All Victorias In Pop Culture Kinda Suck
A working taxonomy of Victorias
The new season of The Bachelor is fine. The lead is boring and the girls are blandly pretty, but they did film at a stunning resort in Pennsylvania, so it’s nice to look at. The best part is talking to all my friends when an episode airs.
The worst part is a contestant named Victoria, or, as she had styled herself, Queen Victoria. On the very first night, she wore a plastic tiara and crowned the lead as her king. Her “job” is listed everywhere as “queen.” She is deeply insufferable, honestly a little unhinged, and comes off like someone the producers hired to stir drama.
She is giving Victorias a bad name! In my group chat, she is referred to only as Queen Victoria or Vikki because seeing people write things like, “Shut up, Victoria” and “I wish he’d send Victoria home” quickly became too much for my fragile heart.
The whole thing a bit of a sensitive subject, because for a long time I’ve been all too aware of the fact that American pop culture is sorely lacking in good Victoria representation.
I present a taxonomy of pop culture Victorias.
Queen Victoria
To solve any problem, we must go back to the beginning, and Queen Victoria is the beginning. According to the Internet, the name Victoria was very rare amongst English speakers until Queen Victoria, who was named after her German mother, burst on to the scene.
In the last twenty-ish years, Victoria is usually presented as a grouchy, short, chubby old lady. The major break in this was Emily Blunt’s 2009 film The Young Victoria, where she is presented as the lovesick princess that she once was. I really liked that movie, but that’s maybe just because it was exciting to see a nice Victoria fall in love. By the end of this email, you will understand how rare this is.
It’s not Queen Victoria’s fault, but she led the epidemic of girls named Victoria calling themselves queen, as witnessed on The Bachelor. Elizabeth is arguably a more regal name than Victoria, with two queens, but I have never met an Elizabeth with the regal, domineering attitude of a Queen Victoria girl.
Queen Vic also gave us Victoria’s Secret, which led to the name being associated with sexiness. Which brings us to:
Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice
Whenever I played Spice Girls as a kid, I was always Posh, for obvious reasons. I loved my Posh Barbie very much, and Victoria Beckham was far and away my fav.
As an adult, I can see how Posh, through not fault of her own, irrevocably ruined the Victoria brand. To name a character Victoria is to designate them as a stunningly beautiful, ice-cold, untouchable bitch. A Victoria is the current girlfriend of the guy you have a crush on. She would not give you a tampon in the bathroom. She would not tell you that your backpack had picked up your skirt. Neil Gaiman’s Stardust contains one of these preternaturally beautiful, kind of an enormous bitch Victorias, but I promise you’ll start noticing them everywhere.
Vicky
If you’re a millennial or older Gen Z-er, when I say Vicky, you think, “Icky Vicky! Ew! Ew!” I do not blame you.
Vicky was Timmy’s evil, abusive babysitter on Fairly Odd Parents. On the show, fictional pop star Chip Skylark (voiced by real *NSYNC member Chris Kirkpatrick), wrote a very catchy song called “Icky Vicky,” about how demonic and terrible she was. I already didn’t like the nickname by the time this episode aired, but if I had ever felt a slight urge to let people call me that, it was now dead.
I do not understand why someone would go by Vicky (or Vicki or Vikki or whatever), and pop culture Vickys are the worst of the bunch. Right next to Vicky the evil babysitter is The Real Housewives of Orange County original cast member Vicki Gunvalson, a reality TV villain so demented it wasn’t even fun. She helped her boyfriend lie about having cancer (she has denied being involved in the lie, but trust me there’s no way she didn’t know).
There’s also this iconic Vicki moment from The Parent Trap, which captures the chaos of this name:
In the Twilight series, Victoria is an evil vampiress bent on revenge and killing Bella. I would argue that her chaos makes her more a Vicky/Vicki, though that’s a less Twilight-y name than Victoria. I will be emailing Stephenie Meyer about this.
Tori Spelling
I don’t think people think of Tori Spelling as a Victoria, but she is. Victoria Justice’s character on Victorious also went by Tori, which is weird to me, but whatever. All other Toris are athletes. I tried to get people to call me “Tori” when I was about nine; I made my AOL screenname “PrincessTori92.” It did not catch on.
Tori Spelling does have the entitlement and bad attitude that defines other Victorias in pop culture. Her memoir is called Stori Telling, which is an amazing pun.
Victoria, The Cat From Cats
Apparently this cat is in the stage musical Cats, but they elevated her role greatly for the film. She is the only Jellicle Cat with a human name — so, a loser.
I don’t really have anything to say about cat!Victoria, even though she was kind of? sort of? the protagonist of the movie. She was horny for Mr. Mistoffelees, who was very boring and also probably gay, and simping for a gay man is something this Victoria would do. Maybe Victoria representation is finally turning a corner!
"She is the only Jellicle Cat with a human name — so, a loser." Now, wait a minute. I'd argue that the fact Victoria the Cat is referenced within this taxonomy is proof that, despite being overlooked in the stage musical for decades and being more magical than everyone else in what is a decidedly problematic movie makes her a winner.
This! 👏 Thank you for speaking up for Victorias everywhere. Icky Vicky is also the very reason I never let anyone call me Vicky. I tried to make Tori work when I moved schools, but I was too quiet to ever correct the teacher.
Another Victoria in pop culture to check out if you haven't: Victoria the daughter of Barbara Hershey's character in Beaches. My parents chose my name after watching the film. I always thought that was a fun origin story until I watched the film. At the end Victoria has to go live with her "crazy aunt" played by Bette Middler after her mom passes. What does it say when your parents name you after an orphan?