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…And my awareness of the gender normative themes in my childhood films and TV shows grows stronger every day.
WARNING: Sound of Music spoilers and possible triggers ahead.
After half an hour of digging through endless crates of one-dollar vinyl records, I left What Cheer Records on Thayer Street with dusty fingers and a mint condition copy of Rodger and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. The technicolor image of Maria and the Von Trapp family on the record sleeve evoked memories of the soft lulls of “Edelweiss” and my fervent childhood renditions of “Do-Re-Mi.” But while the record itself was a symbol of my carefree life before the IB Diploma Program, it was also a stark reminder of the previously and still unknown prospects of first loves depicted in Liesl and Rolf’s “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”
The Sound of Music years of my childhood saw my cousin and I singing the line “I am sixteen going on seventeen” over and over again, despite it being around ten years too early for us to be proclaiming such things. Back then, the song was just a song and the lyrics meant nothing to us except that Rolf and Liesl were meant for each other. Revisiting the song on vinyl as an actual sixteen-year-old, I wondered why it had never occurred to anyone in my childhood years to debrief me of the blatant sexism that this song implies in terms of gender roles and stereotypes.
Thankfully, my life so far as an actual sixteen-year-old is nothing like the life prescribed by seventeen-year-old Rolf for sixteen-year-old Liesl in the lyrics of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”
Rolf:
You wait little girl
On an empty stage
For fate to turn the light on
There’s nothing I hate more than being called a little girl with the same degrading tone that Rolf uses to refer to Liesl at the beginning of the song. Rolf uses the words “little girl” to establish his view of Liesl as a naïve child compelled to learn from him on the premise that because he is one year older than her, it’s paramount that he knows what’s best for her. The last time I checked, “Respect your elders” was a phrase exclusive of seventeen-year-old boys and inclusive to people like my parents, teachers, grandparents, and other “elders” who genuinely care about me and are actually deserving of my respect.
Rolf
Your life little girl
is an empty page
that men will want to write on
Leisl
To write on
Rolf
You are 16 going on 17
Baby its time to think
Better beware
Be canny and careful
Baby you’re on the brink
You are 16 going on 17
Fellows will fall in line
Eager young lads
And grueways and cads
Will offer you fruit and wine
At first it seems like Rolf has good intentions and is warning Liesl to be wary of the “young lads, grueways, and cads” who he believes will jump at any opportunity to entice her with luxury in order to make their way into her life. All this stops when he defines her life as “an empty page that men will want to write on,” which will never be commensurate to the amount of potential that Liesl’s life as a sixteen-year-old actually had. I, too, am sixteen going on seventeen, and as far as I’m concerned, my life is not an empty page. I have a bright future ahead of me as a journalist, gender equality activist, and whatever else I might want to be. With the guidance of people I trust, I get to make my own decisions about who can make the most significant impact on my life. And when I do delegate this task to others, it’s most certainly not going to be to some random stranger delivering a telegram to my house.
Totally unprepared are you
To face a world of men
Timid and shy and scared are you
Of things beyond your ken
There’s no denying that there are dangers in the world (not pertaining to men alone) that young women need to be wary of and educated about. But by saying “a” world of men instead of “this” world of men, Rolf implies that it’s an unfixable truth that the world is governed by men and men alone. He then proceeds to call Liesl “timid and shy and scared” despite having no sufficient background knowledge to make such a definitive statement of who she is beyond his perception of her as a naïve sixteen-year-old.
Although the “world of men” Rolf warns Liesl about may have been unfamiliar to her, Rolf had no right to declare her “totally unprepared” or in other words completely ignorant of the dangers that she, as a young woman, would be pit against in what he believed was the real world.
Rape culture is one of the first things that come to mind when I think about the dangers that I have taken upon myself to be wary of at the age of sixteen. When women are victims of crimes like rape and murder, the concept of wrongdoing is often mistakenly attributed to what the victim was wearing or to actions that indicate that the victim was “asking for it.” Although women all over the world continue to challenge these social norms pertaining to their behavior, there’s no denying that these crimes still take place and will continue to take place in the same way. Because of this prevailing social norm, even young women are forced to be conscious of the way they dress and act in order to protect themselves from rape and violent crimes. It is wrong to assume that all young women are completely unaware of such realities.
Rolf
You need someone
Older and wiser
Telling you what to do
I am 17 going on 18
I’ll take care of you
This stanza brings me back to the problem that women are constantly being told what to do by people who are not entitled to do so. As a sixteen-year-old girl like Liesl who is still figuring things out, I’ll admit that I need people I trust to help me make decisions across several areas of my life. I recognize that I need my “older and wiser” parents to guide me and they are entitled to tell me what to do simply because they have taken such good care of me. If I were put in the same position as Liesl, the same view would not hold true for a seventeen-year-old boy like Rolf. Not because Rolf is a boy, but because I would detest the idea of being put in a position of subserviency without my wanting it or recognizing any need for it.
Leisl
I am 16 going on 17
I know that I’m naive
Fellows I meet may tell me I’m sweet
And willingly I believe
I am 16 going on 17 innocent as a rose
Bachelor dandies
Drinkers of brandies
What do I know of those?
Totally unprepared am I
To face a world of men
Timid and shy and scared am I
Of things beyond my ken
I need someone
Older and wiser
Telling me what to do
You are 17 going on 18
I’ll depend on you
Liesl begins to speak for herself towards the very end of the song in which she acknowledges her naivety and inexperience regarding men. In accordance with the idea of gender equality, Liesl had every right to think for herself and make an informed decision about her self-perception and the role of men in her life. But the statements she makes in the last four stanzas seem to be repetitions of everything Rolf had previously told her, presenting her as a subservient child willing to blindly believe and take orders from a boy who is but one year her senior and also, by the way, turns out to be a Nazi.
As a whole, the attitudes and ideas depicted in the lyrics of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” are extremely gender-normative, with the song itself depicting a situation in which a sixteen-year-old girl is brazenly told how to think and act by a seventeen-year-old boy who succeeds in influencing her self-perception based on what she thinks is expected of her by society. Such attitudes and ideas are dangerous in the sense that they are usually introduced to children when they are too young to grasp the implications and the underlying meanings of the songs they mindlessly sing along to, as I did a thousand times over with “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”
It’s only now at sixteen years old that I’ve realized and gained a thorough understanding of what “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” implies, and unfortunately, its likely effects on the way I perceived gender roles as a little girl. These implications are not necessarily restricted to “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” as gender normative themes in the media are more prevalent than ever even 50 years after the release of films like The Sound of Music.
Although they may not be immediately recognized, the effects of gender normative media and pop culture on young children and teenagers like me are often subconscious and likely to have a long-term impact on our perceptions of ourselves and our roles in society based on our gender. In a world where media and pop culture is more dynamic and influential than ever, it’s important to be aware of the effects of the gender norms and stereotypes depicted in countless films, music, books, and TV shows. Thus, aside from the standard “material that may not be suitable for children,” we need to start taking very seriously the dangers of media and pop culture with extremely one-sided views on gender.
With that, my own version of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” would read something along the lines of:
I am 16 going on 17
And my awareness of the gender normative themes in my childhood films and TV shows
Grows stronger every day.
Bibliography
- Carr, Charmian, and Daniel Truhitte. Sixteen Going on Seventeen. Rodgers and Hammerstein. 20th Century Fox, 1965. Vinyl recording.
