Sunday, June 18, 2006

Girls as Superheroes

James wrote an article a couple of days ago about superheroes -- specifically, which one he'd choose to be. He says:
In this post I explored how power fantasies are different for boys and girls. Girls, I said, dream of being The Princess while boys imagine themselves to be a superhero of some kind.
Not true for me -- I'd always dreamed of being a superhero, and never dreamed of being a Princess.

Star -- CrimefighterNeither, apparently, did Aubrey Matthews. The Idaho Statesman has a report about Aubrey's "Wish" as a grantee of the Make-a-Wish Foundation: she wanted to be a superhero for a day.

"We have four categories of wishes, and 'I Wish to Be' is the most rare," Executive Director Marcia Karakas said.

This is the first time in at least 10 years that a "Be" wish has been received in the Idaho office, which serves the state's lower 35 counties

Aubrey designed her own costume ("Star") and the costumes of fellow crimefighters, including "Lion Lady", "House Lifter", "Sky Girl", and others. She received her kick-off call from none other than Adam West and was off on the hunt after nefarious supervillian "Black" (the figure from Neighborhood Watch signs), who'd stolen the "Golden Star" from the Idaho Historical Museum. The crime had been pinned on ferrets at the zoo, but Star knew better. On the way to catching her man, she rescued citizens from a "smoking" building and saved someone from drowning in the ParkCenter Pond. What is absolutely mind-boggling cool about this whole thing -- beyond the fact that she imagined all of this and did all of the designs, was the sheer SCALE of the whole project:
Wish partner Windermere Real Estate had 100 percent participation from its 150 employees at two Boise offices.

Aubrey's wish blossomed to include the Idaho Historical Museum, Boise State University, Saint Alphonsus Life Flight, Fairly Reliable Bob's, Gowen Field Fire and Rescue, Zoo Boise, the mayor's office, and the city's police, fire and parks departments.

I'm thinking that I really, really like Boise now. EXCELSIOR!