The Cheetah Girls, a popular girl group made famous by Disney, took the world by storm with their messages of intersectional feminism and multi cultural families in the early 2000s.
Marketed towards the young female population in the United States, The Cheetah Girls were composed of a four-member girl group that began in their first year of high school and stayed together as they continued on to travel the world and finish high school.
The group’s four members were Galleria (played by Raven-Symoné), Chanel (played by Adrienne Bailo), Dorinda (played by Sabrina Bryan), and Aquanetta (played by Kiely Williams). These four girls represented many facets of the modern, 21st century world we’re living in:
- Galleria is the child of a multicultural family, her mother being African-American and her father Italian.
- Chanel lives with her wealthy single mother and is Puerto Rican, Cuban & Dominican.
- Dorinda is both African-American and white while appearing to be completely white, giving her hidden diversity within the foster care system she was raised in.
- Aquanette is African-American and very religious and wealthy, living with her single father.
This arrangement of characters is almost unheard of in this day and age of popular media. They made the films so that the one white girl was not fully white and still the minority, which is unusual in today’s media.
This arrangement of characters is almost unheard of in this day and age of popular media.
And yet to have the series of films and novels not be solely marketed toward minority audiences is something rareely seen, even though this is the reality of the world we live in.
As the girls combatted problems such as bullying, record deals, working through disputes in friendships and balancing school with their cheetalicious, hectic lives, they taught their young viewers positive messages about life; that sometimes not everything works out and that it is okay to struggle for what you want.
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