TEENAGE girls – if you only see one film this year in which young women on rollerskates elbow each other in the face, make it Whip It, writes ANNA CAREY
Because Whip It, in which Ellen Page plays a young girl in smalltown Texas who discovers the fun and ferocious world of roller derby, is a rare thing: it's a film about a teenage girl who grows up, not by getting a makeover (although she does develop her own style) or by simply falling in love (although she does go out with a cute boy in a band), but by doing something new and developing a more grown-up attitude to the world in general. It's a proper girlie coming-of-age movie. And as such, it should be cherished.
Films about teenagers are, inevitably, films about growing up. It's the time when we have to figure out who we are, and what we want in life. But boys and girls grow up on screen very differently. In Natasha Walter's recent book Living Dolls, teenage girls spoke repeatedly about the pressure they felt to both look polished and sexy at all times and to define themselves by their relationships with boys. Boys, however, aren't subject to the same pressures, and this is reflected in films. In many teen films, boys get to look and act however they like and still triumph.
Take Superbad. Yes, it's the film that gave the world the glorious McLovin, but it also perfectly highlights the double standards about teen boys and girls on screen. Can you imagine a film in which a girl who both looked and acted like Jonah Hill's charmless, obnoxious character Seth gets a conventionally attractive boyfriend? Seth, against all plausibility, ends up with a cute girl because . . . well, why? Because he somehow has the right to a hot girlfriend? Think of how different Welcome to the Dollhouse would have been if the same logic applied to girls.
In a depressing number of films – from She's All Thatto The Princess Diaries– for girls, growing up means a makeover. Few scenes in the history of cinema are as depressing as the one in The Breakfast Clubin which Ally Sheedy is transformed. One minute she's a shaggy-fringed, fresh-faced elfin outsider, the next she's in the fiendish clutches of Molly Ringwald, her hair has been tamed by a hideous bow and she's slathered in pastel lipstick and blusher. Her reward for this transformation? She gets together with Emilio Estevez, whose chief skill is apparently being able to smash glass by roaring at it.
When they're not getting made over, teen girls on film are falling in love. But all too often, this love is shown as a girl's whole life. The Twilightfilms, like the books that spawned them, give young viewers a very dodgy view of teen romance. Twilight's Bella is interested in nothing but mumbling vampire Edward, whose idea of romance is creeping into a girl's room for her own "protection". Because nothing says "romance" like being a stalker.
But there are better films that show that romance can be part of a girl's wider life. In the delightful Ten Things I Hate About You,spiky Kat (Julia Stiles) is wooed by the heartbreakingly charming Heath Ledger. It's a high-school version of The Taming of the Shrew, but one in which the girl ultimately gets her romantic happy ending without taming her own personality. At the end of the movie, Ledger presents Stiles with the electric guitar she's been craving. A boy encouraging his girlfriend's passions? Now that's love.
And romance can be shown as a conduit to something more. In An Education, Carey Mulligan's Jenny is bewitched by a seemingly sophisticated older man called David. But, as is blatantly clear in both the movie and Lynn Barber's original memoir, Jenny's not really in love with David, who is slightly wet and sexually immature. She's in love with the glamorous, grown-up world he represents.
And, as the film shows, ultimately she has to grow up at her own pace. Towards the end of the film, her affair now public knowledge, Jenny confronts her headmistress, played brilliantly by Emma Thompson. “I suppose,” says Jenny, “you think I’m a fallen woman.” “My dear,” says Thompson dismissively, “you’re not a woman.” She’s right, of course – but Jenny is getting there. We know she’s going off to Oxford, journalistic fame, and a life that doesn’t involve David at all.
The screenplay for An Educationwas written by Nick Hornby, reminding us that just because a film accurately depicts teenage girlhood doesn't mean it has to be girly. Look at Fast Times at Ridgemont High, written by Cameron Crowe but directed by Amy Heckerling. This is the movie that gave the world Sean Penn's hilariously stoned surfer Spicoli ("Aloha, Mr Hand!") and the (sadly) unforgettable sight of Judge Reinhold pleasuring himself while gazing at Phoebe Cates in a bikini. But it also sensitively depicted Jennifer Jason Leigh's character's icky relationship with an older man. And the scene in which her character loses her virginity is presented so precisely from her point of view that it suggests a female director can make a real difference to a film like this.
Although there are plenty of teen comedies about girls, a remarkable number of female teenage flicks have been horror movies. It’s not hard to see why. After all, for most girls, adolescence involves crazed shrieking, worrying extra hair and lots of blood. So films such as Carrie – in which the belated arrival of a bullied girl’s first period triggers her telekenetic powers – and Ginger Snaps – in which, um, the belated arrival of a girl’s first period coincides with her turning into a werewolf – are perhaps the logical conclusion.
But while both of these films are fantastic, in each the teen girl herself is the source of the horror, a hormonal creature who’s totally out of control. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was much more explicitly girl-friendly. In both the lacklustre movie and the superb television series, adolescence was depicted as being hellish – but instead of causing the horror, Buffy battled against it.
The most recent example of the teen girl horror genre is the disappointing Jennifer's Body, written by Junowriter Diablo Cody and released last year. It's the story of Needy (the charming Amanda Seyfried), who realises that her gorgeous best friend Jennifer (Megan Fox) has turned into a boy-killing succubus. On one level, it's about co-dependent teenage girl friendships. On another, more obvious level, it's a badly directed slasher flick that just doesn't work, mostly because it never quite goes far enough.
In fact, while watching it, I kept thinking “wow, Heathers did multiple murder in high school so much better”. Released in 1989, Heathers tells the story of Veronica, who’s finally had enough of her three horrible best friends (all called Heather), and joins forces with the charismatic JD to destroy her high school’s snooty social hierarchy. It came out when I was 14, and despite being a girl who loved my friends and had no desire to feed any of my classmates drain cleaner, I thought it was the greatest film ever made.
Unlike most films with teenage heroines, Heathers is very nasty, very funny, and incredibly quotable. At its heart is Winona Ryder’s Veronica, a genuinely heroic heroine in blue tights, whose determination to bring down the Heathers almost ends in mass murder. Viewers could revel in the Heathers’ bitchiness while cheering on Veronica, who ultimately defeats both the bitches and the devilishly attractive bad boy who has led her astray.
Heathers ends with Veronica promising a new, less evil, school order – but that doesn't change the fact that the old, wicked one was also ruled by girls. "Hell is a teenage girl," intones Needy in the opening scene of Jennifer's Body, and many films reinforce the idea that young women are automatically horrible to each other. Even Tina Fey's Mean Girls, while hilarious and ultimately positive, is based on this notion. But being a teenage girl really isn't that bad. Most of my memories of teenage girlhood involve laughing hysterically, usually when my friends and I were meant to be concentrating in Latin class.
But the humour that unites girls and makes adolescence bearable rarely makes it to the big screen. Louise Rennison's hugely popular and hilarious Georgia Nicolsonbooks perfectly capture teen girl lunacy with all its in-jokes. The mildly entertaining film adaptation Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, however, cut out most of the books' humour in favour of more conventional teen drama.
There's plenty of girl humour in Whip It. Bliss's friendship with her best mate Pash feels like a real friendship – they joke around all the time, they're sometimes slightly jealous of each other, but they ultimately love each other. When Pash goes to see Bliss compete at the roller derby, she grins with pride, telling people: "That's my best friend."
In fact, the message of female solidarity is strong throughout the film. Bliss is pushed by her frustrated mother into taking part in beauty pageants, but the film doesn’t demonise the other pageant participants – Bliss ultimately passes on her pageant frock to an ex-rival.
The film also shows girls that older women don’t automatically see them as the enemy; Bliss receives support and friendship from her thirtysomething team-mates. Even the villainous rival team captain Iron Maiven (a scenery-chewing Juliette Lewis) isn’t quite the total bitch she initially seems.
But what makes Whip Ita must-see for young female viewers is the simple fact that it's about a girl who finds something she's passionate about and does something about it. In a world where, just three years ago, Rosemary Davidson and Sarah Vine's bestselling Great Big Glorious Book for Girlsinformed young readers that "the main difference between boys and girls is that boys like doing things . . . and girls like feeling things", it's clear that films in which girls, well, actually do interesting stuff are important.
There are plenty of male coming-of-age films, from Billy Elliotand Almost Famousto Dead Poets Society,about boys who find a new world through literature, sport, music or art. But such films about girls are relatively rare. Which is why it's great to see movies such as Whip Itand Bend It Like Beckhamthat show girls discovering something that they're good at – whether it's roller derby or football – and sticking at it despite opposition from their parents, who in both cases initially want the girls to concentrate on more traditionally female pursuits.
These entertaining films may be cheesy sports movies in many ways, but they’re subversively cheesy. And that means a lot.
All the best films about growing up female are the ones in which the characters break free of the usual tired girlie stereotypes. That can mean Juno's pop-culture obsessed heroine, who deals with her unplanned pregnancy with wit, courage and ingenuity. It can mean a girl defying the authorities in 1980s Iran, such as the heroine of Persepolis.
Or it can mean a girl showing her parents that she'd rather do something aggressive and dirty than be a pretty little princess. When Whip It's Bliss first meets roller derby star Maggie Mayhem, she tells the skater she's her new hero. "Buy some skates," says Maggie. "Be your own hero."
Words to live by – whether you’re a teenage girl or not.
Girlie teen films Six of the best
Ten Things I Hate About You
Sulky but charming bad boy woos sulky but charming girl. A romantic teen comedy done right.
Heathers
“Did you have a brain tumour for breakfast?” One of the most gleefully black teen comedies ever made. And as the current state of Topshop shows, the characters’ late-1980s wardrobes are once more on trend.
Linda Linda Linda
Japanese schoolgirls form a punk pop band. Dreamy, funny and very sweet.
Show Me Love
You wouldn’t know it from Hollywood, but not all teen girls are straight. A tender coming-out story with bite.
Persepolis
Based on Marjane Satrapi’s stunning graphic memoir, this excellent animated adaptation shows how different – and how similar – life was for teen girls in 1980s Iran
Ginger Snaps
A teen girl tries to help her werewolf sister. Blackly comic, very gory, genuinely sad.
