Call for Writers: Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists

We thought it might be a fun note to end the year on, with the exploration of films like Harry Potter and Matilda, while also taking a closer, more serious look at portrayals of adolescence and girlhood in films and TV. Some questions to think about include, what are Hollywood’s expectations of girls and teenage girls in films and TV? And how do those expectations feed into the public’s acceptance of a teenage girl’s sexuality, for instance. Further, how might a girl character impact a young girl who’s viewing her on screen?

Call-for-Writers

Call-for-Writers

Our final theme month for 2013? Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

We thought it might be a fun note to end the year on, with the exploration of films like Harry Potter and Matilda, while also taking a closer, more serious look at portrayals of adolescence and girlhood in films and TV. Some questions to think about include, what are Hollywood’s expectations of girls and teenage girls in films and TV? And how do those expectations feed into the public’s acceptance of a teenage girl’s sexuality, for instance. Further, how might a girl character impact a young girl who’s viewing her on screen?

We’ve seen very recently how difficult it is for girls to make their transition from young girl star to teenage sex symbol—see Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus for one example. (And why is that always the trajectory for girls and young women, anyway?) We’ve also seen the media’s abhorrent reaction to girl child stars, Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis, for one, who got called the C word in a “hilarious” and “satirical” tweet by The Onion.

We’d also like writers to explore how expectations differ for boy childhood stars versus girl childhood stars and the significance of those differences. And lately, it seems that our childhood girl stars get to grow up and play Pick Your Own Princess Movie … why is that?

There’s so much to explore with this month’s theme, and those are just a few ideas to get you started. We’ll also include a list of films below that are worth analyzing, but this certainly isn’t an exhaustive list. Please propose your own ideas as well. Animated heroines count, too!

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know who or what you would like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. The final due date for these submissions is Friday, Dec. 20 by midnight.

 


 

Catching Fire

Pieces of April

Napoleon Dynamite

True Grit

Love & Basketball

Modern Family

Felicity

Veronica Mars

Friday Night Lights

Pan’s Labyrinth

The Wizard of Oz

Glee

Harry Potter

Carrie

Whale Rider

Matilda

Hannah Montana

My Sister’s Keeper

My Girl

Juno

The Exorcist

Beasts of the Southern Wild

White Oleander

Girl, Interrupted

Winter’s Bone

An Education

Jennifer’s Body

Anywhere But Here

The Golden Compass

Sucker Punch

Center Stage

Teeth

Sense & Sensibility

Precious

The Man in the Moon

Pretty in Pink

The Breakfast Club

American Pie

Monster

Taxi Driver

Ponette

To Kill a Mockingbird

Paper Moon

Firestarter

Akeelah and the Bee

Princess and the Frog

Twilight

The Parent Trap