Tag: Just One of the Guys

Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists Theme Week here.

Almost 20 years later, we need more of what My So-Called Life gave us a taste of. We need teenage girl protagonists to be sexual, not sexy. We need honest portrayals of what it is to be a teenager–not only for teenagers who need to see themselves in faithful mirrors, but also for adults who are still trying to figure themselves out.

Are You There, Hollywood? It’s Me, the Average Girl by Carrie Gambino

The expectations for girls in film and television are incredibly mixed. It is naïve to say that girls nowadays are just expected to be a sexy sidekick or afterthought. With more strong female roles popping up in bigger budget films such as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, there is the expectation that girls should also be intelligent and incredibly clever (while also being visually pleasing)… There isn’t really a place for the all-around average girl. The first two examples of strong female protagonists that I could think of are in fantasy franchises. Are real female characters really that difficult to come up with? Real female characters are often created with good intentions but tend not to work on a larger scale.

Six Lessons Lisa Simpson Taught Me by Lady T

…Lisa takes a stand against the sexism spouting from the mouth of the new talking Malibu Stacy doll. Frustrated with the doll’s collection of sexist catchphrases that include “Let’s bake some cookies for the boys,” “Thinking too much gives you wrinkles,” and “My name’s Stacy, but you can call me *wolf whistle*,” Lisa collaborates with the creator of Malibu Stacy to create their own talking doll, Lisa Lionheart. When Malibu Stacy outsells Lisa Lionheart, our creator feels temporarily dejected, until she hears her own voice speaking behind her: “Trust in yourself and you can achieve anything.” She turns to see a girl her age hold a Lisa Lionheart doll in her hand and smile.
Delightful Tina. Shy, painfully weird, butt-obsessed, quietly dorky, intensely daydreamy Tina. Tina is a little bit like all of us (and–cough–a lot like some of us) at that most graceless, transitional, intrinsically unhappy stage of life that is early adolescence. She is also a wonderfully rich and well-developed character, both in her interactions with her family and in her own right, and she’s arguably the emotional core of the whole show.

It’s common wisdom that maintaining relationships requires constant work, but there’s often an assumption (in TV, movies, and real life) that this only applies to romantic relationships. Platonic relationships are rarely the focus of a story, and when a storyline deals with issues in these relationships, they’re often easily dealt with, and the friendship goes back to being simple. Exceptions to this are problems that are caused by romantic relationships. Veronica Mars is an exception to this; for its first two seasons, it depicts many platonic relationships, and explores the many issues involved in navigating them (some of these problems are related to romance, but many are not, showing platonic relationships have their own complexities, separate from romance).

My Sister’s Keeper is a story about growing up, identify, family, death, and life (how can we truly tell any story about life when death isn’t the costar?), but its uniqueness is that it is told primarily through two young girls.

So, these are the important things in Sixteen Candles: Samantha’s family forgets her birthday; she’s in love with a hot senior who’s dating Caroline (the most popular girl in school); and there’s a big ol’ geek (Farmer Ted) from Sam’s daily bus rides who won’t stop stalking her. Oh, and Long Duk Dong exists [insert racist gong sound here]. Seriously, every time Long Duk Dong appears on screen, a fucking GONG GOES OFF on the soundtrack. I suppose that lines up quite nicely with the scene where he falls out of a tree yelling, “BONSAI.”

Since the entire movie is like a machine gun firing of RACIST HOMOPHOBIC SEXIST ABLEIST RAPEY parts, the only way I know how to effectively talk about it is to look at the very problematic screenplay. So, fasten your seatbelts and heed your trigger warnings.

The 80s were quite possibly a nightmare.

 

My main issue with the film is that it is speckled with meaningless platitudes and clichés about girl empowerment when the film simply isn’t empowering. The women in the film are portrayed as oversexualized, helpless, damaged goods. Though there are metaphors at work that symbolize abuse or objectification of women, nowhere does the film stress an injustice or seek to dismantle its source. It is just like any other formulaic action movie complete with boobs, guns, and explosions, but it has a shiny, artificial veneer of girl empowerment. The false veneer is the aspect of the film that truly infuriates me, along with the side of artsy pretentious bullshit.

On Milk-Bones, Toothed Vaginas, and Adolescence: Teeth As Cautionary Tale by Colleen Clemens

Early in the film, Dawn is a nymph-like virgin committed to “saving herself” until marriage. She is the poster child for the “good” girl: a loving daughter who obeys the doctrines of the church and spends her time spreading the gospel of virginity. Everything Dawn knows about the world and herself changes when her falsely pious boyfriend Tobey takes her to a far off swimming hole and tries to rape her. A confused and terrified Dawn reacts by screaming and then—much to everyone’s surprise—cutting off his penis to interrupt the rape. Little does Dawn know that her lessons about Darwin in her biology classes are taking hold in her own body.

The Horror of Female Sexual Awakening: Black Swan by Rebecca Willoughby

What disappointed me most, I think, was that Black Swan could easily have been a progressive film with a positive, young woman-centered journey out of repression at its center. It could have recouped that gender-centric childhood ballerina dream of so many little girls into a message about determination, hard work, personal strength, and emotional growth. Instead, Darren Aronofsy has produced an Oscar-winning horror film. That’s right: I said HORROR. While that might seem like a stretch, it seems clear to me that the horror I refer to is the possibility of changing an age-old story. The horror of Black Swan is the absolutely terrifying idea that a young woman might make it through the difficult process of maturation, develop a healthy, multi-faceted sexuality, and be successful at her chosen career at the same time.

While most teen movies revolve around coming-of-age stories, gang movies reveal the extreme side to adolescence—the misfit, criminal, and violent side. Gang movies are rather simple, either focusing on episodes of gang debauchery, or revolving around rivalry and jealousy. Usually the viewpoint is that of the ring leader, or the “new girl,” who is initiated into the gang but is still an outsider. Yet, among the plethora of girl gang movies, every decade has produced stories involving specific issues and specific types of teenage girls.

Kiki’s Delivery Service carefully constructs a world where a girl’s agency is expected, accepted and supported, while Disney movies typically present a girl’s agency as unusual, forbidden, and denied. The difference between these two messages is that Kiki’s world anticipates and encourages her independence, while the women of Disney are typically punished for this.

For example, in The Little Mermaid Ariel wants to “live out of these waters,” but her father forbids her exploration of the human world and punishes this dream. Sea witch Ursula exploits Ariel’s desire to discover another world beyond her own as well. This is hardly an isolated incident.

The Book Thief: Stealing Hearts and Minds by Natalie Wilson

Liesel, unlike so many young heroines, resists romance—from her friend Rudy’s early problematic insistence and then throughout the remainder of the movie. Instead of being positioned in relationship to romantic partners, she has three male best friends—Rudy, Max and Hans (Papa)—as well as two females of great importance to her life, Rosa (Mama) and Ilsa Hermann (the mayor’s wife who, transgressively, supplyies Liesel with books). As for Liesel, like her futuristic counterpart, Katniss Everdeen, she is a life-saving heroine and inspirational rebel.

Terri sets out to explore the luxury of male privilege disguised as a young man. Just One of the Guys smacked us straight in the face with the unspoken universal knowledge that sexism was real, it existed and the film gave us tangible proof. Terri decides to use her parents’ trip out of town to switch things around for herself by getting another shot at the newspaper internship with another article, an expose of sorts. She switches high schools and uses her brain, and as much as she can, is herself.

Troop Beverly Hills: What A Thrill by Phaydra Babinchock

Initially the girls of Troop Beverly Hills are portrayed as clueless and privileged, but they are allowed to grow and transform themselves over the course of the movie. The film writers don’t do it unrealistically by turning them into tomboys overnight or at all. The girls retain their femininity, which they are made fun of for by the Red Feathers, throughout the film.
Immortality is not what makes a world better. Hope, friendship, and love do, and love is not limited by sex, gender, ethnicity, or race. Women like Homura and Kyoko can fall in love with other women like Madoka and Sayaka respectively. We have the responsibility to stand up with people like them. This series is part of the reason I try to do that and more. I hope that many others to do the same.
Is Wanda a girl/teenage female protagonist? Technically she is not “young” as she is 1,000 years old and seemingly immortal, but she is new to Earth so that makes her young in some sense. Also, why would the Souls even have genders that mirror that of humans or have genders at all? The Souls look like beams of light and they probably aren’t even a carbon based species and yet somehow Wanda is a female? So. Frustrating. Nonetheless she is controlling a person’s body who identifies as a teenage girl and is thus somewhat restricted to her occupied body’s feelings, emotions, and categorizations.

Ten questions between filmmaker Morgan Faust and 13-year-old actress Rachel Resheff.

Morgan: The truth is when I was growing up in the 1980s, the child actresses were often given pretty syrupy roles (with the exception of Journey of Natty Gann and Labyrinth). It was the boys who got to have the cool movies–Goonies, Stand by Me, even The NeverEnding Story and E.T., which did have girls, but the boys were the heroes. That is why I write the movies I do–adventures films for girls–because that’s what I wanted to do when I was a kid, go on adventures, be the hero. I still do want that. I mean, who doesn’t?

The Hunger Games, saturated as it is with political meaning (the author admits her inspiration for the trilogy came from flipping channels between reality TV and war footage), is a welcome change from another recent popular YA series, Twilight. As a further bonus, it has disproven the claim that series with female protagonists can’t have massive cross-gender appeal. With the unstoppable Katniss Everdeen at the helm (played in the films by the jaw-droppingly talented Jennifer Lawrence), perhaps the series will be the start of a new trend: politically themed narratives with rebellious female protagonists who have their sights set on revolution more than love, on cultural change more than the latest sparkling hottie.

The CW: Expectations vs. Reality by Nicole Elwell

The CW is a rarity among the many networks of cable television. Its target demographic is women aged 18-34, and as a result has a majority of its original programming centered on the lives of young women. On paper, this sounds like a noteworthy achievement to be celebrated. However, the CW produces content devoid of any sense of the reality of its young audience, and as a result actually harms its most devoted viewers. The CW creates an unattainable archetype for what a teenager should look like and fails to maturely handle issues of murder and rape.

Defending Dawn Summers: From One Kid Sister to Another by Robin Hitchcock

OK, sure, my big sister didn’t have superpowers, and as far as I know she did not save the world even one time, much less “a lot.” But from my perspective as her bratty little sister, I felt like I could never escape her long and intimidating shadow. I could never be as smart as her, as special as her; I couldn’t hope to collect even a fraction the awards and accolades she racked up through high school. And she didn’t even properly counteract her super smarts with social awkwardness: she always had a tight group of friends and the romantic affections of cute boys. She was the pride and joy of my family, and I always felt like an also-ran. Trust me: this makes it very hard to not be at least a little bratty and whiny.

Why Alex Russo Is My Favorite Fictional Female Wizard by Katherine Filaseta

The protagonist of Wizards is a girl who acts like girls really act: she has boyfriends and broken hearts, but isn’t overly boy-crazy or dependent on them; she’s curious and smart enough to ask questions when other people are telling her not to; and throughout the series she faces a lot of the struggles women really do face throughout their lives.

Ja’mie: Mean-Spirited Impression of a Private School Girl by Katherine Murray

Power dynamics mean something in comedy. Making fun of someone less powerful than you is sort of like beating up someone who’s small, or taking advantage of someone naive. It’s not very sporting, and it makes you look mean. The problem is that the same person can be powerful in some contexts and not in others. A rich, white 17-year-old girl, for example, might be very powerful in contexts where she’s bullying her classmates at school, but less powerful in contexts where she’s trying to meet the demands of a sexist culture. If you’re an adult man nearing 40, it’s hard to make fun of the way a teenage girl dresses, flirts, and moons over boys without starting to look kind of petty.

True Grit: Ambiguous Feminism by Andé Morgan

Mattie wears dark, loose, practical clothing. She climbs trees and carries weapons. She shows utter disdain for male privilege or La Boeuf’s pervy allusions to sexual contact. She has no interest in the older men for romance or protection. She is only concerned with their usefulness to her task, and she uses her will and her reasoning rather than seduction to convince them. Steinfeld’s Mattie emanates competence and confidence.
Not since Megan Follows played Anne of Green Gables in the 1985 adaptation of the novel with the same title have girls had a young protagonist on screen who fights against social conventions that are designed to limit her because of her age and gender. Mattie’s similarity to Anne doesn’t end at their indignation and fearlessness, they both also share a love of long braids, both can be found wearing ill-fitting clothes, both of their stories are set in a similar time period, and finally, both girls are orphans.

Granted, Ashitaka (voiced by Billy Crudup) is an important character. Even so, it is a bit disconcerting when the IMDb blurb about this movie only mentions him, and almost none of the female characters who are equally, if not more, important to the story. Princess Mononoke (voiced by Claire Danes) is the title character, but is only mentioned toward the end of the blurb. This movie is so much more than yet another “save the princess” quest!

In Pretty In Pink, Andi is a self-sufficient, seemingly self-aware teenage girl who lives in a little cottage with her single father. Andi isn’t the type of girl who goes gaga for cocky, linen suit-wearing Steff (James Spader). She’s too busy at home sewing and stitching together her latest wardrobe creations. To her fellow girl students, she’s just a classless, lanky redhead who shouldn’t dare be caught dead at a “richie” party. So, she spends her time at TRAX, a record shop she works at, and a nightclub that showcases hip new wave bands like Ringwald’s real-life fave, The Rave-Ups. Her best friends Duckie (Jon Cryer) and Iona (Annie Potts) admire and envy Andi.
What is clear is that Campion is interested in the strategies women use to survive in patriarchy. But she is not only interested in the fate of women. She is also interested in how girl-children negotiate their way in a male-dominated world. It is through Ada’s daughter as well as Ada herself that Campion explores the feminine condition in the 19th century. Her rich, multi-layered characterization of Flora is, in fact, one of the most remarkable features of The Piano. She is as interesting and compelling as the adult characters and, arguably, the most convincing. The little girl also has huge symbolic and dramatic importance. This is, of course, unusual in cinema. There are relatively few films where a girl plays such a significant, pivotal role.

Temporary Tomboys: Coming of Age in My Girl and Now and Then by Elizabeth Kiy

However, the tomboy was a prominent figure in two well-loved films of the period aimed at young girls, though both presented her as a transitional stage in development. My Girl (1991), is the story of precocious 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) who grew up in a funeral parlor and is obsessed with death, while in Now and Then (1995) four childhood friends reunite as adults and remember (in flashbacks) the summer they were 12.

Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling.

‘Just One of the Guys’: Sexism, Gender Stereotypes, and the Rise of the Female Teenage Protagonist

Terri sets out to explore the luxury of male privilege disguised as a young man. Just One of the Guys smacked us straight in the face with the unspoken universal knowledge that sexism was real, it existed and the film gave us tangible proof. Terri decides to use her parents’ trip out of town to switch things around for herself by getting another shot at the newspaper internship with another article, an expose of sorts. She switches high schools and uses her brain, and as much as she can, is herself.

Just One of the Guys movie poster
Just One of the Guys movie poster

 

This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

The 80s were a confusing time for young women. Not only were we bombarded with all of these images of female strength and the dawn of the power suit, but we also had the opposite images of bikini-clad bodies  bombarding us in film. While adult women were being objectified on film just like their teen counterparts, they still managed to also emit an air of (albeit limited) power. But, the teen female set was still stuck in the role of object or trophy. There were a few stand-outs that bucked the trend, but usually the female role–if she wasn’t the trophy–was never front and center and was some typecast girl playing the role of the quirky best friend. Sure, you could be a cool , confident, different, smart girl, but you couldn’t be the star.

In 1985 a new kind of teen flick came out. A film that handed us a smart teenage female protagonist who acknowledged and called out sexism and wasn’t used as background noise or the social conscience of the group. Just One of the Guys was an eye-opening surprise for me. Usually when films had a woman being diminished for being attractive it was a grown man doing the the diminishing and if a young woman was present she was being set straight by her strict father who was out to save her virtue. This film was unique in its portrayal of teen life and the perceptions that society has in regard to young women. It quickly became one of my favorite films when I was a child.

Terry and Buddy having a heart to heart
Terry and Buddy having a heart to heart

 

If you weren’t lucky enough to see it or just don’t remember it, Just One of the Guys is the story of high school student Terri Griffith played by Joyce Hyser. Terri is a stunner. She’s beautiful and everything that 80s teen movies led us to believe was the ideal when it came to popular girls. But, unlike most of these 80s poster girls she had dreams beyond moving to New York and becoming an actress or escaping their small town. Terri wants to be a reporter and no, not your typical eye-candy TV reporter but a hard-hitting journalist and she has no reason to believe that these dreams won’t come true because she’s smart and works hard. This is where the story takes a turn for the real, Terri doesn’t get what she wants. In fact the only thing that Terri gets is rejection. Her ideas are passed over for the school paper in favor of more simplistic ones that the male reporters have pitched. After her article for a coveted internship at the local Tuscan paper is passed over and her slime-ball adviser hits on her, Terri begins to come to grips with her reality. Seeking someone to vent to besides her supportive best friend, Denise, she tries to lean on her boyfriend, who continues the cycle of male dismissiveness that has permeated every bit of her life. She realizes that her problems stem from more than just her good looks–most of her problems stem from her being a girl in general.

Terri and Kevin in their traditional gender roles
Terri and Kevin in their traditional gender roles

 

This is the point in most 80s movie where a man would come in and save her or where she would wallow in her sadness and fall into a pit of despair. Or worse, try and change herself into an “unattractive” woman to perpetuate the myth that looks are the only thing that matter. She instead does something more proactive, daring, and wonderful. She acknowledges the and goes after the bigger-picture story. With the help of her best friend, Denise, and her younger brother, Buddy, she transforms herself from a beautiful teenage girl into a teenage boy. The thing that makes this decision so great is its intersectionality. It doesn’t just shed light on looksism, it calls out gender inequality and sexism.

Terri sets out to explore the luxury of male privilege disguised as a young man. Just One of the Guys smacked us straight in the face with the unspoken universal knowledge that sexism was real, it existed and the film gave us tangible proof. Terri decides to use her parents’ trip out of town to switch things around for herself by getting another shot at the newspaper internship with another article, an expose of sorts. She switches high schools and uses her brain, and as much as she can, is herself.

From Terri to Terry
From Terri to Terry

 

It’s interesting to watch the female-socialized Terri try and interact as a male-socialized teenage boy. She pulls a lot of typical stereotypical teenage boys moves. Her interactions with other teenagers in her new school are often comical but they’re understandable. Most (young) women, especially in the 80s, saw men through a very specific gaze and gender roles were clearly , even if often incorrectly, defined. Terri’s portrayal of a what she believed most teenage boys were like coupled with her feminine (female-socialized) tenderness and compassion created an interesting mix.

As expected in every teen 80s movie, our female teenage protagonist falls for a guy. In this case it is her new (as a teenage boy) best friend Rick. Rick, played by typical too-old-to-be-in-high-school Billy Jacoby, is as nerdy as they come and he offers Terri and this movie something different. Their relationship follows some of the same guidelines that most 80s films followed: nerdy teen gets made over by attractive teen and becomes instantly popular and they fall in love. The difference here is that the nerdy guy gets made over by the attractive girl in disguise and she falls for him. The love story in this film adds an extra layer of drama to the lighthearted teen fare that was usually thrust upon us. In the beginning of the film Terri starts out with a boyfriend–the sexist college guy dating a high school girl who he expects to become his trophy wife. But at some point she comes to terms with who she is and accepts it. She realizes that she wants more than to be someone’s arm candy. She no longer wants to rest on pretty or be someone’s cookie cutter ideal. Once she gets a taste of the freedom that being a teenage boy is, she finds herself wanting to be her own person even more than being a journalist.

Terri’s journey isn’t just an exploration of gender roles, it becomes her exploration of who she is as a person, what she wants in life, and on some levels, realizing what she wants and who she deserves to be with. Is it the super macho sexist guy like her boyfriend, who belittles her ambition and calls her babe? Or the “nerdy” Rick who despite not knowing that she is a she, supports her journalistic ambitions? After a lot of missteps and a scene after a fight during the prom that ends with Terri kissing and then flashing Rick and some awkward banter about how she’s not a homosexual because she’s a she, they part ways. Terri doesn’t let the loss of the guy she’s in love with, or the fact that she’s now single, hold her back from turning in her story and getting the internship she wanted. She writes her article and sheds light on her experience as a teenage girl pretending to be a teenage boy and essentially, gender inequality. She uses the pain of heartbreak to fuel an article about all of the good and the bad, the gender bias, and the rules that we’re all expected to follow.

Terri falls for Rick
Terri falls for Rick

 

The thing that makes Just One of the Guys so amazing is that the hero is a heroine and does, in fact, after a long hero’s journey, get everything she wanted. Outside of some minor humiliation at her unmasking, the honesty of her article helps her achieve her goals in the long run. She gets her internship, she finds herself, and she moves on to the next phase of her life. Rick even comes to terms with the whole situation and his feelings for her. There is a hint in the last scene of a possible first date and the thing that makes it even better is that there is no loss. The movie doesn’t punish Terri, or make her change to have it all. It doesn’t make her dreams seem unattainable or destined to fail. It just causes her to grow and it proved to a generation that the teenage girl can have it all. Society and gender roles be damned.

It was one the first films of the decade to bring feminist issues to light and the teenage feminist wasn’t portrayed as a yappy unlikable side character–she was a lead. They even cast a young woman who was the antithesis of every other mean spirited , stereotypical (save for the short haircut) caricature of what a feminist was supposed to look like. It showed her journey of self discovery and called out gender roles and society’s expectations for and biases toward young women. The film combats the myth that “pretty” girls can’t be smart or that young women can only fit into certain roles or that feminists are all man-hating bitches. It tore apart the typical movie idea that either you’re the smart, driven unpopular girl who isn’t pretty until someone changes you or you’re her hot best friend who doesn’t have enough of a brain to calculate change but all of the guys want to claim her. It showed that looks really don’t matter and women can be just as strong, determined, and focused as our male counterparts. It cracks open the shallowness that radiated from most 80s teen flicks and holds a mirror up to and then smashes that mirror. And for a teen movie to take this stance so early in the 80s, years before we saw grown up women take this stance on film, was a pretty awesome thing.

 

Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac , recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a New York-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in main stream cinema and television productions. Twitter: @socialslumber13