Everyone knows Rowan Blanchard as the young, kick-butt inter-sectional feminist who isn’t afraid to speak her mind and to take up space. She’s used her platform well to address issues that affect everyone and not just herself. Unsurprisingly enough, the show that she stars on seems to be doing the very same thing. The writers tackle serious social and world issues by teaching the audience through the four main cast members and their junior high history teacher. They bring up issues like cultural appropriation, abandonment issues, why it’s important for girls to take STEM courses, poverty and privilege, the importance of treating service workers well, bullying, and even the complexity of love. Here are six ways Girl Meets World has changed the face of Disney Channel:
1. Girl Meets Popular:
In one of the earliest episodes, Riley Matthews (Rowan Blanchard) is confused about her identity after she gets invited to a “nerd party” and decides to change herself to fit in with them. She starts wearing big glasses, colorful hair extensions, bright clothing and has the overall appearance of a Harajuku girl. Riley’s close friends and family immediately become concerned with this change and try to talk her out of it. She doesn’t respond to their criticisms and declares to them that this is who she is. She shuts out her best friend, Maya, and tries to convince everyone that she has changed. At the end of the episode, Riley is competing in a spelling bee all decked out in her Harajuku clothes. Maya interrupts the spelling bee and hands a flashcard to Mr. Matthews, Riley’s dad and teacher. The word on the flashcard is “Harajuku” and he asks Riley to spell it out for him. When she asks for it to be used in a sentence, her dad says something along the lines of how Harajuku is a community of Japanese girls who created their own environment and style for themselves. Riley finally recognizes the point he is trying to get across and says: “Harajuku, something I am not.” I cannot stress how important it is for this lesson to be taught, especially to those who are between the ages of seven to fourteen and it may not come up elsewhere for them later on in life. Cultures all around the world have their own unique symbols, hair and clothing and it’s sacred to them. These things aren’t for people from other places to try on or play around with (like when Gwen Stefani used Harajuku girls as props for her brand and made them go everywhere with her as her entourage.) It taught the audience that cultures are meant to be appreciated and admired, not to be claimed and inappropriately used for your own benefit.
2. Girl Meets the Forgotten:
In Girl Meets the Forgotten, Riley and her friends make a huge mess in the cafeteria and then get up and leave when the bell rings. Their logic is that it’s someone else’s job to clean it up anyway. Mr. Matthews catches them and decides to teach them a lesson, appointing the four kids to cafeteria and janitorial duties. Throughout the episode, the kids develop relationships with the service workers and realize that they should be trying to make their jobs easier, not more difficult. They also learn that the janitor and cafeteria workers care about each of the children and know them by name. The friends now understand that the school is clean because of them and that the cafeteria food is tailored for every single kid so that they can enjoy lunch equally without getting sick. This is an especially important lesson for younger generations because service workers are always looked down upon and rarely given the credit they deserve. Service workers in places like schools allow the kids a clean, safe, and healthy environment to learn in and definitely deserve more recognition.
3. Girl Meets Smackle:
Girl Meets Smackle is about inner and outer beauty. The series approaches it in an unusual way, though. Isadora Smackle competes on an academic team that is opposite of Riley’s middle school. Riley’s friend Farkle, leads her school’s team. After the debate, Riley and her best friend Maya notice something odd about Smackle’s behavior and decide to figure out what it is by befriending her. They quickly learn that Smackle has a crush on Farkle, her academic rival. Smackle asks the girls to make her pretty like they are and the girls agree, excited to perform the makeover. They all meet at the next debate and Smackle is wearing a dress, makeup, and has removed her glasses. The purpose of the debate is to argue whether beauty is only skin deep or not. Smackle launches into a long speech about how she would argue that beauty is skin deep, that people only want to get know someone if the packaging is pretty. She then goes on to explain that even though she knows this, it doesn’t bother her. She acknowledges that even though physical beauty is clearly important in society, so are friendships, love, intelligence and integrity. This is incredibly important and revolutionary because a lot of times when talking about physical beauty, its role in society gets downplayed and discounted. We all know it’s a lie and a false lesson when people try to teach that physical beauty doesn’t play an important role in our lives. It does, it’s all around us. The point of this episode was to teach that even though it has a huge impact on our lives and on the way we are perceived, it shouldn’t outshine all the other things that we are capable of or become our main focus.
4. Girl Meets Flaws/Girl Meets Rileytown
These two episodes are spaced a season apart but both focus on one of the main characters being bullied. In Girl Meets Flaws, Farkle is bullied by a classmate who keeps telling him that he’s too nerdy and not good enough to have the friends that he has. He’s bullied for his turtle neck sweaters and for his academic abilities. This prompts him to hide in the janitors closet and learn his school lessons via webcam. His friends have no idea what is going on and don’t understand why Farkle is ignoring all of them. When they learn that Farkle is being bullied, they make it a mission to find the person who is behind it. They find the kid and confront him, and the kid finally admits that he’s jealous that Farkle doesn’t have to do anything but be himself to make friends. Then, in Girl Meets Rileytown, Riley is being cyberbullied through text messages. She’s too afraid to admit it to her friends and decides to stay in bed and not go to school one day. Maya gets her up and out of bed but Riley ends up taking her bottled up frustrations out on all of her friends. They don’t understand her outbursts until Farkle figures out that Riley is being bullied just like he was in season one. They confront Riley about it and she confesses, admitting that it’s bothering her. She admits that she’s being bullied because she’s too happy and that the girl bullying her thinks its abnormal. We never get to see her face or figure out why she was really bullying Riley. These two episodes’ highlight how kids can not only be bullied in different ways or for different reasons, but also that there may never truly be an answer for why someone is a bully. It also shows that it’s very common in middle schools and that anyone can be targeted, even girl who seems like she has a perfect, happy life.
5. Girl Meets STEM:
This one was all about why it’s important for girls to participate in science and technology classes. Their science teacher assigns his famous end of the year project where the kids are told to pick a partner and one of them has to drop a marble in a beaker. The girls and guys pair up, one by one, and the guys all assign the girls to drop the marble into the water. Riley immediately feels this is wrong and refuses to drop it, much to Farkle’s frustration. She advises the rest of the girls to refuse to drop it as well and the girls start a rebellion. They all voice their anger about how they feel like the boys don’t think they’re capable of participating in the class. At one point, Maya gives into the pressure and drops the marble into hers and Lucas’s cup. The water instantly turns into a thick muddy brown substance and none of the kids understand why. Their teacher orders them to lift the glass to eye level and asks if they can see each other through the murky water. They admit that they can’t. Then he asks Riley and Farkle to lift the glass and do the same and they can see each other perfectly through the crystal clear water. The teacher tells them that this was his lesson and that Riley was right to not drop the marble. He says that each year girls lose more and more interest in STEM subjects and let their male counterparts take over. He says that they fail to see each other clearly and begin to see each other unequally as opposed to when they were younger. He encourages his female students to not give up STEM subjects and to keep pursuing their interests in them. This is important for obvious reasons and starts a conversation within a younger community. Hopefully this will open up more doors for more representation of girls who are into science and not just stereotypical teen girls who are exclusively into shopping and boys. Riley clearly proves that you can be both.
6. Girl Meets Farkle:
In this particularly heartwarming episode, Farkle takes a test to see if he has a genius level IQ. When he passes his test, his friends and family are proud of him and celebrate his genius, even throwing a party with penguins (horrible idea- but that’s another conversation) in the goodie bags. But when he gets called in for more testing, his world is turned upside down. They want to test Farkle to see if he possibly has Asperger’s- a disorder on the Autism spectrum. He struggles with this and his friends rush to his side for support. They all research Asperger’s and learn as much about it as they can for their friend. They comfort him and reassure him that nothing about the way they relate to him will change. The results come back and declare that Farkle doesn’t have Asperger’s. The majority of his friends feel relieved, but Smackle seems disappointed that he wasn’t diagnosed. She soon admits to the other girls that she actually has Asperger’s and feels like Farkle will lose interest in her now that they don’t have that in common. The girls tell Smackle that they already realized she had the disorder when they were researching it and reassure her that it won’t turn Farkle away from her. The episode shows that those with disorders and disabilities shouldn’t be ashamed of them or feel too afraid to talk to their friends about it. Your real friends accept you for who you are without any exceptions. It’s also important because it represents Asperger’s and Autism in a positive way, ending the stigma and myths that surround it.
Girl Meets World is an incredibly important show for young viewers. It has actual substance, teaches real lessons that anyone across any spectrum can use and more accurately represents the way life is structured. It doesn’t showcase an alternate-fantasy high school universe where there are no real world problems and the only focus is on relationships; something we haven’t seen since That’s So Raven and Lizzie Mcguire. GMW focuses on a wide variety of struggles, many of which aren’t even on this list. There’s even been speculation of a possible LGBT representation in the later seasons. Hopefully the show will continue to gain more viewers and the show will be able to historically change the platform of Disney Channel forever.
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