(More Than) Grrrl Power! Girls Studies at UCF

The Virgin Suicides. Dir. Sofia Coppola. American Zoetrope, 2000 The Virgin Suicides was a film set in the mid 1970s in a small upscale neighborhood in Michigan. The basic premise of the story is the life of five teenage girls settled in a seemingly normal American society, and how the pressures of adolescence changed their existence. What I found to be the most compelling aspect of the movie was the type of parents that these five young girls had influencing every facet of their lives. What these two parents expected of their daughters (more so the mother than the father), was an unattainable picture perfect idea of the untouched, unheard, god-loving American beauty. To their community they are viewed as just that, until a tragic chain of events is ignited by the suicide of the youngest daughter, Cecilia. The only other daughter that plays a big role in the movie was Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) who is one of the older sisters. Lux’s biggest struggles are with her sexuality and with app...

Be Assertive, Take Action and Don’t Be Afraid of What You Believe While I was reading it made me think and take a closer look at how I feel about girls’ issues and women’s’ rights. Girls’ need an outlet like a blog on the web to express their feelings.The internet as a form of communication can be good. The internet can also be a nightmare, not knowing who you are chatting with. In the book Queer Girls’ “In other words, youth make use of the Internet as a realm to try out. Play with, and perform their identities and desires through provisional combinations of images, words, and narratives.” (pg170) In my opinion this clearly states the internet is an outlet for girls’. The book makes its case for the need of queer websites that allow middle aged girls’ the ability to chat with other girls’ ask questions, receive answers and not be criticized.(pg171) Suicide rates are higher among queer girls’ due to isolation, and harassment. Web sites like ikissgirls and birls are making it possible f...

Mean Girls, a 2004 film written by Tina Fey and Rosalind Wiseman, is a film overflowing with modern girl culture. The film tackles the issues of girls and family, sexuality, friendships, and school. The film documents 16 year old Cady Heron’s pilgrimage out of Africa and home schooling and into the modern and cruel world of American teenage girls and “The Plastics.” The Plastics are a group of gossiping, glamorous popularity queens who consume themselves with primping, shopping, and making everyone feel inferior to them. New to the school, Cady is befriended by the “Art Freaks” and delves into the clique of The Plastics accidentally where she serves as a spy for the Art Freaks. Soon enough Cady is in over her head both the audience and Cady find it difficult to understand where the Plastic ends and the real Cady begins. The film climaxes with the Plastics’ queen bee dethroned and Cady being revealed. As the film draws to an end Cady must evaluate just how Plastic she is and reconcile ...

I chose to watch Juno for this film project, even though Now & Then is one of my favorite movies from my teenage years and I have already seen Mean Girls and Thirteen. I thought this movie was a pretty good enactment of how teenage pregnancy occurs. I applaud how she handles her "situation" as far as how everyone else looks at her. I feel she made a responsible decision as to what to do with her child, considering she was a child herself and had no real way of supporting her baby. This movie takes you through all her emotions, although I feel like if I had been her I would have been freaking out a lot more than that. She kind of took on the whole pregnancy thing herself, left out the father and didn't really involve anyone else for the most part. She was naive, yet responsible for her age (except for the part about getting pregnant... haha). I feel as though this is a movie that would help a fellow pregnant teenager to feel better about her situation. Obviously this k...

“Cady Heron moves to a new home from the bush country of Africa. She goes to a new school where she meets Janis and Damian. Her new friends warn her to stay away from the Plastics: the A-list, popular, crude, and beautiful clique headed by Regina George with Gretchen and Karen. When Cady sees Aaron Samuels, she falls in love. When Regina discovers this, she seeks revenge by taking and dangling Aaron in front of Cady. Now, Cady, Janis, and Damian plot to bring Regina's status down. However, as Cady continues to spend more time with the Plastics, she begins to become one of them” (Mark Alexander, IMDb). Mean Girls’ themes parallel what we have been discussing in this class. Cady’s Infatuation with Aaron Cady’s initial crush on Aaron made me think of Jocelyn in “Red.” In it, she writes: “You were tall, cute, and athletic. You had dark hair and dark eyes, and perfect skin that was tan even in the middle of winter. You always seemed to be surrounded by people, always a group o...

Thirteen is a movie centered on two very different teenage girls, and what happens when they become best friends. Tracy starts off as what you would call a “good girl” trying to make it in a new school. She quickly notices Evie, the most popular girl in school, and sees the amount of attention Evie gets. It is apparent that Tracy yearns to be like her, and suddenly decides to do everything she can to be her friend. Tracy finally earns Evie’s acceptance after pick pocketing a woman’s wallet when she is rejected from a shopping trip with Evie and her friends. Tracy and Evie become very close and it all turns into a downward spiral from there. Thanks to Evie, Tracy experiences stealing, sex, drugs (using and dealing), and lying to her mother who she was once very close with. It isn’t long before Tracy’s new world and attitude takes a toll on her, her family, and old friends. Thirteen is a quintessential girl movie. I could definitely see Tracy’s character in some of ...

Juno is the story of a pregnant teen girl, Juno McGruff, who decides she is going to have her baby and give him/her up for adoption. A local couple, Mark and Vanessa are her choice for adoptive parents. The movie follows her throughout the pregnancy until after birth. A lot of people consider Juno a comedy, and there are parts that are funny. Juno’s character is witty and solicits a few laughs, but to me, the movie isn’t one I would consider a comedy. For me, the movie acted as a commentary on the weight that pregnancy places on women. As much as your significant other can try to be there for you, or as much as your parents and friends support you, Juno’s situation shows that some parts of pregnancy you do experience alone. And Juno is one of the lucky ones. Her parents are (eventually) extremely supportive of her, she has a supportive best friend, and Mark and Vanessa are there for her to help her and pay all of her medical expenses. Lots of pregnant teenage girls don’t have the supp...

I’ve seen many girls in my high school pregnant from 9 th to 12 th grade. I can’t believe how young they were and with no sound future for themselves or their children. After watching Juno I was surprised by the strength one young women had throughout her pregnancy and her determination for that child to be raised correctly. Ellen Page plays Juno MacGuff a witty 16-year-old woman who decided to give her unborn child up for adoption. After a brief and not so romantic sexual encounter with her best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) she ends up pregnant. She wade her options and she decided the best route was to give her baby up to “the perfect” couple Vanessa and Mark Loring played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. I loved the movie because she didn’t seem scared or dismal about herself. She would walk around big and all without a care that people were judging her. The movie makes you laugh and think about the many young women that get preg...

Film Project: Mean Girls I went online to recall phrases from the movie that struck out to me, and I read on a website (http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/review/films/mean-girls/332 ) that the movie is based on the experience of the writer’s sister in high school and was written by Tina Fey from Saturday Night Live. This is interesting because Tina Fey is pretty and sharp and names the girls who have empty spirits but flashy bodies and accessories as “The Plastics.” My high school did not have so many cliques, especially the sub-categories like “Hot Asian girls” and “Mean hot black girls” which is not a direct quote. This one is:________________________________________ Janis: [reading list the major cliques in high school] You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks Unfriendly black hotties, Girls who eat their feelings, Girls who don't eat anything, Desperate wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually active band geeks, [a picture of...

I watched Juno a movie about an independent, confident and wise sixteen-year-old pregnant teenager. Juno’s parents are divorced and she lives with her father, stepmother and young half- sister. Paulie is Juno’s love interest and the father of her baby. Paulie’s mother does not think Juno is good enough for her son and is not pleased that they are friends; because of this, Juno does not allow her parents to tell Paulie’s mother that he has impregnated Juno. Unplanned pregnancy and the effect on a teenage girl is the theme I found most interesting in this move and will explore in this post. Although Juno explores the idea of having an abortion when she discovers she is pregnant, I felt that a choice was not available for her because of the lack of clinics available to perform the procedure. When talking to her best friend Juno rules out going to one clinic because as a minor she would need to inform her parents. When Juno visits the one clinic that will allow her to have an abortio...

*SPOILER ALERT* The film Juno is about a teenage girl (Juno Macgruff) who had unprotected sex with her best friend (Paulie Bleeker, played by Michael Cera) and got pregnant. Juno needed to decide what to do with the baby. At first, Juno thought she wanted to get an abortion and went to the clinic, but decided not to go through with the procedure. Then, Juno decided that she would put the baby up for adoption, where a nice suburban couple, Mark and Vanessa, would adopt Juno’s baby. Throughout the movie, Juno remained witty and upbeat. Although she struggled with the physical and mental effects of pregnancy, Juno remained strong. While Juno’s attitude was the high point of the movie, I felt her character was more “indie film character” than actual pregnant teenager. Juno’s supportive parents were another high point for the movie. I’m not sure exactly how the parents of a pregnant teen would behave, but it seemed like Juno’s parents took the pregnancy in stride and were supportive ...

Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides is a look into the lives of five sisters that could be in any American family- middle class, sheltered, beautiful blondes that only want their freedom. The movie follows their lives through the eyes of an unnamed male neighbor who, along with his neighborhood friends, has a fixation on the girls. They represent to the boys sexuality, daydreams, and later, when their mother keeps them inside the house for weeks at a time, the chance to be the proverbial knights in shining armor. None of these concepts become realized, though, and it is the girls’ haunting, early suicides that make the story. The five sisters, aged thirteen through seventeen, all embody the ideal teenage girl- virginal (at first), beautiful, and apparently happy. The image begins to crumble apart when Cecelia, the youngest, attempts suicide for the first time. She survives, though, and her middle-aged male doctor, in a fit of Freudian clarity, decides what she needs is more men in her ...

The film The Virgin Suicides was written and directed by Sofia Coppola in 2000. The story takes place in the suburbs of Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the early 1970s and it follows the struggles of the Lisbon family. The Lisbon parents are very overprotective, authoritarian, and religious, adhering to strict moral disciplines and sexual suppression. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon have five beautiful, blond, daughters’ ages ranging from 17 to 13, Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia. The Lisbon girls suffer a great deal from their parent’s strict moral code, they are not allowed to associate with boys, apply their talents to after school activities, date, or ride in cars. The Lisbon parent’s strict moral code is meant to keep their daughters pure, pure in mind, soul, and sexuality. However, after the tragic suicide of the youngest daughter Cecilia, and the persistence of Lux (the second youngest) Mrs. Lisbon allows all the girls to attend a school dance with dates. Lux is different from her sister...

Film Review: JUNO The movie Juno , directed by Jason Reitman, is quirky, comedic and dramatic all at the same time. I have heard great reviews about this witty “dramedy” but never got the chance to see it until now. Juno (played by Ellen Page) is a 16 year old girl whose boredom and curiosity leads her to have spontaneous and unprotected sex with her best friend and boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker (played by Michael Cera). She soon discovers that she is pregnant and is forced to grow up quickly and take on a world of new responsibilities. Juno considers having an abortion but rapidly changes her mind as she is sitting at the women’s health clinic attempting to fill out the required paperwork. She chooses to keep the baby and begins searching for adoptive parents. She finds Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) in an advertisement for parenthood in the Pennysaver classifieds and decides that they are a perfect match for her unborn child. Vanessa is a sweet, successful co...

The 1970s Michigan suburb of Sofia Coppola's directorial debut The Virgin Suicides is quiet, filled with wood-paneled station wagons, manicured shrubbery and the occasional creak of a bike tire as a youngster rides to his friend's house. This is the setting for Coppola's rendition of Jeffrey Eugenides' 1993 novel (also titled The Virgin Suicides ), a film that attempts to decode the short lives of five sisters, lives that play out against a backdrop of 1970s rock music, nail polish, pink lipstick, crucifixes, cigarettes and Peach Schnapps. The story, told from the unabashedly male perspective of a now-grown neighbor of the Lisbon family, begins with a glowing image of 15-year-old Lux Lisbon, played by Kirsten Dunst , in a plaid bikini top and toying with a red popsicle in her mouth. For the narrator and his friends, the Lisbon girls are a mysterious cocktail of sex, love and adventure, a cocktail they take only sparing sips from before the film's end. Across the str...

Film Review: The Virgin Suicides The Virgin Suicides is one of those films that even once it has ended it leaves the viewer asking himself/herself many questions. The focus characters, the five Lisbon girls, are introduced early in the film (Celia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese). The Lisbon girls’ ages range from thirteen to seventeen. The narrator of the film is an anonymous man who knew the Lisbon girls in his teenage years, and just like other teenage boys of the neighborhood, he was obsessed with them. The narrator tells the viewer the Lisbon girls’ story from his point of view that is why there are many questions left unanswered. The story truly begins with the tragic suicide of the youngest Lisbon girl, Celia. Celia’s suicide had not been her first suicide attempt; Celia had tried once before by cutting her wrists. It did not take long for the neighborhood/community to find out what had happened to the Lisbon family. However, the Lisbon family attempted to continue their l...

The movie “Mean Girls” contained a lot of references to what has been discussed in our class. It has the tales of all different girls and their experiences in a stereotypical high school setting. The film contains scenarios dealing with the trials and tribulations of relationships, new and changing friendships, and finding one’s self. The character of focus is Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan. Cady is starting a new high school with a blank slate of a reputation. Her experience mimics what a typical girl at a high school may go through in her life. I think that her life at this high school – complete with a complex artwork drawn by one of Cady’s new friends at school of the stereotypical lunch tables in their cafeteria- is generally a good representation of what a girl can experience in high school. Many of our readings – especially in Red- had to do with experiences of girls in high schools similar to the themes of this film- rejection, backstabbing, friendship, and influence...

Being a 16-year-old girl is tough; being a 16-year-old girl who is pregnant is even tougher. The movie “Juno” conceptualizes the social problems and tendencies that young girls have growing up dealing with the moral dilemma of teen pregnancy. Juno MacGuff, the title character of the film, is too odd and too intelligent to be the stereotypical case of teen pregnancy. With her intellect and poise she takes on the responsibility of overcoming her pregnancy by searching for an adoptive family for her unborn child. Juno does not treat her pregnancy as a joke, but rather accepts it, often mocking herself and her huge belly. Juno’s friend, Paulie Bleeker, offers to help Juno carry some of her bags, yet she replies sarcastically, “Oh, what’s another ten pounds?” Comments like these solidify Juno’s conception of her own pregnancy, taking it light-heartedly yet realistic. Juno starts off with thoughts of abortion and her parents openly accept what she wants to do, because it is her baby. ...

Mean Girls is hilarious and should be taken with a grain of salt. This 2004 film explores all of the high school stereotypes while telling the story of 16 year old transfer student, Cady Heron. Although there may be some truth to the stereotypes presented in the film, there are definitely some obvious embellishments. The stereotypes are presented in the beginning of the film in the cafeteria scene. As the camera goes around the dining hall, the audience is able to see people of all different groups. Some of the different crowds that are mentioned include “preps,” “jocks,” “sexually active band geeks,” “unfriendly black hotties” and “Asian nerds” (Mean Girls, 2004). The “plastics,” however, are the most exclusive, and popular, group of them all. As Cady is invited to sit at this prestigious table in the cafeteria, her journey through a public high school as a teenage girl begins. Cady’s original intention of hanging out with the plastics is to collect and provide the inside scoop to he...

The Virgin Suicides was directed by Sofia Coppola in conjunction with American Zoetrope in 2000. The Virgin Suicides is a film about teenage adolescence and the struggle to be understood. In the film, the five Lisbon sisters attempt to cope with strict parents, societal pressures, sex, boys, and a loss of control over their own lives. After their youngest sister, Cecilia, commits suicide, rumors about the girls spread wildly around town. They become a commodity, desired and feared by almost every guy in their school, as well as obsessed over by their neighbors, the narrator and his group of friends. Lux Lisbon , the second-youngest at 14, is played by Kirsten Dunst. Lux is the wild child of the sisters- flirtatious, rebellious, and struggling to understand her own sexuality. Nearly every guy in the school desires her, but during the film she falls briefly for the school jock, Trip Fontaine, only to lose her virginity and get her heartbroken by him. More than just dealing with s...

I decided to do the The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005) because I had seen most of the films on the list and this movie seemed like it could fit in with our material. I know the film was based on the book under the same title, which was read by many young women. This film opens on a group of four girls who are preparing to spend their first summer/time apart, while out they find a pair of pants that magically fit all of them. This leads them to make a manifesto in order for them to stay together for the summer. Their manifesto has 10 rules, probably the most important ones are each girl keeps the pants for one week, when trading the pants you must write a letter detailing the most exciting thing that happened when wearing the pants and the last rule is “love your sisters and love yourself”. As for the girls there is; Bridgette the wild and unstoppable one, Lena shy and beautiful, Tibby the rebel and Carmen the writer. Each young women has something they work through in...

I've known about this movie for quite a while but I had never actually seen it. I'm glad I finally did though! For those who have not seen it, Heathers is a dark comedy about Veronica Sawyer, a popular girl whose clique is called "The Heathers" (three out of four girls in the group are named Heather). The clique basically runs the school through intimidation, contempt, and sex appeal. Veronica realizes that she doesn't really like her friends and fantasizes in her diary about killing them. She thinks that if only the Heather Chandler (the leader of The Heathers) were dead, her high school would be a much more tolerable place. Veronica then meets and falls in love with J.D., a rebellious new boy at school who tricks her into feeding Heather Chandler drain cleaner, which kills her, and then forging a suicide note. J.D. gave Veronica what she was hoping for, the death of the head Heather. But as soon as one Heather dies another assumes the role. J.D tricks Veronica...

Thirteen stars the two beautiful actresses Nikki Reed and Rachel Evan Wood. If you know these two actresses, you already know that they only star in amazing movies and they make their roles so life-like. Thirteen, directed and written by Catherine Hardwicke, was also co-written by Nikki Reed. It’s amazing how a young girl realized what other teenage girls were going through and decided to write a movie about it to show parents and teenagers how the actions in this movie will only lead to destruction. What if all girls had the opportunity to share their voices by writing a movie or a song to reach others? Last week we talked about giving young g girl’s an outlet to voice their feelings and opinions, and Nikki Reed did exactly that when she co-wrote Thirteen. This movie is a perfect movie that covers many of the issues we’ve covered in this class; drug use, stealing, teenage sexuality, self mutilation, depression, low self-esteem, and rebellion. Thirteen is about two girls, who are j...

All girls need some sort of outlet. We always have lots going on in our minds and lives, and things can get especially heavy in girlhood. If all girls were given an outlet in order to create their own cultural productions, I think it would have nothing but a positive effect. Individual girls would never have to feel as alone as they do at tiems. There would be a place for answers and self-expression when parents or best friends just don’t understand. Girls could connect and make good friends, friends that would be, as the seven-year-old feminist Ruby describes: “someone you can count on, someone who is honest with you, and someone who cares for you”. All of this could be possible, even if they were thousands of miles away. Girls could reach out for comfort when it seems nowhere to be found. Society as a whole would also benefit. It is due time that we learn to listen to children growing up in this world. They too are experiencing the changes in this world first hand, an...

If girls were taught that their voices mattered to someone, that someone somewhere will read their thoughts, will listen to their voice they will have the courage to do things they would never dream of. Take Carla Perez-Gallardo from Red , she now wants to build a high school or a university because her therapist listened to her voice encouraged her thinking, made her aware of her possibilities. Now she has great dreams and has learned that “college-should be-schools should be- where you learn to be a good person, a whole human being” (266). Also we can not overlook the fact that she was enrolled in the program that allowed for the book to be created, she was able to go to a safe space with mentors to help shape her writing and creativity. We can look to the girl who formed Ikissgirls.com we can see that she needed a space to go to for the same validation and community that Carla found, Bonnie states “I started up this site after many unsuccessful attempts to find a friendly online com...

Is it a real diary or not? This is the question I kept asking myself throughout the whole book. “Go Ask Alice,” was first published in 1971, authored under anonymous, and was depicted as the actual diary of a young girl who gets caught up in the world of drugs and eventually loses her life to them. The book was a huge success when first published and continues to captivate readers today. However, the authenticity of the diary has come into question since its first publication. According to 1979 interview of Beatrice Sparks by Alleen Pace Nilsen, Beatrice Sparks explained that the diary “Go Ask Alice” was compiled from diaries given to her by a young girl she befriended but she also added other incidents and ideas from similar cases (Horn Book Magazine). Therefore the question still remains is “Go Ask Alice” a real diary of a young girl or is most of it a work of fiction from Sparks own imagination. No one will every truly know, but I will mention when “Go Ask Alice” was first published...