I’M all for female role models on kids’ TV, but let’s hear it for the bad girls.
There’s a brave new world beyond the exemplary Power Puff Girls – and their names are Angelica ( “Rug Rats”), Nanette Manoir (“Angela Anaconda”) and Helga Pataki (“Hey Arnold!”).
Of course, they all owe a certain allegiance to “Peanuts'” Lucy.
She was both a figure of female empowerment (I once carried a notebook that read “Never underestimate the power of a woman” beneath a drawing of Lucy’s fist) and the biggest gorilla on the “Peanuts” playground.
What did Lucy do? Her main function was to pull the football away from Charlie Brown. Charles Schulz created her to be bad.
Like a nagging wife, she was put on Earth to steal Brown’s self-esteem and masculinity.
Lucy was the precursor of Angelica, the pig-tailed terror on “Rug Rats.” Angelica is as close to a bad guy as a girl can get.
The little diva lords it over brothers Tommy and Chucky and the Twins, calling them with the most insulting name she can think of – “babies.”
Nothing gets between the ironically named Angelica and her appetites. She steals the little ones’ cookies, then dispatches them on dangerous missions to get more. And they keep coming back for more punishment.
The adults never get wise. From time to time, the scowling Aneglica will get her comeuppance, but by the next episode she’s up to her old tricks.
To understand Angelica, just look at her mother. Mom is the working mother as demon, attached at the ear to her cell phone, constantly berating her underlings as domestic life swirls out of control around her.
Angelica is her mother’s mini-me – and she wouldn’t be so funny if we didn’t know kids like her.
Likewise Nanette Manoir. All ringlets and French beret and perfect pinafore, she is a lesser-known but more sophisticated bad girl.
She is the Joan Collins of daytime animation.
On the Fox Family series “Angela Anaconda,” Nanette is cultured, coifed and cutthroat, as opposed to the scrappy, fright-haired, freckled Angela – for whom no bad deed goes unpunished.
As the pair battle for dominance – with Nanette always better equipped – it is clear that being more beautiful, richer and more popular – having all the toys – doesn’t make you a better person.
But the show is honest enough to show that it can be a lot of fun.
And then there’s Helga Pataki. She’s one of those nasty, unhappy kids who takes out her insecurity on those around her, particularly the star of “Hey Arnold!”
Helga is a hissing, spitting demon whenever Arnold is around, spoiling his plans, trying to outdo his science projects and belittling him in front of the gang.
And the brilliant thing about Helga is that all her acting out is because she is in love with Arnold.
Every time a warm or vulnerable feeling creeps beneath her scratchy sweater, she lashes out at the sensitive kid with the football-shaped head.
It’s a big relief when girls aren’t saddled with being role models all the time.
Welcome, female villains of kids TV.
You go, bad girls!