The Nancy Drew television series now in development at CBS made headlines this month when CBS Entertainment president Glenn Geller told The Hollywood Reporter that Nancy “[will] not [be] Caucasian.” That’s fine, and even a welcome step for those who believe that television should better reflect the growing diversity in the United States. As someone who avidly read (and reread) the Nancy Drew books growing up, I can’t recall a single reference to any European roots she may have possessed (although the book series’ original covers usually featured Nancy as a blonde in a pencil skirt and pumps).
But if Nancy’s ethnic and racial background was irrelevant, her age and independence were not. And that’s what the new TV series completely misunderstands. “Now in her 30s, Nancy is a detective for the NYPD [New York Police Department] where she investigates and solves crimes using her uncanny observational skills, all while navigating the complexities of life in a modern world,” The Hollywood Reporter noted of the series.
What?
Nancy Drew—who was a teen in the 56-book canon she’s best known for—is impressive, but no longer inspiring, as a thirty-something. Part of her charm in the books was that, even though she was just eighteen, she was mature beyond her years. She was rarely waylaid by teen moodiness or peer drama, which made her someone to look up to for many young readers. She was competent, smart, fun, mature, daring—all at age eighteen. She was a heroine who showed that you could be young and still be successful, that you could be a teen and still be mature and smart enough to solve mysteries that baffled others including the adults. By contrast, one imagines that if Nancy Drew was created today, she would be written as a hipster barista embarking on a decade of random college classes while bemoaning her Tinder-fueled dating life.
Maybe it’s not so shocking that our era, which claims that people in their twenties are in a period of “emerging adulthood” rather than actual adulthood, produces TV executives who find it inconceivable for an eighteen-year-old to solve crimes and handle tough situations. But it’s a loss—as is the idea that Nancy would be tethered to the NYPD.
Part of what made Nancy resonate so much with her readers besides her age—and perhaps what made her a uniquely American character—was her independence. Nancy wasn’t working for some boss or organization, struggling to “lean in.” She was her own boss, and she was great at her chosen career: detective. She had relationships—with her dad, her two best friends, and her boyfriend—but she was ultimately impressively self-reliant.
“Nancy could do anything, and a generation of girls who lived vicariously through her heroic adventures assumed they could, too,” wrote Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Kathleen Parker in 2009. Parker is not the only successful woman who is a confessed Nancy Drew fan: other fans include Oprah Winfrey, Sonia Sotomayor, Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton.
The new Nancy Drew TV series might be successful. (I’m not the fool who’s going to bet against another police procedural show.) But whatever its ratings, it’s unlikely that this new Nancy—just another successful thirty-something in a big organization, rather than an intrepid young woman defying expectations—will inspire anyone.
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