Can’t believe I haven’t watched this movie before this. Love it. Love America Ferrera. And it’s fairly appropriate for the topic at hand these days.
“Why don’t you value yourself?” her mother asks.
Oh, but she does value herself. She values herSELF. Which is why she had sex. Why she isn’t embarrassed by her size and her desire to go to college, why she complains about the lousy treatment at work, and why she wants her own life.
And why she whips her shirt off in the factory and is not ashamed.
“My weight says to everyone, ‘fuck you!’”
It may not be Superbad or anything else, but it sure is a movie about a girl getting what she wants. And part of what she wants is sex–and she doesn’t need to be married.
Although the movie is not usually my thing (in fact, I believe my ex-wife virtually forced me to watch it), it really is pretty good and with a message that so needs to pervade both Hollywood and American society.
Actually, I did have one question about it.
Since her parents weren’t able to help her financially to go to Columbia and since she was pretty independently minded anyway, wouldn’t she have gone without their permission? And would Columbia take what was such a clearly late acceptance? Not that this actually really matters, but just nitpicking here.
Yeah, the Columbia bit rang a little false to me. No matter how hooked up her teacher was there, I doubt they’d have accepted her for the fall with a summer application.
But if you’ll remember, she does go to her father and tell him she has something to tell him–and he says “I know.” So she does decide to go independently of them.
I also liked, though, how the movie showed her gaining an appreciation for what her mother and sister did for a living, so it wasn’t just a “oppressed poor girl leaving the ghetto” story, you know? Showed the whole family’s growth.
On another note, why are the only movies I can think of that show a teenage girl’s desires as healthy and normal this one and Girlfight? Two indie flicks about Latinas?
Yeah, I’ve liked this movie for a long time, for the same reasons.
Re other movies that show a teenage girl’s desire as healthy, have you seen The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love? Seems like a positive depiction to me. . . though not “normal,” I guess.