![]() ![]() A system that feeds on humans’ social impulses-for identification, approval, and association-encourages those drives, inevitably rewarding the immediate and recognizable over the difficult and unfamiliar.įor people who do not like the Things That We Like, or even simply do not like them quite so enthusiastically, watching this happen can be alienating in the way that pep rallies were once alienating. Of course, people have long had straightforward tastes that cluster around trends-this is how popular culture sustains itself-but social media seems to have sped up that process, or at least made its mechanisms visible. What I’m here to write about is not whether it’s good, but whether it is, as critics (who range from old white men to those of us closer in demographic to Gerwig) have claimed, “ perfect,” “ exquisite,” and “ extraordinary.” An extracurricular aspect of our adolescent reality is the formation of mutual understandings about Things That We Like, from musicians to movies to food to opinion columnists to TV shows (and indeed TV itself). Lady Bird is good as a feel-good movie, which means if you see it, you will probably feel good. (Marion is a nurse, and the gap between how she thinks about money and how her daughter does is as realistic as it is devastating.) Regarding actual schoolwork, Lady Bird isn’t great-at one point she sneaks into her math classroom to steal her teacher’s grade books-but she makes up for it in moxie and self-assuredness, easily endearing herself to everyone from the school nuns she gently terrorizes to, yes, even the popular girl. For most of the film, Gerwig is especially deft as she deals with issues of class, which Lady Bird must navigate as a scholarship student whose good-cop father recently lost his job. and then to jail, and then back to City College,” Lady Bird opens the door and throws herself out of the moving car.įramed by this relationship and by Lady Bird’s parallel love–hate connection to Sacramento, Lady Bird unfolds as a typical coming-of-age tale as it establishes all the elements of high school one expects from a high school movie: a sidekick best friend (Beanie Feldstein) a rich, popular girl (Odeya Rush) who wears her skirts too short homecoming and prom boyfriends (one too good to be true and one not good enough) a house party a part-time job a school play selfish rebellion mild backstabbing loss of virginity. After Marion tells Lady Bird that, “with her work ethic,” she should just go to “City College. Like the entire script, the argument is original, cutting, and laugh-out-loud funny, and it escalates to a surprising punchline. Lady Bird wants to go to college on the East Coast, “where culture is” Marion knows the family can’t afford it, and she also suspects Lady Bird couldn’t get in. It’s a scene that establishes the whiplash quality of their relationship: one minute, they’re laughing and shedding shared tears over the end of a Grapes of Wrath book-on-tape, the next they’re fighting over Lady Bird’s future. The film opens with a Joan Didion quote-“Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento”-before cutting to Lady Bird and her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), at the end of a road trip they’ve taken together to visit colleges. What Lady Bird presupposes is: What if it didn’t? ![]() Not everyone, I’m told, hated high school quite so much as I did, but as with life under capitalism, it’s a comprehensively painful experience that works for a few at the expense of many. ![]() It’s an ideal moment for a movie like Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, Lady Bird, which follows the charmingly bratty Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) through her senior year at an all-girls Catholic school in Sacramento in 20. What Lady Bird presupposes is: What if it didn’t? High school, like life under capitalism, always sucks. The president just called Kim Jong Un “short and fat.” I recently joined a club. People having parties to which I was not invited document them, live, on Instagram, and it feels bad. Trending topics prompt acquaintances to write lengthy Facebook posts that read like ninth-grade English essays. Gossip is being celebrated as a radical tool for fighting oppression disagreements are public, often initiated by cryptic denouncement followed by frantic asking around to figure out who did what to whom. I’ve been encouraged not to spend time alone with the opposite sex or say things that might offend particular people, especially women, who could be described, depending on how you view quality/quantity of social media followers, as popular. ![]() Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m living in hell, by which I mean high school. ![]()
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