ABSTRACT
The fourth chapter examines the Baby-Sitters Club (1986–2000), which positions the ideal girl as an active participant in capitalism and expands the ideal girl trope to “girls.” The series follows a group of middle school friends who begin their own babysitting business. Although the girls are entrepreneurs in charge of their labor, this seeming freedom occurs within a specifically gendered enterprise and returns the ideal girl(s) to suburban safety. The series also attempts to incorporate multicultural diversity, promoting each girl as a unique, special individual. However, the series’ repeated claims of difference as irrelevant tend to deemphasize their significance and return repeatedly to whiteness.
