Ponytail Picks #44 - Girlfriends
Invite your besties along for the ride this week—we’re looking to grow this friendship circle.
LISTEN
Hey, grrrl
I made you a mixtape, girl. Go rock out to it this weekend with your girlfriends, girl.
-AK
WATCH
Girlfriends on screen
I really like how the term “girlfriend,” at least in the culture I’ve grown up in, has come to mean not only a romantic partner who is female but a platonic friend who is female as well. It puts less emphasis on romantic relationships as the ultimate realization of human connection and at the same time uses its romantic connotations to drive home the idea that platonic relationships can have just as much passion and commitment as romantic ones. It also gives me more options for this list!
Thanks to the internalized homophobia and misguided stocism of the toxic masculinity that still pervades the expectations and expressions of my own gender, the term “boyfriend” does not have the same dual-meaning among us boys (especially us cis- and hetero-boys, I imagine), but maybe this list can inspire us to change that.
Of course, the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” no matter which way you use them, also just place a lot of emphasis on gender, which I would hope is not the ultimate foundation upon which relationships are built, so maybe we oughta rethink those terms completely, but I digress. Some girlfriends for all my friends out there:
Booksmart (2019)
“It’s fun your mom thinks we’re boning.”
“It isn’t you who has to deal with their awkward looks when I say that I’m going to the library with you and I’m actually going to the library with you.”
Derry Girls (2018-2022)
Nothing’s made me want to be a girlfriend as much as the fantastic Irish coming-of-age sitcom Derry Girls.
Hustlers (2019)
(Advisory for sexual content and brief nudity ahead):
As much as the world of a green room at a strip club is completely unfamiliar to me, the comradarie on display here is unmistakeable and infectious.
The Half of It (2020)
Girls and boys, friends and crushes—you don’t know the half of it in this refreshingly unique coming-of-age rom-com.
Bridesmaids (2011)
One of my favourite comedies, with plenty of poignant drama about friendship thrown in too:
“Hi, I can’t get off the couch. I got fired from my job, I got kicked out of my apartment, I can’t pay any of my bills, my car is a piece of shit, I don’t have any friends...”
“You know what I find interesting about that, Annie? It's interesting to me that you have absolutely no friends. Do you know why that’s interesting? Here’s a friend standing directly in front of you, trying to talk to you, and you choose to talk about having no friends.”
-JB
READ
Mona Awad’s got a killer-focus on female friendships in Bunny
How do we choose our friends? Do we base them on connection or what we can get from them? Are we looking for companionship or a quick route up the social ladder? I’ve been asking myself these questions for a week now, since finishing Mona Awad’s blockbuster 2019 novel Bunny.
Like any good book, you can look at Bunny from multiple angles: the story constantly contrasts the blind snobbery of its imaginary New England campus to the surrounding, deteriorating town; it forces your focus on the way it blurs reality and fiction; it expertly portrays the suspicion men provoke from their behavior toward women. But after you reach the final page, it’s the relationships between females that keep gnawing at your thoughts like they’re a juicy bunch of carrots.
Obviously, I’m not a woman. But navigating the story through the mind of lead-character Samantha Heather Mackey confirmed much of what I’ve been told it’s like to be one, especially as she’s forced to choose between her emo-real bf Ava and the uber-feminine, four-girl clique from her creative writing cohort that call each other bunnies.
It’s a well-worn cliché by now to say that living as a woman in our world is enough to make one go crazy. Bunny turns that insanity up to 11 to show you how true the cliché can be.
-AK
This girlfriend’s breaking up with you, and when she returns in two weeks time, she’ll be looking out for number one in her take on all things
DERRY GIRLS!!!!!!!!!