Booksmart: an All-In-One Ode to the Liberal, Sexually Frustrated, Tech-Savvy Generation We Call Our Own

Booksmart: An all-in-one ode to the liberal, sexually frustrated, tech-savvy generation we call our own Olivia Wilde’s summer hit movie Booksmart lands loving gaze upon Generation Z and says “I see you.” Main characters Molly and Amy (Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever) are overachieving high school seniors who realize their last four years have been all-work-no-play. The catch? They end up in the same schools as their hooligan peers. Determined to remedy this in one night, Molly convinces Amy to go to Nick’s crazy pre-graduation party, and the girls hurdle through a series of pit stops before arriving at Nick’s, where they sing, pong, and pursue love until it all falls to pieces (and, of course, stitches itself back up again). Booksmart is a refreshingly lighthearted feminist take on the tried-and-true genre of high school seniorhood. If it weren’t so feminist I’d say it’s a lot like Superbad, which, too, is about two mushy best friends trying to be ‘cool kids’ and failing, then not quite. Also starring Feldstein, Ladybird comes to mind as a feminist portrait of a struggling high school senior. Ladybird, however, is lonelier and subtler while Booksmart toys with technology, meme humor, and stereotypes in a more vibrant high school scene. I tip my hat (or snapback, if I may) to Feldstein’s repeated presence as an openly queer actress in movies that tell queer stories. Memorable characters include Jared, a man perfectly content with amusing no one beyond himself. His even stranger best friend, Gigi, defies laws of reality so often (jumping off the edge of a boat and appearing completely dry at another party twenty minutes later) that at graduation when she’s passionately playing the piano, I’m convinced her hands aren’t even touching the keys. Dear to my heart is Miss Fine, the spunky-bordering-on-unprofessional teacher who saves the day and finally gets the girls to their goddamn party. Booksmart is not a female comedy dressed in pink. In fact, the girls are dressed in blue for most of the movie (their party dresses pre-Fine, Molly’s dress post-Fine, and again at graduation). The ‘school’s out’ scene is easily the most visually arousing: all stripes, skittles, and sexual protection. Bursting condom balloons are one of the more memorable visuals, and I was happy to see it repeated in the credits, especially because it’s so loyal to the sexually liberal theme. Equally memorable is Amy’s underwater scene. There’s something innocent about watching Kaitlyn Dever in her underwear, giddy with excitement and coming to life only to find her crush wrapped seductively around Molly’s. The fight that ensues her attempt to leave is so poignant I’m grateful when it goes silent, the sea of iPhone lights a reminder of the virality of our emotions in our modern media world. The feminist in me beams at Molly’s kiss with Jared at graduation. In our typical hero movie, the superhero brandishes his trophy-wife who gingerly helped from the sidelines. Here, Molly is the she-hero, kissing her helper-boy ‘thank you’ before stepping into her spotlight. And the crowd goes wild. As a young queer woman, I was moved by Wilde’s ability to feature a queer female protagonist without stifling her nor giving her a sob story about being closeted/socially-outcasted. She even gets a sex scene, even if it ends with Amy accidentally stuffing a used tampon in her mouth and retching all over the hot girl. Mainstream cinema starves for queer female representation—especially ones where femmes fall for each other—and Wilde delivered. George and Alan (the token theater gays), however, are just that and little more. Harder to forgive is the movie’s lack of racial diversity. While the film is very representative of feminist ideology and sexuality, an opporutnity was missed to put a greater diversity of faces to the narrative. For a public high school in L.A., the cast is unsettlingly white, sporting a mere five characters of color. Considering that Los Angeles is nearly fifty percent Latinx, the lack of diversity is hard to justify, and at the very least inaccurate. More diversity resides, it seems, in the soundtrack than in the cast. Anderson .Paak, Leikeli47, and Lizzo’s top hits played behind scenes of the two white protagonists like decoration. A post-movie google frenzy confirmed that half of the artists on the soundtrack are, in fact, people of color. The discrepancy is uncomfortable. Lining white-dominant visuals with diverse music feels almost appropriative, since black music is ‘trendy’ and merely a convenient way to incorporate diversity without actually talking about it. s to life Beginning with a self-help podcast and ending in a sea of polaroids, there is no doubt care was taken in making Booksmart as authentically millennial as possible. I ache at the missed opportunity for a racially-diverse queer feminist film, but God damn it, young women don’t get nearly as many playful, raunchy comedies as we deserve, so everyone say thank you, Ms. Wilde. .

Load more