A Radical Idea

             Smart Teen Movies. Sounds like an oxymoron. But that's exactly what these two are: they please their intended audience while still managing to simultaneously respect and ridicule them. It's something you'd have to witness to understand. These movies are not satire; they are something much more dignified. Any movie can present a caricature or satire of the teenage experience; it's a rare one that manages to present it in a way that is both hopeful and realistic. Teens ARE humans, after all, not some higher-developed species of animal; I can vouch for that (I must reserve judgement on teenage boys, since I have not yet seen much evidence to dispel this popular myth).

            Both of these movies take themselves and their subjects seriously, but not seriously enough to avoid a little tongue in cheek. Both deal with cliques, class, and clothes, those mainstays of highschool girldom. But they are unique in that they also go beyond that, reaching to the heart of what motivates teenagers, and why they often seem so convinced of their own superiority against the world.

In this case, the world is not the world at large but the high school world; a much more stylized, pruned and perhaps more forbidding landscape. In Clueless, when the main character, Cher, informs her El Salvadorian housekeeper that she doesn't speak "Mexican" she is mystified when the housekeeper replies "I not a Mexican!" and storms out. "What was that all about?" She asks another character, utterly mystified.

Josh: Lucy's from El Salvador.

Cher: So?

Josh: So, it's an entirely different country.

Cher: What does that matter?

Josh: You get mad if anyone thinks you live below Sunset.

This is the life these teens lead: not self-centered, per se, but so caught up in their own limited vision of the world that they can't see beyond it. They remained trapped in their own ignorance.

I like to think that, no matter how self-centered and petty I can be, I manage to maintain a focus on the larger picture. For example, I don't speak Spanish, but at least I know that not all Hispanic immigrants come from Mexico. Since I don't go to high school, I am in relatively little danger from the small rivalries and team jealousies that plague highschoolers. I know that a world exists outside my own horizons, although I may not be excessively familiar with it. Pointless spats with friends can bring me down, but I don't let them destroy me; I know that eventually they'll blow over and we'll get on with life.

The characters in Mean Girls possess no such reassuring perspective. This makes them objects more of pity than despair. Cher in Clueless at least attempts to transcend her own blissful ignorance, performing manipulative acts of kindness for her friends and  acquaintances and even organizing a disaster relief program for the victims of a Pismo Beach hurricane. Her attempts are sometimes laughable, driven as they are by her own naive willfulness, but at least they're motivated for a good reason. Cher comes off, in the end, as more likable than anything else.

The Mean Girls, on the other hand, true to their title, possess no such saving grace. The title refers to both to a highschool clique--the "Plastics", who fit the definition of any adjectives, positive and negative, that have been applied to teenkind--as well as the highschool inhabitants at large, who seem to be as fascinating as they are unlikable. The story follows the character of Cady (played with surprising skill and convincing honesty by Lindsay Lohan), a former homeschooler who lived in Africa with her parents until moving back to the U.S. to attend highschool and obtain some "real friends".

Homeschoolers in popular depiction seem to suffer from either exaggerated angelic innocence or pitiable ignorance. I remember watching an episode of Hannah Montana, in which Miley Cyrus recounted her reaction to her father's suggestion that she be homeschooled: "NO, Dad, I want to go to school like a NORMAL kid." Unsurprisingly, I've never watched an episode since. I don't pretend that homeschoolers are normal--in fact, we tend to be determinedly otherwise. But this kind of slur is exasperating in the extreme because of the manner in which it was delivered. Even the book Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, one of my favorite novels, offers an improbably exaggerated portrait of a homeschooler--Stargirl herself, who has no understanding of competition, serenades fellow students in the cafeteria at lunch time, and is viewed as something of an "angel" by the first person narrator, Leo. If highschoolers are seen as nasty, obsessive, self-absorbed freaks, then homeschoolers are seen as magnanimous, isolated, wide-eyed freaks.

So, I have a new, radical idea. I've hesitated to put it across because I'm not sure how it will go over. After all, I am something of a freak myself and I am undeniably biased by my age and gender. How about we start treating teens, teenage girls especially, since they seem to be the most objectified and classified species as PEOPLE. Not teenagers, just PEOPLE. I told you it was radical.

Okay, I see that I have, as so often happens, strayed from my original intent to pay tribute to two excellent, smart-mouthed movies and gone off on a philosophical rant. Forgive me.

Anyhow, you should watch these movies. They both poke holes in our stereotypes by using them to produce comedy that is lofty-minded rather than screaching and petty, like it subjects. We should appreciate these characters, and laugh at them, because they are not us. They reflect some part of our nature but they do not define us. We should use them to reveal our desires and self-portrayal but ultimately we should rise above them, just as the movies do, eventually. So please, teens, (sorry, I mean people) respond just so I know that you're out there and I'm not the only one concerned with the way the world sees us. Because I love these movies. Because I know that I'm, like, soooooo much better than that. Lol.