In the grand taxonomy of popular culture aunts, there are stern aunts, maternal aunts, and cruel aunts (like the malicious Aunt Petunia in the “Harry Potter” stories). But today one particular category of aunt seems to be on the rise: the cool aunt.
You've probably encountered some version of the cool aunt online or in real life. She is also known as the rich aunt, the eccentric aunt, the smart aunt, the sexy aunt, the wild aunt or the PANK, also known as Professional Aunt No Kids (because capitalism will turn any phenomenon into a market segment). The cool aunt often carries herself with an air of glamor and authority; Edna Mode from “The Incredibles” has a strong cool chick energy. She also breaks the rules a bit. She's the cool aunt who will take you to a dirty ballet at 14 and let you have your first sip of champagne.
These days, cool chicks seem to be popping up everywhere, and the timing is probably no coincidence. At a time when women's bodily autonomy is restricted by a series of anti-abortion laws, Cold Aunt offers a model of self-assured sexual independence. The cool aunt also offers a vital alternative to the limitations of the nuclear family. For queer teens, a cool aunt can be a source of emotional and material support.
“Aunts offer alternatives,” says Patty Sotirin, author of the 2013 book “Where the Aunts Are: Family, Feminism, and Kinship in Popular Culture.” “They offer different ways to connect and give us an idea of other possibilities. Nowadays they are very important.”
In December, comedian Ego Nwodim appeared on “Saturday Night Live”’s “Weekend Update” as a character named Rich Auntie With No Kids, armed with a martini, a fur stole and a dismissive attitude toward motherhood. A few weeks later, Universal Television announced that the “Rutherford Falls” creative team of Sierra Teller Ornelas and Jana Schmieding were developing a comedy series called “Bonnie” about a cool aunt who returns to the reservation to help raise the children. his brother's children.
My social media feeds lately have been flooded with cool auntie memes, both in English and Spanish. On Instagram, there are nearly 182,000 posts tagged #richauntyvibes, showing women looking fashionable while living their best life, while on TikTok, hashtags like #coolaunt and #cooltia generate thousands of videos with millions of collective views. Among my favorites is a series of posts by Fernando Pacheco, an architecture student from Venezuela who goes by @fertris.7, that shows him posing as a glamorous cool aunt — complete with big bag and even bigger sunglasses. The aunt she portrays is a woman “who is modern, who will always be in fashion,” she tells me. She is “a willing-to-anything personality.”
But the cool girl is much more than her decorations. She is a woman who defies the gender limitations proscribed to women, and therein lies her appeal. “With the mother, you have all these cultural expectations,” Sotirin says. Mothers are expected to be healthy and loving. “But not the aunt. The same does not happen with the aunt.”
The cool aunt archetype is not new. In the 1958 comedy “Auntie Mame,” for example, Rosalind Russell played a delusional bohemian who takes on the care of her 10-year-old nephew after the sudden death of her father. Her (Among other things, she teaches him the art of making a martini “because knowledge is power”). In more recent years, the cool aunt has morphed into an economic niche as marketers have set their sights on the disposable income wielded by entrepreneurs. an increasing number of childless women. Lifestyle sites like Rich Auntie Supreme sell auntie-themed products, while a variety of auntie-themed podcasts offer everything from relationships to financial advice.
Rosalind Russell in the title role of “Auntie Mame,” based on a 1955 book by Patrick Dennis.
(Images from Warner Bros.)
But what makes the cool chick such a significant figure right now is that her growing prominence comes at a time when women are losing hard-won gains. Last year, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, resulting in severe restrictions on a woman's right to abortion in nearly two dozen states. Last month, a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Assoc. estimated that there were more than 26,000 rape-related pregnancies in Texas in the 16-month period since the restrictions went into effect, essentially turning women into birth vessels against their will. (Texas does not offer exceptions for rape or incest.) Recently, a woman in Ohio faced possible criminal charges for how she handled a miscarriage at home. (Thankfully, the grand jury that decided her case declined to indict her last month.)
Meanwhile, a rising right is busy flogging the concept of the nuclear family (heterosexual, naturally), in which men are the breadwinners and women maintain the home and raise children. Today, social media features “tradwives” (slang for “traditional wives”), who take to TikTok in flowery dresses to extol the virtues of home-cooked meals and submission to their husbands. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home is no one's business but theirs. (Though the highly aestheticized frontier appearance may be unsettling if your ancestors were on the receiving end of Manifest Destiny.)
But, as feminists say, the personal is political. And right-wing media often uses wife-beaters to drive a wedge between groups of women, pitting feminists against housewives in culture wars. The phenomenon also fetishizes “traditional” gender roles, creating a harsh binary between men and women, between who occupies the public sphere and who is responsible for raising children. Never mind that, as the English demographer and anthropologist Rebecca Sear has written, family ties and parenting in societies are generally not limited to an isolated family unit, but depend on a complex web of relationships within and beyond the family.
The cool aunt figure blatantly subverts the controls imposed on women, which is probably why she is currently a favorite on social media.
“When you have this pushback and restriction,” Sotirin says, “you have to have something: other possibilities, other ways to empower ourselves… The aunt is the perfect model for that.”
Furthermore, within family structures, cool aunts serve a function that goes beyond simply being a sassy role model. “Where do you learn about sex?” says Sotirin. “If you have a question and you're too embarrassed to ask your parents, ask the cool aunt.”
It is a phenomenon that is attracting the attention of scientists. A longitudinal study published in December in the sociology journal Socius, which followed 83 LGBTQ+ youth in California and Texas for two years, reported that “aunts (including heterosexual aunts) can challenge cisheteronormativity, can serve as an important network of social support for youth and can serve as housing support for youth.”
Sotirin says this is something he has seen in his own research on “Auntie.” Queer youth, she says, can find acceptance in a cool aunt that they don't get from their parents. “I interviewed a student who is gay and belonged to a religious community, but he spoke to his aunt and, throughout his childhood, she supported him.”
Pop culture has turned the cool aunt into a cartoon character: wearer of big sunglasses and carryer of designer handbags. Like so many things in our culture, what stands out is greed. But cool girls are so much more than their accessories. (I say this as a cool aunt who doesn't own a single designer but will take you to a dirty ballet).
Cool chicks can be glamorous. But, more importantly, they are subversive: a powerful statement of non-compliance with chauvinist control systems.
