coming of age

52 Films By Women: Lady Bird (2017)

IMDB

IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

When Greta Gerwig’s masterpiece “Lady Bird” came out in 2017, it was lavished with much-deserved critical praise, and some record-breaking commercial success, given that it had the highest grossing limited theatrical release by a female director. It also inspired a highly contentious debate, one that seemed entirely beside the point, and often had misogynistic over and undertones. Was the film’s central relationship, that of between the title character played by Saoirse Ronan, and her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) abusive? Or more accurately, was Marion an abusive parent?

I suppose when you have a mother who is as imperfect, and yes, at times outright cruel to her daughter, such conclusions can hardly be avoided. Why did I call it beside the point? Because Gerwig captures each character, be they front and center or supporting, with such nuance and precision, that it doesn’t really matter. No one achieves that magical, wholly impossible state where they become so perfect they’re worth rooting for at all times. 

That includes Lady Bird, or Christine, a student at a Catholic high school in Sacramento, California, in 2002. Lady Bird feels stifled by her surroundings, referring to her hometown as “the Midwest of California,” longing to escape to college on the East Coast, specifically to New York City, that mecca of all who are even slightly artistically inclined, or just ambitious in general. It’s a move her mother vehemently opposes due to financial concerns.

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IMDB

Nevertheless, Marion and Lady Bird’s bond is very real, strong, and complicated like many mother-daughter bonds tend to be. Marion may belittle her daughter when she doesn’t do simple things like put her clothes away, shame her for being unaware of her father’s depression, and constantly accuse her of being ungrateful, but the painful beauty of the film is that it’s understandable, albeit more so from our safe distance. Marion has endured the stress of a childhood which included an abusive alcoholic mother, and an adulthood where her financial situation remains tenuous, partly due to her husband’s mental health, and eventually, his job loss. Then there’s the money she shells out for the Catholic school Lady Bird finds so suffocating.

None of this excuses Marion’s behavior, which includes refusing to speak to her daughter after she discovers she’s planning on attending college in New York, despite Lady Bird’s tearful pleas and apologies, but it does make her human, and thus, forgivable. To paraphrase Cheryl Strayed, it’s a view of a relationship that’s “happy, humane, and occasionally all fucked up,” with an emphasis on the latter component. Most films refuse to acknowledge the role money has in shaping a person’s life and mindset, but the family’s class status dominates their decisions and how they interact with each other and the world.

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In her influential essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf described how her mindset drastically changed after she inherited a substantial amount of money. Before, she had taken whatever odd jobs, writing or otherwise, that were available to her. It was a life of “fear and bitterness,” consisting of work that was hard yet difficult to live on, and always feeling the need to flatter because it seemed so necessary. Getting her own money, an amount that was enough to provide food and shelter, changed everything. She had everything she needed and always would. “Therefore not merely do effort and labour cease, but also hatred and bitterness,” Woolf wrote. “I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me.” Very few women will experience such a reversal of fortune, and it’s the rare person who can maintain a mental equilibrium in the face of such constant pressures, which include the continual erosion of the social and economic safety net.

At least we are reassured that Marion’s sacrifices will eventually pay off, even if it isn’t explicitly stated. This movie is at least somewhat autobiographical, and while Lady Bird heads off to college in NYC, but it’s clear the naive teenager still has a lot to learn. She’s willing to learn it though, and her bond with her mother will remain strong, if only because distance is generally the first step in children actually being able to not only get along with parents, but see them as human.

52 Films By Women: Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992)

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IMDB

By Andrea Thompson

Damn straight this is a film Hollywood dare not do. Many films make similar claims to edginess, but the 1992 offering “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.” earns it, simply for immersing itself so fully in the mindset and world of 17-year-old Chantel (Ariyan A. Johnson). Movies about Black people coping with marginalization, most of which soon came to be known as “hood” or “ghetto” movies, had already become a thing, what with the success of “Juice” and especially “Boyz in the Hood.” But those films, and pretty much most of the others, were all about the men, and “Just Another Girl” has an unapologetically feminine perspective, from Chantel and her friends graphically (and stupidly) discussing sex to casually mentioning their periods.

We learn a few things about Chantel right away, mostly that she's a smart, driven teenager who lives in Brooklyn during a time when that meant something different. This is the 90s, so people are using tokens on the subway (the I.R.T. of the title refers to a New York subway line) and dealing with what looks like the earliest stages of gentrification. Chantel also gets good grades, and is trying to graduate early so she can go to college and become a doctor. She confidently speaks her mind, asking why the struggles of Black people today aren't addressed, and takes pride in talking tough when pushed.

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IMDB

Chantel also constantly breaks the fourth wall as she speaks directly to us of her determination to be different than everyone around her, from her classmates who are constantly failing, dropping out, or getting pregnant, to her own parents. They clearly love each other and their children, but the stress of living paycheck to paycheck, coupled with the lack of opportunities and their opposing work schedules, shows in vicious arguments which occasionally arise. “That's not gonna be me,” Chantel tells us. “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.” makes a good case for her momentum. Chantel is smart, and she has the grades to graduate early and head to college.

She's also dangerously ignorant the way 17-year-olds generally are. She may be intelligent and confident enough to call out the injustice she sees and excel in school, but her lack of experience also leads her to make the same mistakes many other kids her age do. Faster than you can say you dumb kid, she's ditching her boyfriend and her friends to hang out with the smooth-talking Tyrone (Kevin Thigpen) and having unprotected sex with him. When she vomits in the bathroom shortly after, she's too smart not to know what it means, but she still can't bring herself to make a decision. Deciding she has better things to do, Chantel carries on as usual and employs various tricks to hide her pregnancy.

As for Ty, although he initially reacts angrily when Chantel tells him the news, he does try to help. He wants her to have an abortion, but he never tries to force her to do anything. It is Chantel who screws things up even further by using the money he gives her to go on a shopping spree with her friend. He has every right to be angry with her, because Chantel also never asks for help, probably because she doesn't know how. She's so invested in keeping up a tough front that she doesn't know how to be vulnerable. When she goes into a very graphic, bloody labor at Ty's place, his concern is for her. Chantel is the one who persuades him to take a horrific step to ensure her future, and he undoes the deed far before she regrets her request and tries to do the right thing.

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IMDB

Director Leslie Harris not only shot the film on a shoestring budget of $130,00 in 17 days, she ran out of money during the editing process, partly because she refused to give in to pressure by studio execs to make Ty a drug dealer. After generous donations from author Terry McMillan and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, “Just Another Girl” went on to win the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. If there were any justice in the world, Harris would've gone on to have a prolific career, but she hasn't made another feature film since. “Just Another Girl” seems to be enjoying a kind of rediscovery in recent years, and Chantel herself remains a heroine who refuses to be pigeonholed, even if many reviewers tried to dismiss her as merely a younger version of the stereotypical angry black woman. Her pregnancy compromises the future she envisioned for herself, but it by no means ends it. Young Black women coming of age on-screen also seem to be less and less rare, with films like “Akeelah and the Bee,” “Pariah,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Precious,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and “Jezebel.” Yet for some, Chantel will always be the first heroine where they were able to see themselves.