Nancy Drew - Cultural Impact

Cultural Impact

According to commentators, the cultural impact of Nancy Drew has been enormous. The immediate success of the series led directly to the creation of numerous other girls' mysteries series, such as The Dana Girls mystery stories and the Kay Tracey mystery stories, and the phenomenal sales of the character Edward Stratemeyer feared was "too flip" encouraged publishers to market many other girls' mystery series, such as the Judy Bolton Series, and to request authors of series such as the Cherry Ames Nurse Stories to incorporate mystery elements into their works.

Many prominent and successful women cite Nancy Drew as an early formative influence whose character encouraged them to take on unconventional roles, including Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor; journalist Barbara Walters; singer Beverly Sills; mystery authors Sara Paretsky and Nancy Pickard; scholar Carolyn Heilbrun; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; former First Lady Laura Bush; and former president of the National Organization for Women Karen DeCrow. Less prominent women also credit the character of Nancy Drew with helping them to become stronger women; when the first Nancy Drew conference was held, at the University of Iowa, in 1993, conference organizers received a flood of calls from women who "all had stories to tell about how instrumental Nancy had been in their lives, and about how she had inspired, comforted, entertained them through their childhoods, and, for a surprising number of women, well into adulthood."

Nancy Drew's popularity continues unabated: in 2002, the first Nancy Drew book published, The Secret of the Old Clock, alone sold 150,000 copies, good enough for top-50 ranking in children's books, and other books in the series sold over 100,000 copies each. Sales of the hardcover volumes of the original Nancy Drew series alone has surpassed sales of Agatha Christie titles, and newer titles in the Girl Detective series have reached the New York Times bestseller lists. Approximately 10 new Drew titles are released a year, in both book and graphic novel form, and a sequel to the 2007 Nancy Drew film is planned. Entertainment Weekly ranked her seventeenth on its list of "The Top 20 Heroes", ahead of Batman, explaining that Drew is the "first female hero embraced by most little girls ... in an endless summer of never-ending adventures and unlimited potential." The magazine goes on to cite Scooby-Doo's Velma Dinkley as well as Veronica Mars as Nancy Drew's "copycat descendants".

Many feminist critics have pondered the reason for the character's iconic status. Nancy's car, and her skill in driving and repairing it, are often cited. Melanie Rehak points to Nancy's famous blue roadster (now a blue hybrid) as a symbol of "ultimate freedom and independence." Not only does Nancy have the freedom to go where she pleases (a freedom other, similar characters such as The Dana Girls do not have), but she is also able to change a tire and fix a flawed distributor, prompting Paretsky to argue that in "a nation where car mechanics still mock or brush off complaints by women Nancy remains a significant role model."

Nancy is also treated with respect: her decisions are rarely questioned and she is trusted by those around her. Male authority figures believe her statements, and neither her father nor Hannah Gruen, the motherly housekeeper, "place ... restrictions on her comings and goings." Nancy's father not only imposes no restrictions on his daughter, but trusts her both with her own car and his gun (in the original version of The Hidden Staircase ), asks her advice on a frequent basis, and accedes to all her requests. Some critics, such as Betsy Caprio and Ilana Nash, argue that Nancy's relationship with her continually approving father is satisfying to girl readers because it allows them to vicariously experience a fulfilled Electra complex.

Unlike other girl detectives, Nancy does not go to school (for reasons that are never explained), and she thus has complete autonomy. Similar characters, such as Kay Tracey, do go to school, and not only lose a degree of independence but also of authority. The fact of a character's being a school-girl reminds "the reader, however fleetingly, of the prosaic realities of high-school existence, which rarely includes high adventures or an authoritative voice in the world of adults."

Some see in Nancy's adventures a mythic quality. Nancy often explores secret passages, prompting Nancy Pickard to argue that Nancy Drew is a figure equivalent to the ancient Sumerian deity Inanna and that Nancy's "journeys into the 'underground'" are, in psychological terms, explorations of the unconscious. Nancy is a heroic figure, undertaking her adventures not for the sake of adventure alone, but in order to help others, particularly the disadvantaged. For this reason, Nancy Drew has been called the modern embodiment of the character of "Good Deeds" in Everyman.

In the end, many critics agree that at least part of Nancy Drew's popularity depends on the way in which the books and the character combine sometimes contradictory values with Kathleen Chamberlain writing in The Secrets of Nancy Drew: "For over 60 years, the Nancy Drew series has told readers that they can have the benefits of both dependence and independence without the drawbacks, that they can help the disadvantaged and remain successful capitalists, that they can be both elitist and democratic, that they can be both child and adult, and that they can be both "liberated" women and "Daddys' little girls." As another critic puts it, "Nancy Drew 'solved' the contradiction of competing discourses about American womanhood by entertaining them all."

In 2010, Nancy Drew (and her novels) were discussed in the Young Adult themed issue of the academic journal "Studies in the Novel." See Jennifer M. Woolston's essay entitled "Nancy Drew's Body: The Case of the Autonomous Female Sleuth" for a detailed discussion of the heroine's impact on popular culture. The essay also discusses links to Nancy Drew and feminist theory.