#i would have also included my feminist icon lisa from the room

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

i just love a blonde lady who's kind of scary 💛

[jobethdalloway]

Rambling “Booksmart” thoughts from my 3 viewings of it (spoilers below!)

1) How much was I like Molly & Amy in high school? My senior quote included a quote from The Hours: "Perhaps there is nothing, ever, that can equal the recollection of having been young together. Maybe it's as simple as that." That, for me, actually sums up a lot of the joys of this movie. It wasn't angsty or taking itself too seriously like Lady Bird; it wasn't about shitting on its main character like Edge of Seventeen; it wasn't about loneliness like Eighth Grade; it wasn't about meanness like most of Mean Girls - it was about all the incredible joys that come with being a teenager, whichever way you choose to teen.

lots of rambling thoughts-

-the chemistry/casting is a huge part of what elevates this to something golden. I just completely accept that Kaitlyn & Beanie have been best friends since birth. sign me tf up. Give them Michael Cera and Jonah Hill's careers!! -Billie Lourd's entrance is one of the funniest things I've ever seen and then every time she popped up was just another miracle of laughter -this is like. soft Daria & Jane. Daria and Jane were a bit before my time but their '90s cynicism was something my friends and I were really drawn to and there weren't a whole lot of teenage girls repped in media who felt like us and we loved them. What I also really liked about that show is that, like this movie, it was not afraid to slap its protagonists on the wrists for judging "cool"/popular kids. Daria and Jane loved each other but the one time you saw them do anything remotely affectionate in the show was in the last (I believe?) episode when Daria hugs Jane and Jane is stunned/seemed kind of uncomfortable with it. I loved the love between Molly and Amy, its openness, it's two-way Ann & Leslie feel -being best friends with the teacher? Seriously, legit. I was super close to my favorite teacher junior year and then she moved away that summer and gave me her phone number so we could keep in touch. /I've been that person who would still meet up with my favorite gym teacher like years after graduating, just to get lunch and catch up -while this genre of comedy is usually a tad too crass for me, I realized it made a huge difference when it's made by/about girls - one of whom is a lesbian!!! It's not just nonstop escalating dick jokes! It doesn't demean or hypersexualize teenage girls!! Groundbreaking!!! It wasn't like, let's be as gross as possible because dicks are everyone's favorite thing to talk about. the sex jokes felt super real/were derived from very real things (oh, Ling Ling) -that scene in the swimming pool was gorgeous. everything about it. -I liked that Amy had a crush on a girl who wasn't just like Conventional Hot Chick. A straight dude writing/directing this very likely would've done that -I think maybe most poignantly, this movie made me miss high school. So many teen movies are about how high school sucks, how it's the worst, how it's lame, isolating, or scary. This reminded me of all my fun times with my friends and what a great ride we had -my generation's high school movie was Mean Girls. An iconic and hilarious film, but not at all kind to lesbians. Having one of the leads be an out lesbian in this film, to see her be the one who gets to hook up (well, almost / I do think that happened way too fast for her character but whatever) - that is revolutionary. I'm so so so so glad for (and a little jealous of) Gen Z's wlw who get to own this movie. Lesbians aren't the butt of the joke or the freaks anymore. They're the lead you're rooting for. -BILLIE LOURD

(A couple of small quibbles: I realize it's a staple of the genre, but I didn't love the girls getting drugged. I guess it was a creative way of doing that kind of sequence but eh. Also, Molly's comment about porn being like a documentary for an inexperienced lesbian is ... not good!! Yes the Cardi B joke was funny but young wlw, that porn was not made for you in mind and if you must, proceed with caution! And whether you're straight or gay, making out with someone who was mean to you, just to prove a point, is... not the best. Molly had a bunch of set-ups to telegraph that she'd end up with the sweet/desperate rich boy; I would've loved more set-up for the girl Amy ended up with)

2) More things I love:

-how this captures that people stop caring about cliques in senior year. I remember 2 of my grade’s coolest girls like adopting me partway through senior year because we had some classes together and they thought I was funny. Suddenly they were saying hi to me in the hallway amidst all their super cool friends and even though Being Cool had never been a goal of mine I felt so legit bc these two crazy popular girls liked me. I thought of that when Nick exudes nothing but sheer joy at the sight of Molly at his party. It’s so sweet. -Barcelona -I love that this movie doesn’t fall into the cliche of making The Cool Boy Our Protagonist Likes into a douche so she’ll go swoon into the arms of the less cool guy who likes her. Nick may be a shameless flirt but he isn’t written as someone who’s evil and I like that -I love that they never go “omg, I can’t believe Ryan’s straight!” The belief that she’s queer is not challenged -Amy grinning like an idiot when Ryan’s arm touches her leg :))) -with the close-ups of feminist accoutrement in Molly’s room and the bumper stickers on Amy’s car, it really struck me how amazing it is that these are our leads. Characters like this were the least popular ones/people who got made fun of in shows/movies when I was growing up (see: Jessie on Saved By the Bell). I LOVE that unrepentant feminism is such a huge part of them -Billie Lourd takes my breath away -I want to take Hailee Steinfeld’s character out of EDGE OF SEVENTEEN and put her in this movie, where Molly and Amy would befriend her and she could date someone who wasn’t a sexist dick -I still wish Hope had been a little better developed/hadn’t been so mean -I want to hang out with my high school friends

3) Third time seeing this and honestly laughed just as hard as I did the previous two times. The jokes all land and the deliveries, the facial expressions, the camaraderie is all perfect. I like that the notion of pushing past stereotypes is even applied to Amy’s parents, when Molly makes a comment about them being Christians who totally accept their lesbian daughter. That was a nice, small touch. (It also comes up again when the pizza delivery man who, while a douche, seems to be being nice in some way by warning them to be safe and turns out to be a wanted criminal). 

Also - is Avril Lavigne’s Sk8r Boi a dated reference for this movie? Is Sully? Do the kids not have to sit alphabetically at graduation? Because everyone’s grouped with their friends. Also I went with my gay bff to see this and we died bc the theater kid’s extreme reaction when Molly kissed the dude on stage was exactly my friend’s reaction from a moment before. And if the party was so late, couldn’t they have had dinner with Amy’s parents? They’re so sweet and they put so much effort into that adorable meal (I loved Lisa Kudrow in this omg). Why did they not pick her up from jail? Why did they not take her to the airport?? (These aren’t super important questions, I guess, I’m just being kinda nit-picky. I love the last shot/line of the movie)

I’m glad it’s where it is not.I do still kinda feel like we could’ve done without the teacher hooking up with the 20-year-old student. Not sure what that brought to the table and I actually thought her saying “how crazy would that be if I just showed up?” was funny without her actually showing up. At a party with all her students. Did no one else notice her there?