13 going on 30 is a movie based on a teenage girl named Jenna Rink who wishes to be 30 to overcome her unpopularity at school. Jenna is celebrating her 13th birthday in her house and decides to invite the famous “Six Chicks” school group in hopes of joining their clique. Jenna’s best friend and neighbor Matt makes her a “dream doll house” and a packet of magic wishing dust. Miraculously after the head of six chicks Tom-Tom pulls a bad joke on Jenna she wishes to be “thirty, flirty and thriving” and seconds later awakens as a 30 year old in 2004.
This movie portrays how a teenage girl who feels unpopular, nerdy and disliked by her school friends is trapped finding ways to fit in to the “norm” at her school. For example, before her birthday begins she puts on makeup and tissue paper on her breasts to make them look larger. She begs her parents to stay in their room because her “friends” are coming over.
This movie portrays how a teenage girl who feels unpopular, nerdy and disliked by her school friends is trapped finding ways to fit in to the “norm” at her school. For example, before her birthday begins she puts on makeup and tissue paper on her breasts to make them look larger. She begs her parents to stay in their room because her “friends” are coming over.
30 year old Jenna awakens with no memory from the past 15 years of her life and discovers she works for Poise, her favorite magazine as a teenager and realizes Matt no longer exist in her life since her 13th birthday. The complication of this story is that Jenna is still 13 yet trapped in a 30 year old body. She realizes that she has become a bad person and disliked by many because of her obnoxious actions.
Finally, Jenna decides to move away from all the negative aspects of her life and tries to restore her life again where she left of 15 years ago. The movie ends as Jenna discovers Matt’s engagement and rapid marriage and goes back to her “dream house” filled of magic wishing dust and wishes to go back in time and her wish is granted. Jenna is given the opportunity to build her life again and marries Matt.
This movie connects directly with the discussion in Laura Greenfield’s “Fast Forward.” She explains “Whether it is a desire to be an adult when one is a child, to be a gangster when one is privileged, to be famous when one is unknown, or to look like a model when one does not, young people are preoccupied with becoming other than they are.” Jenna Rink throughout the film is preoccupied with becoming something else.
The intention of 13 going on 30 is to portray a young girl who in the midst of complications and loss of her own self still gets what she wants, love, respect, beauty and wealth. However, the implication about young “white” teenage girls is a transition of body dissatisfactions, lack of normalcy and popularity and girls competing against other girls in the hopes of becoming number one in their schools popularity and beauty standards.
1 comment:
You begin some really interesting analysis at the end of this post. Say more to make sense of this film. What assumptions does it make about who teenagers are, what they want, what they care about? How is whiteness played in this film? Social class? The fact that the 30 year old "act like a teenager" can tell us so much.
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