Bring It On - Missy

Bring It On is the quintessential cheering movie of the aughts.  I mean, who doesn't know what "Spirit Fingers" are?  Starring Kirsten Dunst as Torrence Shipman, newly elected cheer captain and Eliza Dushku as cynical newcomer Missy Pantone, this movie has earned cult status in the world of female-dominated high school athletics.  Because it was so wildly successful, it has spawned nearly a half dozen campy, horrible, made-for-TV sequels.  Despite this, Bring It On is still a brilliant teen movie.  There always seems to be a satirical aspect to teen movies.  Take a look at the name of the high school where our story takes place:  Rancho Carne.  Google translates this as "beef ranch".  Rancho Carne Toros.  Beef Ranch Bulls.  Ahem.  Is this a thinly-veiled reference to the hormonally-driven meat market that is high school?  Or does it have to do with student athletics - strength, virility?  Or maybe I'm looking a little too deep into it.  All I know is, it made me think of burritos.  Mmm, carne asada...  Moving on!  This movie is actually pretty tame when compared to more recent teen comedies (Mean Girls, The Hot Chick, Euro Trip).  Other than the highly amusing and satirical opening, for the most part Bring It On is at its most suggestive when the characters are discussing sexual orientation.  Dyke and fag are used as offensive terms, but the characters own it as part of the lexicon, part of their culture.

New Moon - Jessica and Alice

I am not ashamed to say that I am a fan of Twilight.  Well, not that ashamed.  I do still feel that I have to defend my enjoyment - I fully recognize the book series is hardly high-quality literature, and the movies are, well, no better than the books.  I don't care.  It's entertaining to say the least.  It's a part of pop culture, and I've embraced it, while I am still critical of it's message.  New Moon is my favorite book in the series, and any Twi-hards will hate my reason - because Edward isn't there!  That's not to say I prefer Jacob (and here I am with my mom drinking wine and counting down the minutes to Taylor Lautner's big reveal... ahem) but it's nice to get that mopey Byronic hero out of the way for a little while. There is actually something really cool and unique about this series, that can at least be observed in the movies:  female desire is actually taken seriously.  It's not a gimmick, or played for cheap laughs, or pornographic.  In most chick-flicks or teen movies, the main female protagonists dress scantily/sexily.  Bella, however, dresses in ratty t-shirts, thermal knit, plaid and thick, shapeless coats, and is the one to push the boundaries of her and Edward's physical relationship.  Meanwhile, in New Moon, Jacob spends more time with his shirt off than on, and even Robert Pattinson as Edward gives the eager audience a little strip-tease.  It should also be telling at this point that I haven't even mentioned our beta friends yet.

Clueless - Tai and Dionne

Clueless is a 90's teen movie take on Emma by Jane Austen, starring Alicia Silverstone, the late Brittany Murphy, and Stacy Dash. Cher Horowitz (Silverstone) is a vivacious, bright, naïve, ditsy daddy's girl in Beverly Hills. Like her literary counterpart, Cher is a matchmaker. Her sidekicks are Tai (Murphy) and Dionne (Dash). This movie is rife with makeover montages, fashion shows and little romantic dramas. From Dionne and Murray's constant bickering, to Tai's sassy stoner tendencies, this movie is fantastic as a female-driven, candy colored vehicle of outrageously 90's proportions. The script is really something special, though clearly teenagers written by adults. "Buggin'?" "Jeepin'?" Clueless, in all its Hollywood exaggeration, is at least a legitimately teenage movie. I do remember a lot of the vernacular becoming de rigeur, while Never Been Kissed's "roofus" was pretty clearly an adult's imagining of how teen slang comes about.

Legally Blonde - Paulette

Yet another walk down memory lane! From the early aughts, Legally Blonde is a fantastically funny tale of a Beverly Hills beauty queen's transformation into an exceptional case-cracking law student at Harvard. The effervescent Reese Witherspoon is brilliant in the role of Elle Woods - her naïveté is charming and disarming. But enough about her, the subject of this weeks blog is Paulette Bonafonté, played by the buxom Jennifer Coolidge. I've chosen her over Margot and Serena because she is the only meaningful female relationship Elle has throughout the movie (by chick flick standards, anyway), while Margot and Serena are phone-in friends, for most of the part. Still, Paulette doesn't say much, for all the screen time she logs. Mostly she's a bumbling, stumbling, middle-aged mess of a manicurist.

Bechdel Test/Rule

I think it's necessary for me to cite the Bechdel Rule as a reference of a feminist inspiration for this blog. The comic speaks for itself, but here's more info via NPR.