Monday, October 17, 2011

Childhood memories

Martine is just one of those sweet, marshmallow type nostalgia-inducing book series.
Mind you, like most of of the literature aimed at children in those days, the stories and characters are highly genderized and the whole thing was, in retrospect, pretty condescending and stereotyped.

But I survived all right and those images send me back to the bygone days of pink Barbie bicycle rides throughout the neighbourhood, pedaling furiously not to be late to rendez-vous with similarly prepubescent lovers... exchanging melted M&Ms... smooching in back alleys...

No comment!


Early editions



This bike seems so huge! When her feet are on the floor, her nose isn't even on the handlebar, come on!
Well, I guess children will swallow everything...
And notice how she bends her knee inward so we cannot see her underwear. So old-fashioned, who cycles (or sits!) like this anymore? 



More recent editions


Notice how she switches from an urban, nice, up-right bike with dynamo, mudguards, chainguard, and rack to a kid-shit mountain bike from El-Cheapo?
No wonder this one is titled: "The accident".

2 comments:

  1. Yes, Martine was very gendered, but the series was unusual in that the girl was the heroine, or main character, and she did stuff.

    I'm older than you (there were no pink Barbie bikes when I was a child, bicycles were like the ones Martine and the dapper elderly gentleman in the béret are riding in the first pic) and I'm sure I probably bend my knees inward when riding in a skirt or dress.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Come on!
    What about all the "Fantomette" and "Alice détective"...?
    I am definitely from the same period as the last edition.

    ReplyDelete

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