Tough Teen Chicks and the 83rd Annual Academy Awards

When presented with the words, “teenage girl” and “movie” perhaps cultural artifacts such as Twilight or Justin Bieber come to mind.  Or, if you’re a feminist, perhaps you mutter something about how the audience is impressionable yet underserved.  Looking at last night’s Best Picture nominations, though, one can’t help but notice that the 2010 films featured an uncharacteristically high amount of teen chick badassery.  Specifically, I’m referring to Winter’s Bone and True Grit. In Winter’s Bone, seventeen-year-old Ree is saving her family’s home and taking care of her mentally absent mother and two younger siblings in the absence of her meth-cooking father.  In True Grit, fourteen-year-old Mattie goes after her father’s killer.  In both cases the girls are simply fighting hard and putting their safety at risk to do what they think is right, and what no one else is willing to. The girls also both have no time for even a passing glance at a boy.  And don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoy teen sexual tension a la Harry Potter and Glee.  Nevertheless, it’s refreshing to see this is not a requirement in creating a teenage female character.  The other cool thing—or not-cool thing—depending on how you look at it, is that these films weren’t necessarily aimed at teenage girls.  I’m an advocate of anything that presents the general public with a positive representation of our nation’s female youth, but I suppose I wonder if the girls themselves are seeing these films or others that promote general female kickassery.