Spring 2021
W27
By Prerna Chaudhary (Advertising, Marketing and Communications, ‘22)
It was a typical Friday night after school when I was at my friend’s house deciding what teen rom-com to watch. Nickelodeon reruns we were too old for blared in the background when we landed on “The Breakfast Club” – because what could epitomize the American teen experience better than that? John Hughes movies have inspired decades of films, so they certainly have their place in our mental pop culture libraries. But I couldn’t get on board with the characters or their dialogues; they weren’t realistic, relatable or at the very least interesting to me. I didn’t find it funny or entertaining. This is supposed to be iconic? Maybe it was the fact that these movies took place over thirty years ago. Maybe it’s that there was hardly any diversity in the characters. Maybe it’s that the jokes relied on stereotypes, but regardless, this movie was underwhelming. It was the summer after I finished high school that I watched “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.” Although the movie looks and at times feels like a John Hughes movie, the main character, Lara Jean, is distinctly from her own time and place. After watching it once by myself, preventing any chance of distraction from the movie, I rewatched it the next night, telling my friend “You HAVE to watch this.” I knew after watching this movie just once, how quintessential it would become in my own coming of age American experience. The movie resonated so strongly with me because of Lara Jean’s unapologetic authenticity and the movies’ intentional and cohesive embodiment of her. Jenny Han published the first novel in the “To All the Boys” trilogy in 2014. This book was on the New York Times Bestselling list in the Young Adult fiction section for 40 weeks. It was the first children’s book on the list to ever have an Asian American girl on the cover Han pointed out on the Asian Boss Girl podcast. When she was looking for production companies to buy the rights to her series, many lost interest after she refused to change Lara Jean’s race for the movie adaptation. Keeping the character true to the source material was a win for the films and Asian Americans. Lara Jean as a Character It’s powerful to see a young woman of color on screen being portrayed in an authentic way where she is unapologetically herself. So often people on social media and in films embody the “I’m not like other girls” trope, so seeing Lara Jean being happy to embrace her femininity was a breath of fresh air. She uses her love for baking, a stereotypically feminine hobby, as a stress coping mechanism, despite other characters making jabs at her for it. She doesn’t hide her love for cheesy romance novels. She casually references romantic comedy movie scenes because there’s no embarrassment to be had for enjoying them. She’s open to exposing her vulnerable hopeless romantic side, even with her initially fake boyfriend, Peter. Stemming from the “I’m not like other girls” problem of putting down supposedly feminine qualities and emotions, I have seen myself and others hiding behind irony. Expressing every verbal thought and emotion with a layer of irony in front prevents people from knowing whether you are being serious or not. This irony could be used as a way to critique others for doing something “basic” while doing the same thing because it’s alluding to this superior awareness you have. Despite having the same basic interest, in rom-coms let’s say, a person hiding behind irony could say they only watch this genre to make fun of the films, not because they secretly love the outdated stories and live vicariously through the ideal characters. Lara Jean is a stark contrast to the facade of wokeness that is often presented when people hide behind irony. She isn’t hiding herself. She just is. Although she may come off as a shy bookworm, she’s actually confident in herself and her capabilities. Lara Jean just chooses who she opens this side of herself up to. In the final installment of the series, “To All The Boys: Always and Forever,” Lara Jean’s boyfriend, Peter, said that he couldn’t fathom why she didn’t get into the same college as him because she was way smarter than him. Without flinching, Lara Jean agreed at first. She knows her own worth. She was quick to break up with Peter when she felt she wasn’t his first choice in the second film. She called out her friend Josh for calling her an “innocent sweet girl” for not seeing her complexity in the first film. She was more than just that. Lara Jean was realistic, relatable and interesting, all lacking in John Hughes’ teen characters. Sure, her problem of accidentally mailing out handwritten love letters is certainly unrealistic, but her personality isn’t.
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Issue 01
