Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Thirteen VS Never been kissed


This week, I watched two movies and it wasn’t a conscious choice of mine to chose two movies addressing the same issue in two diametrically different ways but it just happened.
The central issue adressed is teenagers and what does it imply to be one amongst other teenagers at school for instance, or amongst adults, parents for example.

Thirteen is hard to watch, it is shocking because it deals with problems such as drugs, sex, depression, self-mutilation, anorexia. Basically, name it and it’s in there. Those problems exist in real life, hopefully from a distance though. What makes it hard to watch is that the main characters in the movie are two 13 years old girls. Physically, I suppose they can look older than what they are but their way of dealing with things that happen to them reveal how young they really are. I suppose the movie tries to express that, besides the fact that teenager years are tough for most of us, the society we live in doesn’t consider that phase as a real age, but rather as an in between phase from childhood to adulthood. The difference is starting to look more and more like a very slim line, that barely exists anymore since at a very young age, kids are starting to become more sexual than they have ever been. What I mean is that studies show that the interest in school for example, is decreasing because girls are more interested in boys than they used to be at that age. This goes with the fact that fashion is targetting younger markets and proposing g-strings for 8 years old girls, telling them that looking like trash-baggy Britney Spears is the way to go.

So how are teenagers supposed to deal with that period they are going through? What are they meant to be when they are not kids anymore but not adults yet either?

Well, the movie probably tries to give an exagerated answer to that : they try “adult” things but in excess, they step into risky territory and don’t know how to get out of it, they push themselves to the limits of society without understanding the reasons behind those barriers, and they try growing up too fast.
So what exactly is the purpose of the movie? Who is targetted to watch it?
Well, maybe opening our eyes, showing that the world can be a big bad thing with lots of scary things about it and that these are accessible to young people who should be more concerned with getting good grades, making nice respectable friends and practising kissing technics on their hands (has anyone ever done that???) Well, maybe it’s about time to realise that yes, we know all that and it’s not about hiding all that stuff from them, turning them into ignorants who will want to try it
a) because it is forbidden by authority figures that they are trying to reject to be their own original person,
b) they don’t want to be treated as kids anymore and want to prove that they are able to make their own decisions
c) because the message they get is that society and adults are just telling them they are stupid because they can’t understand those things yet.

Is it such a surprise that girls in the US get pregnant when they are still in high school? What would happen if, instead of preaching abstinence, they gave them the keys to a responsible attitude by providing condoms at school or trying to work on communication methods with someone else than the parents or teachers to answer questions that are natural but shut down by every adult around them? I’m not saying that it would fix everything, I just believe that turning sex into a huge taboo just doesn’t help the matter very much.
Another thing that is a bit ironic about it is that it seems to be adressed to thirteen years olds but because of the actual violence or coarse language in the movie or whatever else, they are not actually allowed to watch it. Well that wouldn’t keep them from watching it on dvd but that’s not the point. What it means is that although we are dealing with problems suposedly about adolescence or whatever, it is not judged appropriate for that age category to be exposed to it....

On the other hand, “Never been kissed” is absolutely appropriate for a young audience but does that mean that the message is much different?
“Never been kissed” is in the romantic comedy category, it’s colorful, happy, apparently “hilarious” according to the back of the dvd, and it ends with a real love kiss scene. To make a long story short, Drew Barrymore is an undercover journalist writting a paper on kids today, in a high school. What makes the core of the movie is that in her high school years, the character of Drew Barrymore was the biggest nerd so the movie revolves around how she gets a second chance to fit in and become “popular”.

Well, how bad can that be? Does it contribute to the problems that teenagers face? How does this movie deal with the problems of adolescence compared to Thirteen? Is it actually worse in the end?

Ok “Thirteen” talks about Sex, How is it dealt with in “Never been kissed”?
Well, it is mentioned a few times throughout the movie but i guess the most obvious part about it is the sex ed scene. One of Drew’s friends and colleagues comes by the high school to say hello and is mistaken for the person who is supposed to give a sex talk on that day. Anyway, she represents the woman who sleeps around quite a bit but who has never been in love... So, her sex talk starts with very down to earth comments which make all the kids laugh etc... and then, they practise putting a condom on a banana. Hum, very interesting except that it looks like not a single one of them has ever seen a condom in their lives. They are pulling on them, blowing into them, struggling big time to make it fit on the banana etc.... Oh, and they are supposed to be 17. So although, this is what it should be like since they are legaly under-age to have sex, it just seems a bit strange that they get their first sex ed class in their senior year of high school. I remember having sex ed when i was in year 8 and we all knew what a condom looked like. Maybe, it was to get them ready for the prom.... Then of course, you get the whole well-thought speech about penguins who wait until they find their other penguin and never get with anyone else... How realistic and it doesn’t change the fact that one who plays the absolute air-head in the movie is completely obsessed with having sex on the prom night and tells the guy that he is her penguin...

“Thirteen” adresses the issue of drugs and alcohol, How is it dealt with in “Never been kissed”?
It is never shown in the movie, except when Drew and her only geeky friend drive past the “court” where the “popular” kids hang out and apparently get in trouble but that’s just assuming. Of course, the nerds are not allowed to hang out there. What’s a bit wrong about that is that the only wish that nerds have is to be cool and popular and therefore, be allowed to go to the “court” and drink. Another example is when Drew goes to a club and the bouncer asks if she is drinking tonight. She says that she is under-age bla bla bla and what does she get? A rubber stamp mark saying “loser” on her wrist... well that confirms what i was trying to say before, drinking is cool. And then, when she is a total loser at the club, she sits down with a bunch of rastas and, as a joke, they give her some space cake to eat. Obviously she gets really high and starts dancing on stage with the band. Well, that’s the part in the movie when she thinks that the popular ones finally think she is cool and that they will want to be her friend. So now, drugs are cool as well.

Finally, “Thirteen” adresses the issue of eating disorders, How is it dealt with in “Never been kissed”?
It’s not a dominant theme but it is suggested at least twice. First, very briefly and not so bad when one of the three super-hot super-cool super-skinny girls walks into the cafeteria and complains about how many % of fat are in the muffin. Well, it’s pretty well-known that muffins are not the best for a healthy diet but it just shows the obsession about weight issues and that is confirmed since she ends up not having lunch at all.
The second time, and that’s worse, is when another one of them announces that she will only have water and laxatives before prom. Hum, laxatives are actually used by a lot of people suffering from anorexia and I’m not convinced it’s so appropriate to turn that into a joke. It gets even worse when Drew’s brother, also camouflaged as a student pretends that Drew’s father is the owner of that laxative company and wow, do they find that cool!!! Actually, this is pretty much when they decide that she can become their friend...
Hum, so anorexia is cool too....

So ok, just to sum that up, in “Never been kissed”, sex is a complete mystery, drinking and doing drugs is cool as well as eating disorders. Well, that brings those two movies close together doesn’t it, since basically, the main character in both is a nerd to start with, who, to be accepted by the popular group, has to engage into risky behaviour. At the end of the day, the messages sent by those two movies are pretty much the same, except “thirteen” says that yes, the popular kids do that, and maybe that’s what makes them so cool but it also leads to self-destruction and extremely dangerous situations but is made in such a way that it is regarded as inappropriate to young audiences which makes the message difficult to come accros.
On the other hand, “never been kissed” is directly targetted to them. “Thirteen” endorses the role of the shocking movie and I suppose that, in a way, if we are dealing with confronting problems, well it might be a more appropriate response than dissimulating the same messages under layers of pink glossy non-sense, and finishing the movie by a profound monologue on how the geek friend at the beginning was so much better than the cool ones. Hum, ok, and who actually thinks, especially as a teenager, that they are proud of being geeks...............?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Je suis très impressionnée par ton analyse, je n'ai pas vu Thirteen mais je crois que j'ai vu Never been kissed y'a 6 ou 7 ans si c'est bien un film dans lequel elle se fait appeler "josie grosse truie" dans la version francaise! En tout cas je viens de recharger ma carte de video club et c'est possible que je loue Thirteen ce soir car je suis intriguée. 100% ok avec ton idée. J'espère que ca va bien sinon. Bisous

Anonymous said...

Tu devrais publier ta comparaison de ces 2 films sur le site de Internet Movie Data Base (http://www.imdb.com).

Papa

sweet potatoe said...

oui pourquoi pas, je vais voir si c possible de faire ca...ce serait marrant

Anonymous said...

I meant to keep you an article about a new teen chick flick that just came out and is supposedly really good. The title is long and has the word "pants" in it, something about a pair of pants that magically fits 4 best friends while they are all in different places over summer vacation. It's based on a book you may have read (way too late at night).

Anonymous said...

Youpi, I found the article and am keeping it for your visita. The movie is called "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."