The Continued Support of Patriarchal Ideologies in the Nancy Drew Series : A Comparative Study of Nancy Drew: The Scarlet Slipper Mystery & Nancy Drew Diaries: The Magician’s Secret

Abstract: The well-loved Nancy Drew from 1930 has continued to solve mysteries in 1974 and 2015, though the series can no longer claim to be unconventional. Even though Nancy was a revolutionary character in 1930, the thought of a mystery-solving female is not as controversial anymore. This essay argues that the recently published Nancy Drew Diaries still advocate patriarchal ideologies seen in the 1974 version of The Scarlet Slipper Mystery, specifically ideas about gender roles, conformability and homosexuality. In order to investigate if 2015 The Magician’s Secret and 1947 The Scarlet Slipper Mystery portrayed similar patriarchal ideas deconstructive, feminist, and queer theories have been used. They revealed that both books contain patriarchal views and depict them in similar ways, even though the newer book is more implicit in its portrayal. This suggests that even as the vaster society believes itself to move forward, patriarchal ideologies continue to affect our portrayal of men and women in the media, though in a more implicit way than before.