Commodifying the Girl
A case study
“The Young-Girl is the commodity that insists on being consumed, at every instant, because at every instant she becomes more obsolete.”
-Tiqquin, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, 20121.
Between being a metaphor for the booming American economy and selling middle-class suburbia, the Valley Girl2 has long been linked to money and profits. Despite often being presented as perennially frivolous and unserious, her presence, either literally or metaphorically, has consistently proved to be a salient marketing strategy and a benchmark of economic success in the United States. The fact that the Valley Girl is positioned as a Girl in the marketplace (and not a Valley Boy), is key to this economic endurance. Artificially-constructed girlhood and commerce have a markedly successful relationship, and the Valley Girl is the perfect case study.
Frank Zappa was onto something when he paraded his 14-year-old daughter, Moon Unit Zappa, on national television to sell his 1982 “Valley Girl” song. Capitalism has often possessed an innate skillset for translating young girls into products and products into young girls; it reduces them to the same thing. With this unavoidable metric, girls are often presented on these platforms to be consumed, for aspirational beauty, for mockery, for gender performance cues, for moral lessons. That’s why to present a physical girl as a commodity is so obvious. Gender, in this landscape, renders her (barely) a person, but also as something to purchase.
The fact that the Valley Girl is positioned as a Girl in the marketplace (and not a Valley Boy), is key to this economic endurance.
Tiqqun writes in Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl,3 “The Young-Girl is the place where products and the human coexist in an apparently non-contradictory manner.” Zappa’s hit record and press tour fits neatly into this theory.
In the moments between hearing a valley girl4 accent in the “disgusting” San Fernando Valley and releasing his song mimicking the voice, Zappa was paralleling an authentic regional person to a product—his record. His daughter functioned as the physical stand-in for the product, while also performing the actual person for captivated audiences. To Tiqqun’s point, the product and the human existed as one, and the economic terrain recognized the Valley Girl immediately as profitable. The tour and the record were economically successful.
It is that profit that provides an important, enduring threshold when considering the Valley Girl trope and how far she is from the true history, culture, and story of the San Fernando Valley.
Money underpins the artifice of the Valley Girl. The drag of Valley Girl whiteness, the hyperbolic voice (as opposed to a regional accent), the performance of “bimbo” values. These fit the parameters of a product, not a person. Money is what divorces this artifice from the complexity of a valley girl, a person who has been shaped by multi-generational colonialism, Native genocide, Mexican ancestry, redlining, sex work, and a failure to conform to middle-class gendered expectations.
Capitalism has often possessed an innate skillset for translating young girls into products and products into young girls; it reduces them to the same thing.
Product is the space between valley girl Mary Helen Ponce of Pacoima and Moon’s many talk show performances, between the first Black families in the Valley and the copious suburban ads selling thin, white wives as part of the middle-class suburban fantasy.
The valley girl is so much richer and intricate than any mainstream talkshow or pop record or real estate advertorial could capture, or rather, sell to consumers. And yet, it is this commodification, that has produced the gendered caricature that has endured this many years later. 🌴
Next week: no Valley Girl.
I will be going on hiatus for the US holidays. We will resume with new essays in the New Year. Over the next couple of months, I’ll be sending some digests promoting past Valley Girl newsletters to get you properly prepped for next year’s installments. Happy holidays and here’s hoping for 2026. My love to you and yours.❤️
Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl. Translated by Ariana Reines, Semiotext(e) ; Distributed by MIT Press, 2012. Pg .75.
Uppercase “Valley Girl” to indicate the manufactured caricature.
Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl. Translated by Ariana Reines, Semiotext(e) ; Distributed by MIT Press, 2012. Pg .75.
Lowercase “valley girl” to indicate a female-identified or pangender individual who happens to be from or inhabits the San Fernando Valley.