Mall Rats and Mall Bunnies
by
Teenagers and malls co-exist in perfect harmony. Malls sell. Teenagers buy. It seems simple enough but in fact the relationship between the teenagers and mall is bit more complicated. Teenagers go to the mall for more than just shopping. The mall is a social arena, where "mall rats (males) and mall bunnies (females)... wander around different shops, playing video games in the arcade, smoking cigarettes, showing off their latest hair, makeup and clothing styles, and waiting for something, anything to happen" (Lewis 130). Malls cater to the teenage lifestyle with amusement rides, ice-skating rinks, and shopping, giving teenagers something to do with their free time. It is this premise, the teenage mall culture, that the Daria episode titled "Malled" satirizes. This morning, I will present an analysis of this Daria episode and examine the various aspects of teenage mall culture relevant to it.
In this episode, Daria viewers are introduced to the mall. "Malled" opens with Jake appalled by Quinn's pleas to go to the Mall of the Millenium. He exclaims, "100 miles to a mall! Why there's a mall five minutes away." Jake Morgendorfer, although a little out of touch with reality and his daughters' lives, is on the right track, why go to a mall 100 miles away instead of a mall close by? What is it about the mall that is so attractive to teenagers like Quinn? Quinn chooses to do a month of Daria's chores instead of never stepping foot in a mall for month. And even Brittany praises the person who invented the mall a genius.
Who is this genius who thought of putting a bunch of stores under one roof? His name is Alexander Haagen. Although he was not the inventor, "he was the first developer in the nation to grasp the latent profit potential of abandoned inner-city retail markets" (Davis 242). He began to develop malls in the inner cities of Los Angeles. Popularity grew and mall fever caught on from there.
Since Haagen, malls have come a long way; they are not just about shopping anymore. According to Joan Didion, author of the White Album, shopping malls have evolved to be "the profound equalizers... toy garden cities in which no one lives, but everyone consumes.... The perfect fusion of the profit motif and the egalitarian ideal" (after Lewis 121). Mall managers further promote this type of spending-conducive environment by mixing "recreation and community facilities with retail outlets," thereby perfecting "the strategy of 'mixed use' or 'multipurpose' shopping mall"(Lewis 121). The increasing popularity of this type of "multipurpose"/"mixed use" shopping mall has become the standard in mall development and making the mall itself the "focal point for the community life" (Lewis 121). No wonder why Quinn, Brittany and her fellow cronies are so attracted to it. For teenagers looking to hang out, the mall is a place that reconciles boredom.
Meanwhile in Daria's economic class, Mrs. B discusses the dynamics of supply and demand. When asked to give an example of a "concrete abstraction of the supply and demand" (Mrs. B), Daria replies in her characteristically mundane, monotone voice, "the mall." According to Mrs. B, the mall is "the perfect emblem of the modern day economic structure." Malls supply, but they create demand with good marketing and advertising techniques. The article "Motivational Research: Explaining Why Consumers Behave the Way They Do," explains how marketers uses motivational research to determine consumer needs. They employ various research techniques such as observation, the focus group, and the in-depth interview, to determine consumers' reactions to the product and needs, to predict the demand, and to devise methods to influence the consumer into buying products (Thomas 54). Malls are developed as moneymakers. After taking research results, population, income, purchasing power, competitive facilities, and accessibility factors are taken into account (Gruen and Smith 30), the mall is then molded to and supplied with merchandise that fit consumer preferences, taste and affordability range. Daria recognizes the artificially created, manipulative forces of the mall, which is probably why she does not think so highly of it.
But despite Daria and Jane's wishes, their economic class takes a field trip to the Mall of the Millennium to study the dynamics of supply and demand. During the drive to the mall, there is an infectious excitement emanating from everyone except for Daria and Jane. Daria is nauseous the entire trip, perhaps already anticipating the manipulative forces working in the mall at full strength in which she will encounter. But while Daria's head is spinning, Brittany does a cheer to salute the mall, "... money-mall... mall-money... the mall is where you spend your money!" Upchuck attempts to lure his female classmates to model bikinis, waving his father's credit card and says, "the gold card is very advantageous if it belongs to your father."
Brittany and Upchuck are good stereotypical representations of teenage attitudes toward the mall; their conceptions of the mall are the products of what the mall marketers created: the mall is the place to spend money and lots of it. According to Teen-Age Research Unlimited, in 1985 29 million teenagers spent an average of $80 a month on clothing and other things for themselves and the total spending power of teenagers was $65 billion ("$100 A Month" 11). A decade later, the teenage population is at 60 million ("Generation Y" 80) and still growing strong. Merchandisers are expecting a "teen speeding spree" (Needham 1). Brittany and Upchuck also share similarities with the Japanese "cheenayja's" (the Japanese adaptation of teenager) mentality toward shopping. Boston University/Harvard sociologist, Merry White, states her book, The Material Child, "[s]pending money is the favorite activity of Japanese teenagers." They go to the department stores with their friends on what's become virtually compulsory group shopping trips on Sunday afternoons. Like American mallies, Japanese kids spend to establish an identity: "you are who you are by the stuff you've got" (after Needham 11). Marketers tend to focus more on teenagers because their susceptibility to materialistic desires stemming from, as White states, the need for teenagers to establish identity through what they have. The writers of Daria are able to capture the essence of White's insight of the teenage psyche with Brittany's cheer of "mall-money, money-mall" and Upchuck's use of his father's gold card.
However, teenagers are not as easily sold as Daria writers portray them to be. Daria, Quinn, and others are part of the so-called "Generation Y, Echo Boomers or Millennium Generation" ("Generation Y" 80). Gen-Y teenagers are much more consumer savvy than previous generations. The superficial hype used in advertising that appealed to past generations do not cut it for Gen-Y ("Generation Y" 80). Advertisements geared toward teenagers must contain the following qualities in order to ensure the success of selling their product: authenticity -- "marketers need to come off as being real"; interaction with the product; and non-celebrity endorsements (Voight 34). Once marketers fulfill all three requirements, they have designed a successful advertising campaign, which can make many teenagers susceptible any goods on the market.
Back in Daria land, the writers continue to satirize other effects of good marketing. Yes. Teenagers can be easily bought, but even adults can be victimized. Daria writers use Mrs. B's craze over the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Weebits as a spoof off the craze surrounding Ty's Beanie Babies. When Mrs. B spots the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Weebits store, she becomes absolutely ecstatic, oohing and ahhing over brightly colored stuffed-animals. Although Fuzzy-Wuzzy Weebits are hideous little things, she still buys an armful. Marketing tactics are once again working at full force. Maybe the message conveyed here is that parents should not be too critical of what teenagers buy, that irrational consumer behavior sticks throughout teenage-hood all the way to adulthood.
Mall marketers are able to sell to Daria's classmates and Mrs. B, but why can't mall-marketers influence Daria and Jane? As Sandy might say, "uh... Quinn's cousin or whatever, she's like weird or something." Unlike the rest of her classmates, upon arriving at the mall Daria throws up instead of admiring the gleaming glass front of the Mall of the Millennium. She is not fascinated by it, but more disgusted. Perhaps the mall phenomenon has grown a bit out of hand. A toy train to escort shoppers to the mall entrance instead of walking fifty feet seems a little too extreme. A mall sectioned off by levels and colors with roller coasters, too, is quite excessive. Then again, the Mall of the Millennium does not stray too far away from reality. The Mall of America, located in Minnesota, is somewhat similar -- it is gigantic and it too has amusement rides. Daria is not impressed because she knows that she is about to enter a money vacuum. Amusement rides and shiny glass mall fronts only disguise the fact that malls are "cool, smooth [places] of economic transactions" (Lewis 134). However, Daria does not succumb to it as easily as her classmates do.
After Daria's throws up, the class makes their way through the color-coded levels and aisles of the mall. Daria's economics class is brought into a meeting with several middle-aged, black-suited executives. The executives begin to ask questions such as "when you look for a mall, what do you look for?" Jody, however, is a bit suspicious and asks, "how can demographics be determined by a bunch of middle-aged men, unless...." Jody's question prompts Daria to realize that that the meeting, arranged by Mrs. B, with the mall executives is actually a set-up for a focus group, which, as mentioned earlier, is nothing short of the research tactics employed by mall developers to gather information on consumer needs. The questions asked by the executives, although they did not receive a response, questions are usually phrased to "achieve spontaneous interaction" (Thomas 55). In other words, questions are asked to probe and incite a group's collective answer and action toward a certain question, which will give insight into consumer behavior. These answers are what the executives base their final decisions on how to market the mall according to the current trends.
Since the ulterior purpose of the meeting is now exposed, Daria, Jody and Jane demand compensation for participation in the focus group. The mall executives pay the class with twenty-dollar gift certificates, which, at first, Daria refuses. "It's the principle," Daria says in vain. Even Jane cannot ignore her own materialistic desires and takes the certificate, which horrifies Daria. Daria gives in and takes the certificate reluctantly, stating "so much for idealistic youth." Valuing her principles over money, Daria does not like the idea of being bought. But is trading her values for a twenty-dollar gift certificate for Doo-Dads really worth the sacrifice?
However Daria cheers up when she runs into Quinn, who has skipped school with the Fashion Club. Quinn's quartet typifies the stereotypical teenage girls, who are more concerned with appearance, popularity and everything else within the realm of high school. The four girls sit at the food court, sipping soda while discussing how to use their popularity and good taste to help the less fortunate. This scene depicted in this episode somewhat typifies the teenage social scene at malls. Malls are areas for social interaction because "for teenagers, caught as they are between the statuses of childhood and adulthood, there are few social spaces or physical spaces open where they can congregate and develop their own contacts and social networks" (Lewis 134). It is also a place for them to show off hair, make-up and clothing styles. In Quinn's case, the mall is a place for her to inflict her social grace and fashion expertise on the needy.
Unfortunately, the Fashion Club had unknowingly chosen to makeover Daria and Jane. Quinn is caught skipping school and Daria, threatening to tell Helen and Jake of Quinn's whereabouts, gives her the choice of either doing Daria's chores or never stepping foot in a mall for a month and to give Daria and Jane a ride home. Quinn chooses to do Daria's chores, staying away from the mall for a month is too unbearable of a thought. Without the mall, how can Quinn, who happens to be Vice President of the Fashion Club, stay up-to-date with the latest styles and meet new people. After all, malls, to suburbanites like Quinn, "are the suburban equivalent to the urban street corners where inner city kids congregate. Suburban kids come to malls to... stay away from home and hang outCbecause there is no where else to go" (Lewis 129-30). Before storming off, Quinn tells Daria and Jane the exact section to meet her. The complexity of the mall layout does not faze Quinn like it does Mrs. B. What is more astonishing is that she has already memorized the entire map of the mall, which further exemplifies the importance of the mall to her.
After the brief encounter with the Fashion Club, Daria and Jane go off to redeem their gift certificates. Jane's coupon is for the Scizzor Wizard, a hair salon that styles hair after the celebrity of the customer's choice. However, research on Gen-Y has concluded that celebrity endorsements do not attract, but repel this new age teen consumer ("Generation Y" 80). Why, then, did Daria writers decide to include the Scizzor Wizard in this episode? Isn't it ironic that two people who are obviously anti-mainstream end up at hair salon dedicated to upkeep of the mainstream image? Although this episode satirizes mall culture, the writers needed to add some irony into the show -- irony makes television watchable (Crispin Miller 194). According to Mark Crispin Miller, assistant professor in the writing seminars and director of the Film Studies Programs at Johns Hopkins University, television viewers are skeptical to everything on television but "TV solicits each viewer's allegiance by reflecting back his/her own automatic skepticism toward TV. Thus, TV protects itself from criticism or rejection by incorporating our very animus against the spectacle into the spectacle itself"(194). The situation with Daria and Jane and the Scizzor Wizard, and later with the Doo-Dads, is part of irony that drives the show, thus making it acceptable to many viewers. Daria and Jane, for the most part, end up in situations that undermine what they believe in. It is funny to see how this cynical duo reacts in these types of situations. Another example of the irony in this episode is when Daria becomes the poster girl for Doo-Dads. It is Daria's turn to redeem her coupon. "Who would buy such crappy, useless junk?" she responds after looking at the storefront of Doo-Dads. Exactly. No one would buy useless junk but with the right marketing, anything is sellable. Ironically, upon entering the store Daria wins their 10,000th customer contest. As a reward for trading her "idealistic youth," she receives an armful of the original Doo-Dad creations that she detests. I proposed question earlier whether trading her values for a twenty-dollar gift certificate for Doo-Dads is really worth the sacrifice. No, it is not because, further adding to the satirical twist, Daria becomes the poster girl for Doo-Dads.
A couple of days have passed and Quinn, living up to her obligation, clears the dinner table. Helen and Jake decide that they had been too harsh on the girls and want to take them to the Mall of Millennium as a way to makeup. The girls look at each other, less than enthused.
Quinn and Daria are perhaps a little sick of the mall. Even for Quinn, the trade-off for a month of chores so that she would be able to go the mall is not worth it. Daria paid heavily by exchanging her "idealistic youth" to become the poster girl for Doo-Dads. It may seem that malls appear to be the center of a teen's life, but there is a limit to how much a teenager will sacrifice just to go to the mall. Although malls may have multi-levels, amusement rides and train-ride entrances, they eventually become boring. Even the mall rats and mall bunnies "wander around... waiting for something, anything, to happen" (Lewis 130).
Works Cited
"$100 a Month." American Demographics June 1989: 11-2.
Crispin Miller, Mark. "Deride and Conquer." Watching Television: a Pantheon Guide to Popular Culture. Ed. Todd Gitlin. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. 183-228.
Davis, Mike. City of Quartz. London: Verso, 1990.
"Generation Y." Business Week 15 Feb. 1999: 80.
Gruen, Victor and Smith, Larry. Shopping Towns USA: the Planning of Shopping Centers. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1960.
Lewis, George H. "Community through Exclusion and Illusion: the Creation of Social Worlds in an American Shopping Mall." Journal of Popular Culture 24 (1990): 121-136.
Thomas, Jerry W. "Motivational Research: Explaining Why Consumers Behave the Way They Do." Direct Marketing April 1998: 54-56.
Voight, Joan. "Moving Target" Brandweek 1 Feb. 1999: 34.