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The New Teen Movies

Like we really need another movie like "She's All That" corrupting the minds of awkward teenage girls everywhere. Wasn't it bad enough that the Ally Sheedy character in "The Breakfast Club" basically gave up her entire strange-and-cool personality at the insistence of Molly Ringwald, of all people? If there was any character in a movie that I modeled myself after during my mid-teenage years, it was the Ally Sheedy Breakfast Club character, and I must admit that the ending confused me a little back then. Though I tried and tried to figure out the whole point of that scene, I never could, so I just tried my best to ignore it (though questions were still skulking around the back of my mind.&#41 Why would she even want to go out with stupid Emilio Estevez all of a sudden? Why would she sacrifice her self to do it? Who says girls need to walk around all smiling and giggling with their hair pulled back?

"She's All That" is the story of a popular high school guy who makes a bet that he can take a geeky girl and make her into a beautiful prom queen. Strike One: the portrayal of girls as dolls: Contrary to the screenwriter's popular belief, girls do not all sit around mute and puppy-dog eyed, waiting for the day that a cool, popular guy (or any guy, for that matter&#41 will waltz in and help us realize our beauty potential by convincing us that short skirts, expensive haircuts and contact lenses are The Only Way To Go. Strike Two: the portrayal of males as controlling and/or manipulative assholes: The probable fact is that even though he really, really likes her and she turns him on in a big way when she's pretty-in-his-opinion, he would never, ever even want to walk down the same street with her the way she used to look/act. Strike Three: the portrayal of women as their spineless counterparts who don't mind being controlled and/or manipulated, no, not at all: Now, I haven't seen this movie, nor will I, so this is an educated guess: she very probably stays with her new and "improved" pretty, popular self instead of putting her glasses back on and being the geek that she is after telling that popular guy to go fuck himself, because this is every girl's dream come true, don't ya know! You can't have girls walking around looking smart or unique or anything! We all dream of blonde ponytails, contact lenses and makeup perfectly applied!

Look, nobody wants to be an unpopular outcast, but at what price popularity? Why should a girl who isn't a clone of the rich and popular mannequins have to feel that they somehow should be? Why should she be put in the position of feeling that she won't be a Good Person until she Looks Like This? Critics say this movie is simply a modern day version of "Pygmalion", in which a Victorian dialect expert bets that he can teach a lower-class girl to speak proper English and thus be taken for a lady. Whatever. To me it's the same crap, different era. You make the call.

Posted in Scowls.


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