First released in 1930, the Nancy Drew series written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene recently celebrated its 90th anniversary. With over 70 million copies sold according to Penguin Random House, Nancy Drew has been a popular series among young people for almost a century and has been a source of inspiration to such women like Barbara Walters, Gayle King, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg to name a few, as cited in this Washington Post article.
In addition to the Nancy books which have been translated in over 45 languages, the popular character has also been featured in a number of movies, television series, computer games, and merchandise. However, following a press release from Newsarama announcing the upcoming release of Nancy Drew & the Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew set to be in April, Nancy Drew fans took to Twitter to express their outrage.
Courtesy: @KikkiPlanet on Twitter
Writer Anthony Del Col of The Hardy Boys claims in the press release, “I wanted to top them all, and so put together the ultimate case – solving Nancy’s death!” But diehard Nancy fans aren’t too keen on his sentiments. In fact, popular opinion seems to be that this is just not cool.
Claire Heuchan, the writer of the award-winning blog Sister Outrider, gave her Twitter hot take, claiming, “The Nancy Drew books were powerful because a smart, brave, independent young woman solved crimes by doing all the things we got told weren’t for girls. Killing her off so two male characters can have an adventure is the ultimate betrayal of that legacy.”
Courtesy: @ClaireShrugged on Twitter
But Twitter users weren’t the only ones a little peeved by the idea of Nancy Drew’s supposed death being solved by her male counterparts, Frank and Joe. Columnists from the New York Times, Polygon, CNN, and Mic, among others all had something to say about it.
Kara Weisenstein, the author of the Mic article regarding the new comic, writes “Yes, these men killed a beloved female literary character on her birthday. The subtext is overwhelming.”
On the other hand, Del Col addressed accusations of “fridging” Nancy Drew in an interview with Polygon where he states, “I mean, having gone through the press release, I can understand why people have that reaction, but it’s not something that I was expecting because at no point are we fridging Nancy during the series or doing anything like that. As the creator of it, as the writer of it, I know that that’s not the case. And so to hear people surmise or predict that that’s what’s happening threw me for a total loop.”
Still, people are questioning whether this was an appropriate time to release such a shocking title, following Nancy’s 90th anniversary, even if it turns out she is not dead in the end.
It seems that there may be more to the story than what meets the eye, but we’ll have to wait until April to find out. Until then, we can simply take to twitter to come up with and read about alternate plots that fans may prefer.
Courtesy: @SamSykesSwears on Twitter
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