Why We All Need to See Young Adult, a.k.a. How Diablo Cody Shines a Light on the Cost of Beauty

I’m thrilled that it’s finally Oscar season, and I get to see DOZENS of outstanding movies between now and Sunday, February 26th when I’ll walk the red carpet with The Help‘s Viola Davis and The Ides of March‘s Ryan Gosling (also of Feminist Ryan Gosling fame).

Okay, so I won’t really be walking the red carpet, but a girl can dream, right? And who knows? Maybe I’ll spring for a long roll of red tissue paper and unroll it in front of my flat-screen.

I’ve already seen The Descendants (loved it) and Hugo (bleh—too slow for me), and last night I also got to see Young Adult from the Juno writing-directing team of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman.

First, let me say that Young Adult is an outstanding piece of filmmaking—it’s dark and funny and intelligent and honest in a way that not many films are anymore when they’re this entertaining.

But the reason I want you all to see Young Adult is not only because it’s such a good film, but also because it’s an important film for woman—a film that explores issues central to our identity such as beauty, gender, marriage, motherhood, and family among others.

Of course, the issue most relevant to this blog is beauty, which is one of the main themes of the film. Without giving anything away in terms of plot, I can tell you that the main character, Mavis—played with heartbreaking gravity by Oscar winner Charlize Theron—is obsessed with the way she looks and seems to gather a good deal of her self-worth from her looks.

At one point in the film—and the preview—Mavis tells a Macy’s clerk that she wants an outfit to help her seduce her ex. The clerk says, “You want to remind him of what he’s missing,” and Mavis responds by saying something like, “Oh, he knows what he’s missing. He’s seen me.” The implication is that Mavis’ value is completely derived from her looks: her gorgeous, heart-shaped face and her fit, flawless body.

But though other characters see only the physical manifestation of Mavis’ beauty, the viewer is treated to the lengths Mavis must go to to achieve that beauty.

In fact, Mavis spends a good deal of her time (probably a third of most days) primping in some fashion or another—she spends hours styling her hair, applying her makeup, shopping for expensive clothes, shaving her legs, and visiting a salon where she gets manicures, pedicures, facials, waxing, and various other treatments on a daily basis.

After all this is done, Mavis looks fabulous—almost as good as the real-life Charlize Theron. But when she doesn’t devote that much time to her looks, she is a disheveled mess—she walks the streets in sweats and a t-shirt, gulping from a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke and pulling at her matted tangle of hair.

The implicit message is frighteningly clear: a woman doesn’t look this good—at least not at the age of 37 like Mavis—without a hell of a lot of help. And money.

I especially love that these two versions of Mavis—the Mavis who takes hours of time and piles of cash to put together and the Mavis who rolls out of bed in the morning—are shown in such stark contrast to each other.

She is both the former Homecoming queen who has held on to her looks as she approaches forty…

and the lonely, depressed divorcee who can’t be bothered to change out of her pajamas…

I greatly appreciate this depiction of the two sides of Mavis because I think it’s incredibly real.

We all know what it’s like to want to spend the day in our pajama pants and favorite t-shirt, and we all know that some days we want to go to the trouble of getting dressed and made up for a night out on the town. Yes, we know the value of both of these extremes, but most of us—unlike Mavis—also understand that our worth isn’t wrapped up in our ability to do the latter. But Mavis, sadly, is obsessed with this aspect of herself.

It’s equally sad—and interesting—that Mavis is also depicted as a fast food junkie who hits what she calls the local “Ken-Tac-Hut” (a combo Kentucky Fried Chicken/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut) whenever she needs an emotional pick-me-up. I’ve known for a long time that many thin women eat as much as anyone else (even those who are overweight), so it was incredibly refreshing to see a thin and beautiful woman depicted this way—well, refreshing and painful.

But it is Mavis’ slavish devotion to her looks that is one of the more alarming part of this film.

In one particularly gruesome scene, Mavis is shown applying her makeup. I like to wear makeup as much as the next girl, but watching Mavis Gary put on what can only be described as a face-altering mask frightened me so much that I still haven’t gotten the image out of my head. Like a particularly poignant episode of The Twilight Zone, her beauty regime is scary enough to make us rethink our own. Her physical machinations are, in fact, so arduous that only a masochist would embrace them.

Clearly that’s what Mavis is—a masochist, a person who tortures herself regularly and doesn’t know how to be happy. She is like this in more ways than one, but I don’t want to give away the whole film.

In this way, she is a perfect role model for the kind of person we should all not want to be—beautiful, successful, and miserable, reminding us yet again that there is more to life than physical perfection.

Molly McCaffrey is the author of the short story collection How to Survive Graduate School & Other Disasters, the co-editor of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There, and the founder of I Will Not Diet, a blog devoted to healthy living and body acceptance. She teaches English and creative writing classes and advises writing majors at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.