This paper examines the commodification of English author Beatrix Potter as a marketable postfeminist figure in American popular culture. Beatrix Potter (later, Heelis) entered the transatlantic canon of classic children’s literature in the early 20th century with ‘little books’ she wrote and illustrated. Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddleduck, and other anthropomorphized animal characters in these tales remain recognizable icons of middle-class American childhood in the 21st century, evidenced by the 2013 Peter Rabbit themed clothing collection from Baby GAP and the continued popularity of licensed toys, nursery decor, and the books themselves. Celebrated for her accurate and detailed illustrations, Potter was also a talented naturalist, mycologist, botanical illustrator, and, later, a capable Lake District farm woman and sheep breeder dedicated to preserving the region’s fell farming traditions and lands. Potter might easily be construed as a role model for young girls, considering her scientific and artistic achievements and her remarkable legacy of nature conservation. In popular memory, however, she is usually regarded as an object of nostalgia, a purveyor of ‘cute’ animals and picturesque British rurality.
Miss Potter, a 2006 biopic starring Renee Zellweger, portrays Beatrix Potter as a socially awkward, childlike Victorian woman struggling for independence from her parents. Centering on her ill-fated romance with her publisher Norman Warne, the film’s screenplay revises Potter’s life narrative to attribute the major successes of her adult life to childhood experiences and the influences of Warne and her future spouse William Heelis. Rather than critique Miss Potter by cataloguing its historical inaccuracies, I closely read these deviations in the context of 21st century ‘chick’ postfeminism, asking why Potter’s life story had to change so drastically to appeal to the film’s contemporary female audience.
This paper is excerpted from a dissertation about gender, class, and the commemoration of children’s literature authors.
About the presenterSarah Gothie
Sarah C. Gothie is a PhD Candidate in American Culture and Museum Studies at the University of Michigan.