Conditioning the ‘Damsel in Distress: Week 3 Lesson 1 Blog for Creative Writing and Film Studies

In yesterday's lesson within the unit, Film Genres and National Cinemas, leading on well from teen films, the students began to have a look at the romance genre. Funnily enough, this particular genre deep dive took place on the week of Valentine’s Day. While this was a complete coincidence, it worked in our favour, as the ideas of commercially expressing love, and buying into particular ideas around love were fresh. For their blog, students were to pick at least one romance film they have seen in order to reflect on the question:

How has this film influenced your understanding of what it means to fall in love? Was there anything that this film led you to believe or expect about love / finding your special someone?

For this blog, I will focus on The Twilight Saga film series (2008-2012), while also exploring how loving these movies in my formative teenage years (I was in Year 7 in 2008, and graduated Year 12 in 2013) led to many misunderstandings around what it means to fall in love. While I could write forever on this topic, I will try to keep it snappy by revealing my top five misconceptions about love and romance, as dictated by Stephenie Meyer, and her stories about my angsty and bookish ex role model, Bella Swan.

5. That you have to meet in a ‘cute’ way

In romance movies, this trope is often literally referred to as a ‘meet cute’; that fateful moment when the love of your life appears right in front of you in a sweet and narrative worthy way. While I (and most likely many others) would argue that Bella and Edward’s first meeting was far from cute, as it consisted of Edward holding his breath and staring daggers at her for an entire period of Biology (so he wouldn’t accidentally follow his instincts and kill her!), they certainly have a memorable initial encounter. Thinking about this now, it is certainly freaky, but when I was younger and watching the movies and reading the books, this was enthralling. Both on the page and on the screen, you couldn’t deny their chemistry, and even though Edward was looking at her like she just ran over his cat with her ugly red truck, the idea of having the undivided attention of such a mysterious and handsome guy is appealing, and in a way must have made Bella feel powerful, to have such an immense yet effortless effect over him. This certainly made Bella seem special to me and many other young girls. With the perfect combination of ‘not like other girls’ quirk and an ‘I don’t care’ effortless beauty, she caught the eye of not just Edward, but every other idiot boy at her school too (I now honestly see the treatment of the new girl Bella by her male ‘friends’ as border line sexual harassment). This quest for a ‘meet cute’ of my own lasted into my early adult years, and even at university, I would be lying if I said I didn’t keep an eye out for the guy at the coffee shop who was pouring over his aged copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles; the one with the cosy Ernest Hemingway turtleneck sweater, rounded Oliver Peoples spectacles, and the steaming cup of quadruple shot black coffee.

4. That you should probably have a first love and first kiss while in your teens or even preteens

Definitely in my younger years and even some of my more recent years, I wondered whether it was normal that I hadn’t fallen in love yet. In Twilight, Bella was only seventeen when she met her first (and last) love. While I knew that nineteen was quite young to get married, I definitely thought that as soon as I found my Mr Right, nothing in the world should be in the way of starting the rest of your life with them. Now, I am certainly glad that I no longer feel the pressure or a deadline to find love, and I accept that not having experienced love yet doesn’t equate to being unlovable, that you are destined to a life of loneliness, or that you are living under a rock.

3. That labels are really important

Even now, one of my favourite scenes in the first Twilight film is when Edward drives Bella to school and they walk through the parking lot together, making the physical statement that they are now “a thing”. Bella is so shy, while Edward is cocky and enjoys getting a rise out of the other students (who are basically shocked at the fact he is walking with anyone other than his family members). The effect of this kind of representation on me was that I believed if you were with someone, you would need to quickly decide to call and refer to each other as ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’, otherwise ‘it wouldn’t really count’. I now know that every relationship is different, and that a lasting and valuable one will flourish without having to become someone’s ‘girlfriend’ right off the bat. This seems naive as I type this out, however upon reflection, The Twilight Saga, as well as many other romance films arrive at a pinnacle point where the relationship must be announced or made known to all of the other characters in order to be legitimised. Thinking about this from a practical angle, it certainly makes sense why romance movies have to slap a label on the relationship in question quickly. Most of these films only have one and a half to two hours to cover the story, so perhaps fiction is where most ‘whirlwind romances’ occur.

2. That a heterosexual romance is something that a man initiates.

While Bella does her fair share of googling vampires before arriving at her revelation that Edward is one, and bravely (or stupidly) doesn’t give up until she gets answers, the relationship is very much within his control. Edward was the one who decided to introduce himself in a normal and friendly way to Bella (following their first ‘meet creep’ in Bio), who takes her out to dinner after swooping in and saving her from a pack of murderous rapists with a single menacing stare, into a secluded forest glade to invade her personal space and proclaim himself a killer, to his family’s house where they laugh about the prospect of her “becom[ing] the meal”, and to the family baseball game that had her isolated from town, and smelling like a fresh bun from Cinnabon to some seriously deadly monsters (who literally call her “a snack”). Despite some seriously unfortunate plot twists, this film as well as many others in the romance genre highlight the importance of the man being ‘man enough’ to ask a girl out, and for a girl to wait (otherwise she’s desperate, or not pretty enough to have caused the man to ask her out first). While this is an old fashioned notion, and one that has almost completely gone out the window thanks to dating apps like Bumble and Sadie Hawkins style school dances (where the woman makes the first move), it still feels like there is an inherent and sexist undertone to dating, where a girl who asks first is perhaps unusually outgoing or aggressive, while a guy who asks first is confident and should be acknowledged and celebrated.

1. That your partner has to be someone you love more than anyone else in your life

In The Twilight Saga, Bella eventually ditches all of her family and friends for her new eternal existence as a vampire. While she does decide to make and keep contact with her Dad Charlie after having her baby (who doesn’t stay a baby for long!), she is perfectly content with the fact that one day in order to protect the secret of her immortality, she would need to fake her death and lie in a coffin so her friends and family will move on without her. This scenario is specifically addressed in the book, as well as the films, and considering the fact that Bella becomes eighteen years old forever, and that Renesmee will look like a grown woman by the age of seven, her days with her family are numbered. Despite this, she is perfectly content with her immortal fairytale ending, even if it comes at the cost of her family’s crippling and fast impending grief and sorrow at the loss of her.

While this is obviously an extreme and supernatural scenario, I used to believe that falling in love meant having to find someone you love more than your family, and that allowing yourself to truly be in love meant isolating yourself to an extent from your previous life, in favour of a new beginning with your ‘forever person’. Now, I know that in reality, most amicable relationships mean welcoming your spouse to be a part of your family, and in turn, you will become a part of theirs. No one needs to get the gold medal in the race to your heart; you can just be happy to have each other as part of your lives (not each other instead and above all else) .

While some if not all of these appear simple minded, the fact that I have had to unlearn many baseless and often sexist assumptions about love further emphasises for me the importance of representation in popular culture, and the role of cinema in shaping how we perceive the world. This was a very candid reflection, and by looking back, I can certainly see where many fictional notions of romance mixed and synthesised into a definition of love that was ‘pretty off’ to say the least. I’m no damsel in distress - I am Chelsea Wick.

Videos:

MovieStation. 2012, Twilight (2008) Official Trailer, online video, viewed on 16 February 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDRLSqm_WVg

Perhaps not ‘so fetch’ after all: Week 2 Lesson 2 Blog for Creative Writing and Film Studies

In last Friday’s lesson within the unit, Film Genres and National Cinemas, students continued to investigate a wide range of teen films, and share their readings with their peers. For their blog, students were to pick at least one teen film they have seen in order to reflect on the question: How has this film influenced your understanding of the world? Was there anything that this film led you to believe or expect about being a teenager? While I touched on the idea of unrealistic expectations in my previous blog, I will focus on the film Mean Girls (2004) and the demonisation of ultra femininity in cinema.

To kick off this blog, I should make a confession(s of a Teenage Drama Queen)... I absolutely idolised Lindsay Lohan when I was a child. I think the first film I saw her in was Freaky Friday (2003), where she starred alongside Jaime Lee Curtis. While I was seven or eight years old when the film came out, I watched the film when I was ten or eleven as it was rated PG (I remember being so jealous of some of the kids who were allowed to watch PG and M movies already, and that saw Freaky Friday in the cinemas). Whether Lohan was playing the loud and angsty teen Anna, or her perfectionist mother (post fortune cookie induced body swap), I thought she was absolutely beautiful, and exemplified the image of a cool and confident teenager. While she was often cast in teen films like Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), Get a Clue (2002), Just My Luck (2006), and of course Mean Girls, there were also numerous films that were targeted to children like Disney’s Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), and Mattel’s ‘Cool Barbie’ animated movie, My Scene Goes to Hollywood (2005), in which she played a perfect movie star version of herself, and even had a doll made in her likeness. Even as a child actress, she shined brightly in The Parent Trap (1998), and Life Size (2000) (I wished I had auburn hair and freckles too!). In accordance with the film ratings rule in my family (especially considering my younger sister), it wasn’t until I was actually in high school that I saw Mean Girls and in many ways, it scared the bejeebers out of me.

One of the key things that impacted my understanding of the world of high school and the post-school real world can be summed up in the film's title: Mean Girls… girls are mean, and it is hard to find kind female friends and allies. While I’m sure the wide majority of viewers laughed along with the jokes, and invested in the drama of the plot, the very plot in question relies on the common understanding that cruelty of females towards other females is a natural phenomena, and anyone who doesn’t know that must have been living under a rock (or the film’s equivalent - being homeschooled in Africa). Even Cady’s new friends Janice and Damien are far from sweet and warm-hearted. Their first significant encounter with Cady after all was a “tour” of the school’s cliques. From jocks to preps to “...girls who eat their feelings, girls who don’t eat anything”, this act of apparent kindness (or even mercy towards our doe-eyed newbie) only serves to isolate Cady more, and prevents her from getting to know the large majority of her peers beyond their initial two-dimensional (and often highly offensive) categorisation. Janice describes her friendship group as “the greatest people you will ever meet”, and Cady’s only viable friendship option (even though she refuses to pronounce Cady’s name correctly, constantly patronises her, and says that her interest in Math is gross).

While there are reasons for Janice’s hatred towards Regina, these do not even need to be shared for Cady and the audience to know she is a “bad person”. This is due to a phenomenon in the film and entertainment industry known as the demonisation of ultra femininity. In a nutshell, the effect of this is for things that are typically thought of as feminine like the colour pink, shopping for high heels, and enjoying makeup to be coded and seen as stupid, useless, shallow, and in extreme, evil. You may notice that the most horrible female characters in movies appear to be either ‘classically evil’ (i.e. wicked witch features - black cloaks, long fingernails, wild dark hair - basically Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films), or pretty in a highly artificial and doll like sense (with long blonde hair, designer handbags, diamond earrings, and colour coordinated stationery). While there is nothing inherently bad about either of these looks, the fact that they have been used again and again to portray nastiness and cruelty has taken its toll on how society views females, and has been the most damaging in my opinion for females in how they view and regard one another. This trend certainly has a twisted and sexist overtone, when you consider that when a girl chooses to enjoy girly things, they are automatically perceived as either a dumb blonde, a bully, a soulless narcissist, or a mixture of all three.

Demonisation of ultra femininity is certainly seen in the case of ‘The Plastics’ when the entire school cohort regards them with jealousy, caution, and fear. On the flip side, “naturally gorgeous” girls with seemingly effortless and comfortable fashion choices are seen to have more depth of character, and as individuals that are “not like most girls” (a dreadfully backhanded compliment, as it assumes there is something subpar and lacking with the majority of females). As Cady begins dressing and acting more like Regina (honestly a pretty natural thing for humans to do when they are trying to assimilate and gain social acceptance), it goes without saying that she is descending further over to ‘the Dark Side’, and losing her wide-eyed, unassuming and non-threatening personality in the process. When considering this, I think of the film The Devil Wears Prada (2006), where the audience is supposed to see Andy as “selling her soul for fashion”. Alternatively, you could see Andy’s friends in this film as being unsupportive of her commitment to her new job, and her boyfriend being threatened and thus critical of her new found self-confidence. This is true in Mean Girls too, when Janice erupts and tells Cady off for becoming Plastic (rather than remaining her passive pawn in a cruel game of revenge). In a conversation with a friend, she clearly recalls the first time she saw the film Legally Blonde (2001) as a young teen and like many, she had reservations about watching a film about a “bimbo”. Upon viewing, the audience gets to know Elle Woods, and loves her unconventional approach to being both pretty AND smart (unheard of, right?). The fact that that was enough to serve as a plot twist of sorts says enough about how we are programmed to judge a book (cough, cough, women who are just enjoying femininity) by its cover, and how much misogyny we need to unlearn after it is carefully worked into our perception of what is normal and natural.

In summary, while it is a fantastically fun film, Mean Girls definitely solidified the idea for me as a teen that only girls fight and talk nasty. For some time, it appeared to me that boys fought with their fists, while girls fought with words, where in reality, both are used interchangeably and simultaneously by both genders. Upon reflection, this ‘learned truth’ could also be very damaging to young boys too because words can be incredibly hurtful and impactful, but admitting you are being affected by this type of bullying might be hard as it is seen and understood as a more “feminine” tactic. In a boy’s case, it is almost like it would need to be a physical alteration to be taken seriously, leading to the victim needing to fight back in order to be considered manly. Thus, these toxic concepts around femininity and expectations around gender contribute to the continuation of toxic masculinity also.

Videos:

Taylor Swift. 2009, Taylor Swift - You Belong to Me, online video, viewed on 12 February 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw

Teen Film Deep Dive: Week 2 Lesson 1 Blog for Creative Writing and Film Studies

In yesterday’s lesson within the unit, Film Genres and National Cinema, students investigated a wide range of teen films. For their blog, they were to reflect on the question:

How has teen film impacted the representation and understanding of the teenage experience over time? I was keen to reflect on this question myself, and compare my response with those of my students, especially when so much has changed and is still changing in regards to the representation of teenagers and the teenage experience in film and television.

During the lesson, I often caught myself saying “in retrospect”, and “retrospectively” in connection to reflecting on teenage experiences, as I myself no longer fall into that age bracket. I also made an effort to not come off as condescending, as I was speaking to a room of the Real McCoy about how they have and continue to be represented in popular culture. Considering many of the examples we looked at of common teen film tropes and conventions, perhaps I was showing more consideration for my audience in that 90 minute lesson than many directors and writers of teen films have demonstrated for decades. Sometimes it really is a fine line for creators to tread between establishing and utilising archetypes for the betterment of the narrative, and creating and reinforcing possibly harmful stereotypes in the real world.

When it comes to film and representation in any genre, there may come a time when what the film is representing feels compelled to replicate its glossy Hollywood clone. For example, if the teenage experience (something in the real world) is better or more easily identifiable by referring to its fictional representations (i.e. in films and television productions), real teenagers watching may feel that they should act in the ways they see reflected on the silver screen. As a result, if for example a young teenage boy is surrounded by representations of teenage characters looking to establish themselves in society as grown men by engaging in risk taking behaviours, they too may want to try what is demonstrated. A young girl seeing many preteen characters sneaking a cigarette with her friends in 1980s films may entertain the thought of doing so, and may also wonder if this behaviour was normal for those in her demographic. This link between the real imitating the exaggerated imitations of themselves is strengthened by those both older and younger learning to define real teenagers using information from fictional sources. A few students in a flash writing exercise during this lesson shared that as children they were nervous if not frightened of teenagers, as they were often depicted as aggressive, moody, and cruel to their parents and younger siblings (I too remember being weary of teenagers as a child, with their dark eyeliner, loud music, and spiky hairdos that were typical in the early 2000s). For the younger generation, this however is a learned behaviour, and while “teen angst” continues to sell fictional tales, creators should be held accountable for the impact they have on the very real group of people they are representing. While these may change as the teen film genre continues to evolve over time, here is a countdown of the five most unrealistic expectations I had as I made my way through adolescence - that shaky transition between childhood and adulthood…

5. I thought I would meet Mr. Right in high school

While it may seem naive, I grew up watching television shows like Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004), Kim Possible (2002-2007), Hannah Montana (2006-2011), and iCarly (2007-2012) to name a few, in which all female protagonists found their one true love after a (literal) series of crushes, dramatics, and emotional rollercoasters, all set on the stage of middle school and high school. In terms of film, I was fixated on the Twilight books and films, where our quiet and moody main character Bella has a near pre-quarter life crisis around her ageing (i.e. nightmares about being a grandmother on the night before her eighteenth birthday), as she “knows” she has found the person she wants to be with, not just for the rest of her life but for the rest of her unnatural existence by the age of seventeen. I too would have skipped the important milestones of growing up and learning who I was if I had met my eternal true love in high school. Now, I look back and wonder if the true happy ending for Bella would be for her to have gone to college in order to learn about who she is and what she wants before finding and committing to her “other half”, an often romanticised phrase I have much issue with, as it assumes those who are single are not yet whole.

4. I thought that every teenager was out partying

While I did my best to do my own thing despite the opinions of others, I did feel at times that I was perhaps unusually quiet and unsocialised because I wasn’t out partying every weekend like Mischa Barton’s character Marissa from The OC (2003-2007). The trope of parents being away for the weekend and the children throwing “rager” parties was so often repeated, there were points where I wondered if it was strange that I had never tried alcohol like the “teens” in films (where literally all of them were underage, as in the USA, the legal drinking age is 21). While I did not pursue this and the parties I attended were in no way shape or form “ragers” (they more like watching a movie while my friend’s mum bought us whichever sushi roll we wanted), I certainly wondered if that was what everyone else was doing (and I perhaps experienced what this generation may describe as “low-key FOMO” or a slight fear of missing out).

3. I thought that high school operated in a quasi ‘food chain’ system

As a result of teen films, and the representation of the teenage experience in popular culture, I had a skewed view regarding social hierarchy. For instance in films, the “nerds” were always bullied, and the popular kids always ruled the roost, as having people like you and/or think you are cool is the most important thing. While I did not try to be popular, I felt the weight of social invisibility and exclusion that is so often normalised for “someone like me”. As I was quiet, liked different things, and struggled with a certain degree of social anxiety, I was bullied, but in a way, I felt that this was perhaps an inevitable if not natural consequence of my mere existence. Bullying in films is often akin to hazing culture in American teen films, where almost every character except for the popular kids have to endure a level of humiliation and ridicule to grow as a character. It made it seem like a right of passage, rather than something that could be actively prevented, or something I could have sought help from adults for. When I consider bullying from the position of a teacher now, I wonder if bullying in films are representations of the real world, or if they are inspiring and actively sustaining this unhealthy social landscape.

2. I thought that I would have my whole future planned by graduation

Considering what is shown in the teen film genre, It is no surprise really that as a teenager I expected to know exactly what I wanted to do as a job by the end of Year 12. So many teen films that feature protagonists in their final year of high school show them buzzing around excitedly as they prepare for the SATs, scope out colleges located thousands of miles from their hometowns, and plan their whole lives (while spending seemingly very little time in class and actually studying). I certainly felt this pressure as a senior student, as I did not have a solid idea of what job I wanted. I simply wanted to do as well as possible, so that I could maximise the number of doors that would be open to me. While in Texas visiting my Aunty Rob, her friends who had known me since I was twelve or thirteen years old thought it was strange that I was looking at university options I could commute to from home, as it is so normal for Americans to go to colleges out of state, and for students to live in dorms. Due to much of my entertainment being Americanised, these USA specific milestones were presented to me, and weighed heavily on my mind.

1. I thought I would be “all grown up” by the age of sixteen

While the reason for adults playing teenagers in movies makes practical sense when it comes to child labour laws and restrictions in Hollywood (i.e. no need to provide a tutor / home schooling to the nineteen or twenty year old playing the fourteen year old), it did mess with my head in regards to my self image. Due to this trend, I lacked actual representation of what a teenager looked like. The “girls” in these films were perfect and beautiful and looked like ladies, while the boys looked like men (because they actually were!) Rachel McAddams was twenty-six years old when she played sixteen year old Regina George in Mean Girls (2004), and Chad Michael Murray was twenty-three while playing seventeen year old school quarterback heart throb Austin Ames in A Cinderella Story (2004). Again, while it makes logical and practical sense on a business side to cast adults in the roles of minors, watching films about “seventeen year olds” when you are eleven or twelve sets an expectation that that will be you in five or six years, and when you reach that age and are still a teen and not a grown up, there can be a weird feeling of shock, disillusionment, and lack of self acceptance. It is like you didn’t measure up somehow to what you had learned to be “normal”.

I am looking forward to continuing our class’s investigation into the teen film genre on Friday, and reading more about their thoughts and experiences with the current representation of their age group.

Videos:

WheatusOfficial. 2010, Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag (Official Video), online video, viewed on 8 February 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM