Like, Oh My God!
A pack of screaming fangirls is scary, but what happens when you grow up and you’re still one of them?
We’ll call her Orchid. She’s a wife and mother of two. She works hard and does the grownup things one might assume that someone in their thirties would do. Except Orchid and I share what at times can feel like a dirty secret — we love teen chick flicks. Orchid reads all the latest Young Adult fiction and I’m an aspiring writer working on the second draft of a Young Adult manuscript. Throughout our 31-year friendship we’ve spent hundreds of hours together watching movies — amidst the hustle and bustle of being adult — we manage to find time to catch up and indulge in teen media.
Something happens to girls in the way they bond that stays with them when they become women. Orchid and I are no exception.
Orchid and I are not alone. According to a survey in 2012, around 55% of Young Adult books were bought by individuals over the age of 18, and nearly 28% of Young Adult books are bought by people aged 30–44. The majority of which were women. Something happens to girls in the way they bond that stays with them when they become women. Orchid and I are no exception.
Come back with me a few years to 2009. Twilight: New Moon is just about to hit theatres in Australia. Orchid calls me with fervour in her voice and asks if I want to come see it at Gold Class. At the time I’m in my ‘everything commercial sucks’ phase of life and swallow the urge to start laughing at her. She goes on to explain that it’s a group booking and that many of her friends are going and are getting all riled up. I agree to go purely because I haven’t had the opportunity to actually go to a cinema in nearly a year. She squees when I say yes.
The day comes and I’m met in the Gold Class lobby by a small group of young mothers and pregnant women, all smiling and talking about which team they’re on, Edward or Jacob, but more specifically how good Jacob is going to look with his shirt off. Orchid is buzzing, her smile as wide as ever. I am more excited about being able to eat real food while watching a movie on a big screen but dreading the angst, vapid stares and sparkling vampires I’m about to endure.
We go into the cinema, find our comfy seats and Orchid tells me about the books and what’s going to happen in the movie. Young Bella is caught in a love triangle with a vampire and a werewolf. I let most of it in one ear and out the other. I have no wish to retain any of the details. I am there to criticise internally, mock this fad till it bleeds and be gruff about everything. The lights dim and Orchid bounces in her seat a little.
Oh geez. Just smile and nod.
The movie starts and I wonder where my potato wedges are. Jacob takes his shirt off and I will admit to being impressed; the boy works out. I keep checking the time, as there is nothing like a bad movie to make you feel like you’re stuck in the mud. A great song by Thom Yorke plays over a montage and I will admit that I like the soundtrack.
After the longing looks, blue colouring and angst is over, Orchid smiles. She loved it. We go our separate ways; me home to enquire about the availability of the soundtrack and her back to her husband. She calls me that night and says that when she got home he gave her a slight scowl.
‘How was your yearning movie? Was there yearning?’ he’d asked.
She says she defends herself to no avail and secretly waits for the next adaptation. She hangs her head and feels guilty. He doesn’t want to watch any of these teen flicks with her. She admits that on the rare occasion she can come to my house for a couple of hours and watch a teen flick that it’s like a refuge, a time when she doesn’t have to feel guilty about liking something that’s aimed at someone half her age.
The cinema is undulating with packs of girls. I look around while the house lights are still up and cringe.
A few years later, it’s 2012 and Orchid invites me to the movies. Something called The Hunger Games, another adaptation of a Young Adult novel has come out and apparently it’s all the rage. I agree to join her because I don’t get to see her very often, we haven’t had time to indulge in a DVD at my house and again I haven’t been to the movies in a long time.
She shows the same excitement for this movie that she did for the sparkling-emo vampire one we’d seen a few years earlier. As we line up for the tickets it becomes apparent that we’re vying for seats with a growing mass of teenage girls. A strange word, Katniss, keeps bouncing around in the air as the line grows shorter.
The cinema is undulating with packs of girls. We manage to get seats off to the side and Orchid is all smiles again. I look around while the house lights are still up and cringe. I find out what this word, Katniss, means. She’s the heroine of the movie in which children are forced to kill each other to maintain peace in poor sections or something.
I spend most of the movie shaking my head while rubbing my face. However, Orchid loves the movie despite being as rolling-eyes about the squeeing teenage crowd.
At one point during the movie Katniss and a boy share a kiss. This prompts several groups of girls to cheer and clap. Orchid looks at me and cringes. Thank God we were never that dorky.
In a weird way it makes me sick. I remember the kinds of teen films I watched when I was that age — The Smokers, Fun and Kids to name just a few — and I wonder why these girls aren’t insulted by how unrealistic these depictions of teenage life are. Where’s the grit? Where’s the fucked up? Where’s the Buffy? Wait? What?
Oh yeah, Orchid and I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer almost religiously when we were teenagers. A group of female friends and I would gather every Tuesday and watch The Slayer and the Scooby Gang take on the nasties of the night. We were even the same age as the character Buffy Sommers. Things that were happening on the show were happening to us in the real world; friends and family members were dying, drugs (witchcraft on the show) were ruining relationships and ending lives and everything felt dangerous. Many of the adults in our lives saw the show as silly and gave us looks when we talked about it in serious tones.
It is at this moment that I realise I have become an adult and that Young Adult is and forever will be a part of me. While I still think that the movie I’m watching is shit because it’s tame compared to another film with a similar premise I watched when I was a teenager — Battle Royale — I understand the place that Katniss Everdeen holds in the hearts of these squeeing girls. Miss Everdeen will be with them forever just like Miss Sommers is still with me.
The movie ends and Orchid loved it but speaks of its failings. I’ve known her long enough to see that it was embarrassing being in the same cinema as a few hundred versions of our former selves. It has perhaps put a few things into perspective; basically, we’re both feeling old. Well, maybe not old but older. We were those girls. We lost our shit over nothing too. In fact many women still bond over chick flicks or shows like Offspring.
The importance of Young Adult fiction and teen media hasn’t changed in nearly twenty years. Teenagers want to see themselves in the media they consume and they will obsess over something they like.
The importance of Young Adult fiction and teen media hasn’t changed in nearly twenty years. The film adaptations of the books get bigger budgets these days that’s for sure but they still have the same affect; teenagers want to see themselves in the media they consume and they will obsess over something they like.
I haven’t asked Orchid what she thinks of Divergent one of the latest adaptations that I didn’t hate. We haven’t had the time.
I am a writer — wannabe writer — and the manuscript I’m currently working on is Young Adult. There are no heroes in my story, it’s just a plain old it’s-fucked-up-to-be-young-and-everyone-over-the-age-of-nineteen-can-go-to-hell tale of teenagers taking drugs, committing crimes and getting into serious trouble. Maybe one day I can create a character that stays with someone as they become older. Maybe packs of girls will squee over my creations. Maybe when I’m old I’ll still watch Buffy and smile. Probably.
