Coming-of-age movies

I love them. I love the journey, I love how the protagonist finds himself, I love that he learns something new, I love the friendships in them and I love how the hero emerges somehow older and wiser.

Here's a picture from one of the greatest coming-of-age movies, 'Stand by Me'.

Note, though, that I have said ‘himself’. I’m not trying to be gender neutral here. I’m not saying that I love how the protagonist finds herself. I wish I were. Here’s what I hate about coming of age movies. I hate that hardly any of them are about women. And the ones that, arguably, are – tend to define the woman’s ‘coming-of-age’ against her love for a man. They are rom-coms. I have nothing against rom-coms (well, not much). But romantic relationship does not define a girl’s journey to adulthood.

Think about some coming-of-age movies:

• Stand by Me
• Back to the Future
• Boyhood
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• The Way Way Back
• Good Will Hunting
• The Kings of Summer
• Rebel Without a Cause
• This is England
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• American Beauty
• The Graduate
• The Breakfast Club
• Dead Poet’s Society
• Rushmore
• The Karate Kid
• Life of Pi
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
• Risky Business
• Wonder Boys
• About a Boy
• Kes
• American Pie
• Napoleon Dynamite
• Teen Wolf
• Billy Elliot

And I could go on…

All of them about boys. All of them define themselves through action. Which is to say, the boys find themselves through doing things.


Now try to think of some coming-of-age movies about women.

Now eliminate all of the movies that are really about a girl getting a boyfriend / husband.

Now twiddle your thumbs.

Now try to think of any coming-of-age movie, about a girl, that does not focus on her discovering who she is via relationships with boys/men.

Twiddle your thumbs some more...

How’s that list coming?

Does it look something like this?

• Juno
• Whale Rider
• The Virgin Suicides
• Mean Girls
• Pan’s Labryrinth
• Ghost World
• Dirty Dancing

Notice something? It’s not a big list is it? And if you examine this list more closely, it gets even more worrying:

• Juno (the girl gives birth. Yep. It’s a great movie but we can’t forget that her biology is key)
• Whale Rider (a film about a girl fighting for acceptance despite her gender)
• The Virgin Suicides (well – they figure themselves out in death)
• Mean Girls (a boy is important here. Oh, and pretty girls are mean)
• Pan’s Labryrinth (finding yourself in mythology / death)
• Ghost World (hurray! Mostly not about a boy)
• Dirty Dancing (about a boy but at least the power is pretty even between them)

Here's another picture.  Pictures are good.  Also, 'Ghost World' was a graphic novel first.  You should check that out.

Why should this matter I hear you cry? Firstly, I’m not saying that all those movies about boys shouldn’t exist. A lot of them are great movies and they should definitely be around. But there needs to be more movies about women defining themselves through action. Action. Not biology, not gender, not romantic relationships. Why is this important? Why should this matter? Because it’s true.

And saturating boys and girls with a message that says: ‘boys do, girls are done to’ helps no one.

So come on filmmakers. Show us a bit more truth please.

p.s. this blog post first appeared on my site Geekygirl.ukCaroline - mighty maker of this blog ('Girls on Film') - encouraged me to re-post it here.By no means, are either of the movie lists I've made here meant to be definitive.  Of course there are more coming-of-age movies about women than I've listed.  There are plenty more than I've listed about men too.  The point, and indeed the issue, is that the balance is disproportionate.