”4
Thus, heteronormativity is constructed along racial lines. While most girls said
that they did not explicitly look for or even care about the race of their date,
most attended the proms with dates of the same race. (This was most evident
when I observed the line up for prom pictures.) Although teens say they subscribe
to a “color-blind” ideology, their behavior patterns show that race is a factor in
dating. Prom magazines mirror the real-life lack of interracial coupling; most of
the images in the magazines show white girls and boys, and on the few occasions
that African American, Asian American, or Latino adolescents are portrayed,
they are usually shown in a mixed-sex group that shows interracial friendship
rather than interracial coupling.
The Perfect Date: Romance
Although heteronormativity is explicit in the prom magazines, romance is
often implied rather than clearly labeled. Teen Prom (2002:235) asks readers:
“Is he your dream date? Want to know if your prom date is the ‘right’ guy for
you?” On this page, two heterosexual couples are pictured, both girls are seated
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 365

holding roses, with their dates standing behind them. The boy on the right is
kissing his date’s cheek and she is smiling with delight at his show of affection.
The girl on the left has a thick diamond-looking band on her left ring finger,
perhaps implying engagement. There are many examples of the use of the word
“dream” or “dreamy” to describe the perfect male date—“dream dude” (Teen
Prom 2002:258), “dream boy” (Seventeen Prom 2003:25), and “dream date”
(Seventeen Prom 2004:44). The contrast to reality is ironic, because according
to the girls I interviewed, adolescent boys rarely act in ways that they would
classify as “dreamy.” In response to questions about romance, only two of the
23 girls described their dates or the prom as a whole as romantic (the two girls,
Noelle and Lisa, are both discussed later in this article).
A Teen Prom (2003:259–64) pictorial layout begins with the caption: “Once
Upon a Prom. A group of friends decided to romance the dance.” Although the
caption explicitly mentions romance, the images cloud the story of heterosexual
romance. While some of the pages include images of heterosexual couples
holding hands, other pictures can be read with resistance. Two girls are shown
sitting close to each other, dipping their feet into a pool; their heads are turned
toward each other and they are both smiling. This picture is captioned: “They
chatted and laughed and flirted and splashed . . . ” (Teen Prom 2003:263). The
two girls are obviously the ones “splashing” but they could also be the two
flirting. As a part of the magazine discourse on prom, this image allows readers
to see homosexual/lesbian romance as an option. Thus, the prom magazine
dialogue is wider and more open to resistant readings than previously
acknowledged. While monogamous heterosexuality dominates prom magazine
captions and stories, the images are more ambiguous, containing spaces for
girls to resist dominant ideologies of heterosexual romance.
Some girls desire the heterosexual romance promoted by prom magazines
and fueled by our culture’s emphasis on “appropriate coupling.” Emma, an
upper-class white girl from Westmont, regretted taking a male friend without
“romantic potential”: “It could be like romantic. But with him, it was like,
ummm, nothing new, nothing exciting. No big deal. It could have been more
fun maybe to go with someone that wasn’t just a friend, like more potential.”
Other girls did experience romance during the prom. In her second interview,
Noelle, a middle-class white girl from Westmont, spoke about how her evening
became romantic: “He was really sweet. Someone spilled something on the
back of my dress and like he made me feel so much better. And he gave me like
a kiss on the cheek. And I was like, okay, I guess everything is going to be all
right. He like made it a perfect evening.” Although Noelle did not expect to
become involved romantically with her date, his behavior toward her and her
reception of his actions made the prom romantic for them. Lindsay, a working-
class white girl, talked about her experience at Jefferson’s prom: “Yeah, it really
366 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

was [romantic], when we were like on the dance floor, the couples, I would see
somebody making out. And I would be like ‘ohhh, that’s cute.’” Although
Noelle and Lindsay both experienced romance at their proms, neither were
expecting to—they both made the decision to attend with male friends and it
was not until they were at the prom that they started to feel romantically toward
their dates.
Despite the magazines’ and some girls’ emphasis on heteronormativity
and romance, many girls do not think that the prom is a romantic event. Jenny,
a middle-class Filipina girl from Jefferson reads prom magazines to compare
items such as dresses, shoes, and hairstyles but rejects the messages about
heterosexual romance: “The articles I read make it seem like the prom is such
an important event. That it’s mandatory to go with like a boyfriend and to be all
elegant and that it’s mandatory to go out to fancy places. And it’s all mandatory
to do stuff in a certain way. But we’re just out there to have fun . . . I’ll take some
of the stuff in the magazine that I like, like the dresses and shoes and hair and
makeup and I’m gonna ignore the rest of it.” All the “stuff ” that Jenny rejects
includes heteronormativity, romance, and the conceptualization of the prom as
an important, “perfect” event. Jenny does not see romance as an important
component of her life, thus when she reads popular media, she does not fall
prey to stereotypes about the importance of heterosexual romance. Jenny was
the only girl who attended the prom without a male date. Instead, she went with
a group of friends, made up of couples and other singles. Unlike most of the
girls I interviewed, Jenny does not only critique the prom magazines, but also
acts in a way that shows her resistance to heterosexual norms.
Maribel, a working-class Latina girl also from Jefferson, explicitly critiqued
the prom magazines for emphasizing romance. She said in her first interview:
“They [magazines] have all these articles, how to find a perfect date, how to get
a date, how to date, how to have a romantic time . . . I mean what if you just want
to go and not have this romantic time? I don’t understand that. I dunno.” Maribel
dislikes how the prom magazines assume that readers want heterosexual romance.
Although Maribel intended to go to the prom with a male date, and thus accom-
modate expectations of heteronormativity, she found fault with the magazines
for emphasizing romance. Jenny and Maribel employ strategic selectivity and
oppositional readings to negotiate meanings in the prom magazines.
While five of the girls at Westmont, the upper-class school, appeared to
believe in the magazines’ ideology of romance, girls at Jefferson generally
questioned the connection between romance and the prom. Paris and Laticia,
both working-class African American girls from Jefferson, criticized others who
think that the prom is romantic. This could be because the girls at Jefferson
were socialized to be skeptical of romance. Lisa Duke (2000) found that
African American girls were more discerning, critical readers of texts such as
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 367

teen magazines; African American girls reported that their beauty norms came
from their mothers and grandmothers rather than cultural texts (2000:384–85).
Likewise, Bettie (2003:70) found that working-class girls were not idealistic
about romance: “Girls know from each others’ experiences that boys should not
be relied upon . . . They felt that men could not be counted on for economic support
or as co-parents, or to meet the girls’ ideals of romance and intimacy.” Five
girls from Jefferson said that they were cautioned by their mothers (or father in
one case) not to trust their feelings of romance, while only one girl from
Westmont shared a similar experience. Other girls at Westmont said their
parents had instructed them not to act on their romantic feelings (i.e., not to
have sex), but their parents’ warnings had more to do with the perils of teenage
sex, rather than their view of males as innately untrustworthy.
Girls’ ideas about sex are often linked to ideologies of romance. Generally
speaking, the mostly middle-class white girls at Westmont held a different attitude
toward virginity loss and sex on prom night than the working-class girls from
Jefferson. All 10 of the girls from Jefferson said that the sex that happens on
prom night is not how it is portrayed in popular culture. Teen movies such as
American Pie (1999) and She’s All That (1999) base much of their storyline on
the conception that prom night is the night that adolescents lose their virginity.
Girls at Jefferson said that no one actually loses their virginity on prom night;
while sex does occur for those in relationships, no one waits for prom night to
have sex. The stories of the Westmont girls were more mixed—five girls talked
about their own or their friends’ experiences waiting for prom night to have sex
with their boyfriends. They gave reasons for waiting such as the prom being
“romantic” or as an opportunity for them to spend the entire night together
outside of parental control. The views of the other eight girls at Westmont were
closer to the girls at Jefferson—they said that only those already having sex
were going to have sex.
If a girl’s expectations about her appearance, her date, or the evening itself
do not match the reality of the prom, the result is often disappointment. But
girls are frequently aware of the mismatch between fantasy and reality—they
know that the prom can never live up to images presented in prom magazines
and in other popular culture images. So why do they continue to invest so much
time, energy, and money with the hopes of creating the “perfect prom?” Girls
are aware of the cultural pressures to conform to a certain “standard” for prom
appearance and behavior, but they are conflicted because if they believe in this
ideology wholeheartedly, they will always be disappointed with reality.
Although most girls undertake activities to help ensure the “perfect prom,” they
often use strategies of resistance by rejecting some of the behaviors necessary
to achieve this perfection. Some reject the notion of romance as a necessary
component of the prom. Others invest little time in doing “body work” and
368 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

choose to wear a dress they already have, rather than spend hours shopping for
the “perfect dress.” Some girls also rejected standards of normative attire by
choosing to wear tennis shoes or flip-flops rather than high heels. Through
strategic selectivity, girls carefully negotiate their understandings of media
portrayals of the prom and choose to ignore what does not apply to their lives.
Redefining the Meaning of the Prom: From “Perfection” to Party
Prom magazines rarely mention sex, drugs, and other illicit activities. But
when these taboo subjects are broached, the magazines are dominated by
instructions telling readers to say “No.” Thus, the suggestions for after-prom
activities are dominated by things to do such as “the great camp out, game show
night,” (Your Prom 2002:74) bowling, and roller skating (YM Prom 2003:80).
Prom perfection, as defined by prom magazines, does not include illicit
activities such as unsupervised after-parties, alcohol consumption, and sex.
Amy Best (2000), in Prom Night, discusses the prom as a coming-of-age
ritual in which teenagers are expected to temporarily act more like adults (be
dressed up and coupled). Yet proms are also highly regulated spaces, with the
obtrusive presence of teachers and the authority of school administration. Best
argues that the presence of monitoring adults and their accompanying rules
suggests that the students’ fling with adulthood has to be closely monitored and
restricted. Westmont’s and Jefferson’s proms were not only patrolled by teachers,
but students were warned multiple times that they would be subject to Breathalyzer
tests if they were suspected of drinking. Parents, too, admonished their children
about “getting too carried away.”
In reality, many adolescents get hotel rooms with their friends and participate
in illicit activities, but the cultural stereotype of alcohol, drugs, and sex does
not hold true for all. Leesa, a middle-class white student at Jefferson, questions
the link that many people make between drugs and the prom: “Like everyone
thinks that we do drugs and get drunk and I don’t know why, everyone’s like
‘oh, we have to party really hard.’ . . . It’s like you build up all this energy at the
dance and you don’t want to go home. You spend all day getting ready. It has to
be a continuous night, it’s like you have to go to a hotel and act stupid. It’s like
prom becomes an excuse to drink.” Many girls told me that, although the prom
after-parties are notorious, drinking and drug use occurs year round at parties
and other places outside adult supervision.
Renee, an upper-class white student at Westmont, spoke about the after-party
she attended with her friends: “We went back to the hotel and we hung out with
some other people and when it got later and we got tired and by then I was
pretty fucked up . . . Everyone was smoking pot and drinking rum and coke and
stuff.” Some girls like Renee actively rejected stereotypes about femininity in
favor of emphasizing these illicit activities. Although most girls drink some
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 369

alcohol before prom (often champagne), others engage more heavily in drinking
and other illegal activities, relishing how they are able to break all sorts of rules,
implicit and explicit. While prom magazines preach abstinence as the answer
for alcohol, drugs, and sex, general adolescent cultural guidelines suggest that
a moderate amount of alcohol is acceptable at an “important” occasion like the
prom. A double standard exists that accepts more drug use and abuse by boys
than by girls (Huselid and Cooper 1992; Pavis, Cunningham-Burley, and Amos
1997; Warner, Weber, and Albanes 1999). Thus, while many girls oppose moral
guardians (and the prom magazines) when they choose to use drugs, most still
end up conforming to adolescent peer culture in order to avoid being ostracized.
Conclusion
Most academic work on teen magazines for girls concentrates on the
“seamless text of oppressive meanings held together by ideology, rather than on
the disruptions and inconsistencies and spaces for negotiation within the
magazines” (McRobbie 1994:163). In addition to finding the dominant ideolo-
gies that other scholars have written about, I also found that prom magazines do
not always consistently and clearly portray heterosexual romance and body work
as the central focus of their readers’ lives. I found many spaces in the texts that
allowed for “alternative readings.”
In addition, readers of prom magazines do not simply absorb the most
dominant meanings—girls clearly articulate in interviews how they pick and
choose what they like from the texts and disregard the rest (thus employing
strategic selectivity). A simple relationship between media images and girls’
behavior does not exist. Girls do not uncritically adopt every behavior empha-
sized in prom magazines, and magazines do not reflect the modern prom reality.
But at the same time, none of the girls I interviewed rejected every dominant
notion of the prom in these magazines. And no prom space is free or uncon-
taminated by media representations of the prom. As Maribel from Jefferson put
it: “I think that the only reason why it [the prom] does resemble things is that
is where we take our ideas from, you know, it has to look like something we’ve
seen before, you know. Or it wouldn’t be, like prom.” It’s easy to dismiss girls
who go to the prom and appear to perform stereotypical feminine identities as
conformist, but by doing so the often-hidden negotiations of girls are lost.
While scholars like Currie (1999) argue that girls do not call the cultural con-
struction of femininity into question, I found that some of my respondents were
not only able to resist the dominant ideology in prom magazines, but also to
question hegemonic femininity in general.
Although the relationships between race, class, and resistance have been
studied extensively, there is no consensus on whether girls’ engagement with
media reflects race or class differences. While some researchers have found
370 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

differences in the readings of dominant femininity by white and minority

readers (Crane 1999; Duke 2000, 2002; Milkie 1999), others argue that there is
no substantive difference (Currie 1997; Kaplan and Cole 2003). With this
limited data set, I found that there does appear to be a connection between the
social location (both race and class) of girls and their ability to negotiate
readings from the magazines. While this study is by no means representative,
eight of the 11 minority girls were resistant to the ideology of prom magazines
at least partially, if not almost entirely. Only five of the 12 white girls I inter-
viewed were partially resistant. Broken down by class, five of the nine upper-class
girls were resistant, three of the seven middle-class girls were resistant (two of
those three were very resistant), and five of the seven working-class girls were
resistant (two of the five were very resistant). Overall, girls at Westmont were
not as likely to be resistant as the girls at Jefferson. In these examples, it is
difficult to separate exactly how class and race contribute to a girl’s ability to
resist dominant discourses but a combination of social factors (including class
and cultural positionalities) can reinforce or lessen the impact of these media
discourses.
Adolescent girl life is full of contradictions and complexities that only
come to light if one suspends the assumption that girls are dominated by
mediated images of femininity. Girls negotiate their identities in a seemingly
all-encompassing and dominating culture. But they also resist and are active
participants in the creation and re-creation of cultural hegemony and power.
Girls are often portrayed as powerless creatures, “cultural dopes” who blindly
follow what the media tell them to think, act, and do. But this is far from the
truth. Girls are not just “docile bodies”—they are very aware of the cultural and
social expectations placed upon them by the larger culture and by the prom,
more specifically. Prom magazines are not the only forces feeding these cultural
pressures—girls also learn standards of prom appearance and decorum from
parents, siblings, friends, peers, schools, and the larger media. Pattee (2004:7)
argues that “the lived experiences of teenage girls are not directly informed via
literal translations of magazine texts. However, the extranormalizing power of
these ‘teenzines’ is a real consequence of their reading.” While prom magazines
are only one part of the larger “socialization process,” they also serve as a clear
example of our culture’s standards regarding the prom by reinforcing dominant
norms.
The dominant cultural construction in prom magazine texts articulates a
social and political discourse that attempts to confine and regulate the behavior
of girls within the norms of stereotypical gendered practice. But there is a
hidden irony when feminists (and other scholars) argue that girls are dominated
by mediated images of femininity and thus need protection from this new
source of “danger” (Mazzarella 1999; Pipher 1994). It is ironic that girls (the
 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 371

feminine) are reconceptualized as vulnerable in the same cultural moment as

women’s liberation. In this new conceptualization, girls do not need the protec-
tion of men—they need adult feminists to protect them from the media.
As a feminist scholar, I have attempted to unhinge the notion of femininity
from vulnerability and passivity. But I recognize the importance of moderation—
it is just as incorrect to say that girls are fine and there is nothing wrong with
the media as it is to say that girls need rescue and protection. In the middle of
these two extremes lies a middle ground advocating that girls need tools with
which to approach the world—tools to understand the media and tools to make
decisions that are not based solely on advertisers’ wishes. Girls are in different
places on a continuum of negotiation and resistance, and I have shown that
some girls are more obviously able to reject traditional gender norms based on
their social locations and experiences. None of the girls that I interviewed
uncritically adopted all hegemonic gender norms; instead, they used strategic
selectivity to negotiate meanings from the prom magazines. This story is much
more complicated than the one commonly told about the relationship between
gender and the media.

ENDNOTES

*This article is based on research that was supported by a UC Davis President’s Undergraduate
Fellowship Grant in 2003. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2004 annual
meeting of the American Sociological Association and was awarded Second Place in Alpha Kappa
Delta’s 2004 Undergraduate Paper Competition. The author would like to thank Ryken Grattet, Lyn
Lofland, and most of all, Laura Grindstaff, for advice and support throughout the research and
writing process, and the editors and anonymous reviewers of Sociological Inquiry for their
insightful and constructive comments on the earlier draft of this paper.
1
As Seventeen did not publish a prom-specific magazine in 2002, Seventeen Prom is only
represented in 2003 and 2004. Also, YM Prom did not issue a prom magazine in 2004, so it is only
represented in 2002 and 2003. Subscription figures for the four magazines: Your Prom 381,908
single-issue paid (no subscription base); Teen magazine specials (including Teen Prom) 940,399
subscription and 407,251 single-issue for a total of 1,247,650 paid; Seventeen 2,105,850 subscrip-
tion and 303,439 single-issue for a total of 2,409,289 paid; YM 1,962,437 subscription and 272,333
single-issue for a total of 2,234,770 paid (Consumer Magazine Advertising Source 2003:727–803).
Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory and Bowker’s Magazines for Libraries list similar circulation figures
to SRDS’s for most of the magazines except for Your Prom, which they give as 800,000 (LaGuardia,
Katz, and Katz 2002; Magazines for Libraries 2005).
2
While Finders (1996:77) argues that teen magazines are marketed (and read by) “one
particular type of reader, the social queen, the middle-class female,” I found that the prom issues
were read by girls at both schools and across social classes.
3
I also asked the girls what class they felt their family belonged to, but as many people (and
especially adolescents) are notorious for miscategorizing themselves, I often depended on my own
observations of their social class. For example, five of the seven girls who were working class
identified themselves as middle class, even though most of their parents had not completed high
372 NICHOLE ZLATUNICH

school and all worked in manual labor or low-wage service occupations (e.g., janitor, housecleaner,
waitress, mail clerk).
4
“Oreo” is a derogatory slang term for African Americans who supposedly act white. It refers
to the perception that they are black on the outside, but white on the inside. “Twinkie” is a comparable
term to “Oreo” that is used for Asian Americans.
5
Girls were coded as not resistant if they accepted all or almost all of the magazines’
dominant ideologies; partially resistant if they articulated some criticism of the magazines; and
very resistant if they rejected most of the magazines’ ideologies.

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 PROM DREAMS AND PROM REALITY 375

APPENDIX A

“The Girls”

Level of resistant reading:

Pseudonym Race Class very, partially, not5

Westmont High School

Elizabeth white upper class partially
Noelle white middle class not
Lisa white upper class partially
Stephanie Asian middle class not
Erika white middle class not
Julie white middle class not
Genny white upper class not
Emma white upper class not
Beth Asian upper class not
Kristin white upper class partially
Anne white middle class partially
Renee white upper class partially
Michelle Latina middle class very
Jefferson High School
Jenny Filipina middle class very
Maribel Latina working class very
Laticia African American working class very
Leesa white middle class not
Lindsay white working class not
Paris African American working class partially
Angelina African American working class partially
Maria Latina working class not
Laura Latina upper class partially
Lorena Latina working class partially