Categories: Editorials

My Rebellious ‘Thirteen’ – Charging Drugs, Lipsticks, & Boys!

How do we look at women without being electrically charged, like a flash in front of us, or sentimentalizing them? Can we look at women without fetishizing their moves as provocative? Thirteen’s rebellious writing was produced by Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed, where the experimentation of the adult world does not seem narrowing, but their need to exploit and pluralize the unknown is deliberate. The vulnerability of teenage girls gets inaugurated, where their subject of knowledge is abusing drugs, promiscuous walks, gloomy cuts on the skin, and an interesting desire to shoplift.

The narrative of Thirteen (2003) opens up with Tracy, the categorical good girl, and her friendship with the well-known popular girl, Evie, are seen slapping each other where they conserve their rebellion. The practice of failing to communicate repeatedly procreates the discourse on harmful behaviors, where it silences the ideology of normalcy.

Thirteen, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, flutters on disturbing teen behavior that needs to be addressed on screen without glorifying, but rather making something that authenticates the representation. The opening scene has no moral justification that appeals to the viewers but carefully maintains its boundaries so as to not influence the same.

We have seen the representation of an irrational woman who has been name-called hysterical in cinema because of her vulnerability. Does this mean that Tracy and Evie both need to rationalize their behavior in order to not be called ‘out of senses’? Where should we place women who do not masculinize their emotions to perform in public to be taken seriously but are rather only named melodramatic for their expression? Anxious to be like grown adults, there is estrangement from selfhood. No matter how painfully the experience catches like the flu, there is a pleasure to please the adult world.

Tracy desperately wants to hang out with Evie because of the cool girl ideal she maintains: outspoken and high maintenance but not too feminine for the boys to label. Evie serves as the embodiment where she remains a fantasy to the girls to become like her and a sweet cupcake for the boys to have a taste. ‘Women are socialized to be competitive to other women, and we can’t deny how many of us carry that with us our entire lives,’ says Canadian women’s rights advocate Julie S. Lalonde.

Both Tracy and Evie find solace in each other and have distanced themselves to fit into a trope. This alienation is the result of living in a consumeristic world where stratified social systems have led them to box their individuality. Afraid of marginality, the girls empty meaning from life to develop silence and build the ability to destroy their knowledge of systems by still being a part of the system. Women, especially young girls, have less control over their lives; the adjustment and the need to differ become oppressive when they engage in harmful activities such as drug abuse, smoking cigarettes, and unsolicited sex to deal with the ideological violence on women.

There is a scene in the movie where Evie and Tracy are seen engaging in a threesome with a morally correct white guy who refuses the two nymphomaniacs. Morals are beliefs that we choose. The need for girls to gain their autonomy and power over men is through sex. Sex has been used as a tool that women have traditionally been using to get some power over men. The girls have self-objectified their bodies so as to please a man and prove their worth to be noticed as a woman. The scene is harrowing because the need for a girl to engage in sexually promiscuous behavior only to assert power and have herself called a ‘woman’ is deeply discouraging.

The internalization of media’s presentation of sexiness through substance abuse has an effect on the minds of young teen girls. There is a scene where Evie exposes her breasts in front of Tracy’s brother explains how the self-objectivity theory works. It demonstrates that if the sexual organs are isolated and taken into consideration as separate body parts; women will sexualize it for male sexual desire.

The hyperactivity in Thirteen (2003) and its narration, where women are in charge of their autonomy, the perspective of teenage experimentation is aptly depicted. This sizzling film protects girls from vulnerabilities by rightfully engaging in the content that must be on screen to create awareness and maintain the correct boundary. Although the emotional pain is poignant in the film, we are made to sympathize with the characters and also hate them at the same time because ‘we hate the things others get to do which we want for ourselves.’

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Pooja Singh

Pooja is an English Literature graduate and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in English Studies and her area of interest lies in anthropology, disability studies, and women’s writing. She has participated in many conferences and has her poems published in a recent anthology titled “Wine and Words.”