ghost world
this is an old post I never finished writing, but I'm putting it up anyway cuz I think it's pretty funny lol. don't expect quality here!
holy fuck I hated this movie.
I'm on a movie kick after finding out the greatness that is Tubi, and they have a ton of cult classic films on there that are often referenced or spoken about in the cultural circles I'm in. so after getting through good fellas and american psycho yesterday (terrifying experience watching the latter. when he's chasing after that sex worker in paul allen's apartment and catches her in the bathroom THE POWER WENT OUT IN MY ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD!) I watched welcome to the dollhouse, which I really quite liked, and then ghost town.
I'll start off by saying that I understand the reverence this movie has with queer teens and girls who are now women. the styling is excellent and Enid's personal sense of style is so well developed and you just have to admire whatever outfit she's thrown on before arriving to the scene. so cool and SO totally excellent.
and there's something to be said about Enid's attitude toward the world too. not to be like the speech in flawless about teaching girls to shrink themselves, but we literally do teach girls to shrink themselves. Enid very clearly refuses to be a woman who is shrunk down and she is, at times, needlessly defiant, but defiant all the same. that is something that can be admired.
but hooooooolllllllyyyyyyyyy shittttt, she has to be, like, the worst fucking character I've come across. she must be fucking deranged to think she's just continually in the right in all of this. and even when she apologizes, it's still all about her!
maybe I'm overdoing it with this worst fucking character thing, but she really bothers me so much because she reminds me so much of girls I went to school with and many of which I was friends with.
think of the dynamic of daria and jodie. now, keep daria but imagine I'm jodie but more daria-like. that was what it was like for me in school around my many nonblack friends. daria was very cool to me when I first started watching the cartoon in fifth grade, but now that I'm not 10-14 anymore, she's really quite insufferable and Enid reminds me so much of her.
daria and enid do this thing where they're so cool and so above it all that they saran-wrap themselves in layers and layers of irony so thick that they can't see themselves in the mirror of this act.
and an act it is! they're both so greedily jealous of their better and well-adjusted best friends who have boyfriends and get male attention. they both try to hide how terribly anxious and insecure they are about their looks by being massive bitches to everyone else in the world. and there's nothing wrong with being insecure, lord knows everyone has insecurities. it's the treating everyone else like shit, npc losers who don't have their own lives outside of their edgy, teenage all-seeing eye.
enid is not cool at all, and I think honestly anyone who thinks she is is either 15 years old, has little to no personal life experience, or is another lonely, weirdo white girl who models herself after her.
enid is just another edgy white teenager who only gains pleasure from sex, getting attention of any sort, or shocking people with how offensive they can be. how could anyone possibly think a racist painting of minstrelsy would be a great idea to turn in to your art class, which, when asked about its significance, gives some bumbling idiot answer about the world and racism. this is literally white people shit! who else would do something so fucking dense with no mind for how that would look or turn out?
and don't start with the "okay, but she's a teenager" schtick. I was a teenager, too. as were many other black and brown people. but I'm sure the majority of us wouldn't think to do something so fucking stupid with no regard to the consequences or nuances of that choice.
I get it, teenagers are notoriously inconsiderate people because, really, they don't have to be considerate. they can be insensitive and dense and insufferable because they're still kids. they really don't have a reason to be considerate. and so when Enid blows off her and Rebecca's plans to move out and get an apartment and resents Rebecca for, rightfully, calling her on how she's not living up to their agreement and not even making moves to make, really, anything happen in her life, I understand. Enid getting fired from her job the first day she works because she just doesn't wanna work is immature as hell and I also don't like that about her, but I get it.
when she gets inappropriately involved with Seymour because she's sick of not being desirable to guys her age the way Rebecca is, I get it. it's stupid as fuck, but I get it. I know girls that have done the same. and it's a miserable and humiliating choice to make, but that's me from the outside giving my perspective.
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