I Don't Wanna Be Like Other Girls: Girly vs Quirky

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CULTURE

I Don’t Wanna Be Like Other Girls: Girly vs Quirky

ILINCA & BRIONY - WRITERS LAURA & VEDANGINI - EDITORS

Femininity has had a history of being portrayed wrongly in cinematography. Movie makers have the freedom of placing female characters on extremes, from the way girls have been expected to act in the far past: girly, feminine, and boycrazy, or alternatively: different from typical representation, with boyish attributes, quirky hobbies, and a deep hatred for the colour pink.

Regina George (Mean Girls 2004), Sharpay (High School Musical 2006), and Heather Chandler (Heathers 1989). What do these characters all have in common?

They are all well-off, blonde ‘girly girls’ who are the antagonists of their respective movies. Ever since Marilyn Monroe’s popularity in the 1950s, it’s more prominent than ever to see these sorts of characters in teenage movies, especially when fulfilling the role of the ditzy blonde, or the boycrazy party-obsessed idiot. While predominantly wearing pink wardrobes, these pretty and feminine girls are depicted with bad attitudes and are pigeonholed into the ‘mean girl’ stereotype; often jealous of the main character, usually due to receiving attention from boys.

In the case of Twilight, the representation of the girly girl was not given to an antagonist, but worse: an annoying side character that exists only to create background noise - Jessica. She’s all the things Bella Swan (the girl protagonist) is not, and in return has no one liking her much, even though she always tries her best to be nice to everyone and lighten the mood. This stereotype perpetuates the idea that femininity is either inherently evil - girls who care about parties and boys are shallower and crueler than their peers - or alternatively dull and ditzy. Because of this depiction in the media, many young girls growing up view femininity to be something to be ashamed of, and choose to idolize the ‘tomboy’. The tomboy character originated from the renouncement of feminine clothing and items during the second wave feminism movement of the 1960s. As opposed to ‘first wave feminism’ in which women fought for legal rights to vote and to own property, ‘second wave feminism’ focused on other issues as well: sexuality, domestic issues and misogynist ideals. While this wave started a trend of disregarding women’s femininity, appearing stronger and more masculine in the hopes of claiming the freedom to do so and thus creating the ideal of the ‘tomboy’ in the process, it also reinforced the idea that all people should look down on stereotypical girly things. In order to be respected, women had to separate themselves from their womanhood, and in doing so, lost respect for it themselves.

Too many coming of age movies of the 2000s or 2010s featured the ‘I’m not like other girls’ type of main character, while the antagonist character was an annoying ‘girly girl’. While at the time it seemed revolutionary for the spotlight to be given to tomboys, the exaggeration of this trope and especially the rivalry between the two types of characters resulted in a lot of hatred directed