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“Because you saw me when I was invisible”: Clumsy Adolescent Love in ‘The Princess Diaries’
By Rebecca Rosén | “The film is a sweet depiction of the trembling first steps you take as you try to navigate your first feelings of love … [and to] find people who accept and love you as you are.”
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Finding Your Person: Platonic Soulmates in the Films of Greta Gerwig
By Claire White | “By bringing attention to these deep and meaningful relationships, Gerwig’s films show us that these close friendships [are] important and worthy of attention.”
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From Dream Houses to Razzles: An Ode to Matt Flamhaff from ’13 Going on 30′
By Katherine Clowater | “For her to share [Razzles] with him as an adult is not only self-acceptance for Jenna but an acceptance of Matt’s love, and a silent reciprocation of it too.”
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‘The Hunger Games’ and Compulsory Heterosexuality
By Jo Reid | “The first time she outwardly shows romantic affection to Peeta is when she needs medicine, and so she kisses him…Performing romantic love is established as a necessary tool for survival.”
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Our Lives Are Liminal: Queer Love in ‘We Are Who We Are’
By Josh Sorensen | “Queer teenagers are inherently liminal beings and must find their own way of measuring development, find their own way of growing up.”
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The Fearless Call To Youthful Love and Desire In Mexican Cinema By a Young Gael García Bernal
By Aaron Sánchez-Guerra | “We learn that love is superficial among the materialist elite, it is toxic and painful when pursued in secret and that a mania for sexual conquest can result in abuse, loss or separation.”
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The Hagiography of Lady Bird: Myth-Making, Growing Up, and Teenage Saints
By Anna Burnham | “Lady Bird is taking her place in a long line of impertinent, self-assured teenagers committed to carving out their own identities as they fervently seek purpose; that is to say, she is taking her place in a long line of saints.”
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Revisiting Marty From ‘Gilmore Girls,’ Rory’s Last Grasp at the Working Class
By Sarah Jae Leiber | “A closer look reveals that Rory and Marty’s relationship and subsequent friend break-up is a lot more complicated — and I think it has a lot more to do with class than it has to do with patriarchy.”
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To the Coolest Girl in the World: Archiving Adolescence in ‘Eighth Grade’
By Tiia Kelly | “These artefacts constitute a record: a small sphere of expression for Kayla to move around in, to stretch her limbs and hear her own self-assured voice played back to her. When social anxiety prevents her from publicly expressing herself, the vlogs become a means of asserting, at the very least, a…
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Gendered Rage and Self-Respect in ‘Thoroughbreds’
By Meagen Tajalle | “It is immensely refreshing to bear witness to a young woman’s rage that is not rooted in victimization. Instead, the root of Lily’s wrath lies in self-respect, a trait adolescent girls are rarely afforded in movies.”
Grow Up 