Smart Girls at the Party by Athena Allred

http://www.smartgirlsattheparty.com/


Smart Girls at the Party is a podcast hosted by Amy Poehler, with musical assistance from Amy Miles and production assistance from Meredith Walker. However, despite the star power backing the show, the real stars are the girls who are highlighted each webisode. The point of this podcast and website is for girls to see other girls being creative and smart, refusing to downplay their talents, and each webisode focuses on a different girl or group of girls who are talented and dedicated and not afraid to be seen as smart. I agree with another blogger, Ami Angelowicz when she states at The Frisky (http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-i-wish-smart-girls-at-the-party-was-around-when-i-was-a-kid/ ) that she wishes SGATP was around when she was a kid. From the show’s theme song, repeating, “Smart girls have more fun,” to the dance party at the end of each webisode, SGATP keeps me interested and makes me proud to be a girl.


The show, now in its second season, is helping to breakdown myths about gender, including the idea perpetuated in much of modern television, teen novels, and movies that the main goal of girls and women is to attract a man. However, men are not absent from the series. Men can be seen in some shots of the co-hosts and in the dance party at the end. Men no doubt work on the show, and the presence of men sends a message that smart girls should be celebrated by everyone, not exclusively other girls and women. Boys and boyfriends are not discussed, being irrelevant to the show’s purpose. The team instead chooses to focus on the individual accomplishments of each girl. This is also a departure from many tween and teen entertainment aimed at girls, which stresses the importance of relational savvy over personal achievement. Even though the Season One episode, Lea and Sarafina, the sisters, has a relational focus, it’s a sister-friend relationship, and not a boyfriend or rivalry between girls, relationships which are all-too-often featured in tween and teen entertainment. The first webisode in season two, Rachel: The Engineer features a twelve-year-old girl who designs and builds robots. This young woman is an amazing example for other girls, who are generally not strongly encouraged to pursue math and science.


SGATP is perfect for the tween and younger teen audience, as the videos are short, varied, and funny. There is no time to lose interest or decide that being smart is boring, as the hosts and guests move at a quick pace and keep things light whenever they can. Another thing that the series does well is to highlight the work of the girls featured and illustrate that the girls are special, while still maintaining a sense of accessibility. The webisodes do not center on celebrities, but rather everyday girls who are doing what they love. This sends a strong message to viewers that they too can build robots, start a band, or become a chef. Smart Girls at the Party is a fun, interesting way to encourage a new generation to, “Change the world by being yourself.”