Well, well, well, look who’s back. I bet you thought I’d already forgotten about this. To my credit, I made no promises about this newsletter’s publishing frequency right from the start. Remember the time when we’d all update our silly little blogs several times a week despite the fact that we didn’t have anything of substance to say and life never got in the way? Now life always gets in the way, but that’s fine. I’ve been busy, mostly teaching and writing the sort of thing where I cannot joke over my past self. Oh, I and I am a doctor now. In the words of Hannah Horvath, I’ve been “busy trying to become who I am.”
Girls turns ten years old this year, which means we’re all dangerously close to middle age, but that’s a story for another day. I miss them. I hope they have managed to become who they are.
Lesson: They won’t change, but you will
Film: a variety of teen films with nerd protagonists
I recently wrote an article about Booksmart and the figure of the female nerd, which of course means that I watched a bunch of films with nerd protagonists. Some were good, some were bad, and most were wacky as hell.
Essentially, films about nerds tend to follow a narrative structure that sees the high school/college underclass somehow at the top by the film’s conclusion. This reversal usually involves some sort of romantic conquest and/or physical change that makes popular types realise that nerds are dateable too. So far, so good. Except for one tiny little detail that I am about to bring your attention to, so listen up.
Are you ready?
Only the girls have to change to be deemed worthy of a man’s attention.
Heh.
Just to be clear, this doesn’t only happen to nerd girls, it can happen to any character whose personality seems to deviate from convention. It happened to Alison in The Breakfast Club.
In John Hughes’s universe, you don’t even have to be a teen girl to feel forced to fulfill normative femininity. Pretty in Pink’s Iona goes from punk icon to yuppie trash to remind us that, when you grow up, your heart does die and that change is inevitable as we get older.
Because change is inevitable as we age, isn’t it? Teen films constantly remind us of that. They take place during the last summer before everything changes. They teach us to challenge the rules of the group and go our own way, to treasure our individuality and not care about what others say, to value people for what they are like and not by what they look like. Unless you’re Laney, or Allison, or Josie Grossie, or the Princess of Genovia. If you’re smart, unusual, or unique you probably need to be tamed, and if you’re extremely ambitious like Kathryn in Space Camp, you need to tone it down.
Granted, in some makeover movies the makeover is temporary and the characters are finally allowed to go back to their true selves. Only that, well… they always end up looking more put together than before. Take Tai for example, she goes from slob, to Cher clone, to a more feminine version of her past self. Although her post-makeover outfit falls in line with her original sense of style, the colours are lighter, the T-shirt is tighter, a belt accentuates her waist, she has learnt how to do her hair and she is wearing make-up. In fact, in the wedding scene, her outfit is very similar to Cher’s. Instead of dressing like a boy, Tai now plays with her femininity, adjusting it to each occasion.
Guys, on the other hand, always get by with minimum effort. In Can’t Buy Me Love, the protagonist wears the same (astronomy) T-shirt in the opening and closing scenes. He begins the film ignored by the popular girl he likes but finishes riding into the sunset with her. Even though he does go through a makeover, all changes are reversed by the end of the film except for his glasses, which have disappeared.
Grease’s Danny Zucko is another one who begins to change but doesn’t have to. Girls like guys the way they are, regardless of whether they’re nerdy types basically asking them to become teenage prostitutes (seriously, read the plot of Can’t Buy Me Love) or cocky, rebellious types. And yes, they also learn to love them if they’re rapists. In Revenge of the Nerds, Lewis rapes a girl and she magically falls for him because she loved it. .
Whenever I think about these films, I cannot help but visualise a woman in a great outfit who has clearly spent at least an hour getting ready holding hands with a guy in a football shirt, shorts and trainers who has made zero effort. I think of all the pressure we put ourselves through to look a certain way, all the time and money spent, all the mind space that we devote to how others might perceive us and how strong that pull can be. I think about all those times when looking after ourselves wasn’t empowering or fun, but a mere chore done with others in mind, and it makes me really mad. All the hours we spent being told to scrutinise our bodies, measuring them up to impossible standards and learning to become our own worst enemy. Every single time that someone criticised what we wore or what we didn’t wear, made a comment about our roots, our eyebrows, our white hairs, our body hair. Every time we were told we were showing too much or not enough, that our body was the wrong fruit shape for that dress or that we were meant to have a stupid thigh gap. Every time a dirty man gave us a lecherous look and every time a so-called girlfriend looked at us in disapproval. We were told we were not enough. Not feminine enough, not skinny enough, not curvy enough, not agreeable enough. We were told we were too much. Too fat, too thin, too slutty, too loud, too aggressive. It pains me to know that I do not know a single woman who hasn’t faced this sort of criticism and it pains me to know that many times it came from the kind of people who, like the boys in these films, were incapable of change.
I have faith in the young and I hope that they are learning to be kinder to themselves. I am happy that they have strong characters to look up to. Girls who, despite the genre’s obvious problems, are clever and charming and don’t have to change to please anybody other than themselves.
🎬 I’ve been watching (and loving) Hacks.
📖 I’ve been reading Flora Thompson’s A Country Calendar and it’s such a treat if you enjoy reading about nature.
🎶 Like everybody else, I’ve been listening to Kate Bush. I really enjoyed this podcast episode about ‘Running up That Hill’ and its use in Stranger Things.
🌺 I grew roses for the very first time.