Review of Girls Town

Girls Town (1996)
A little on the feminist side, but okay drama.
10 September 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The only real problem I have with this film is that it implies that men are the cause of most - if not practically all - of women's problems. In its quest to prove this point the film gives an unrepresentative portrayal of men, and treads into feminist waters. It isn't representative because two of the four girls were (date-)raped. That's 50%. And of the other two one is constantly beaten by her child's father. That's 75% abused, altogether.

After Taylor hears that two of her friends (including the suicide girl) were date-raped she says that this is completely common and so normal it isn't even worth talking about. This is nonsense; I find it hard to believe that male urban youth of America mostly consists of violent thugs and rapists. Later on Taylor complains that she would never get hired as a mechanic because she is a woman. (Who had the brilliant idea of casting Taylor as a hobby mechanic?!) And what's this PC nonsense about date-rape anyway? Americans have too few ("real") problems so they have to invent them.

The girl with the long nails is supposed to play basketball; and how exactly does she manage to do that, with those gross, gigantic nails? She couldn't play golf with those things! And how come the white girl didn't get into trouble with the guy whose car she demolished (since the whole school knew who did it)? As far as the girl who committed suicide is concerned, at the beginning of the film she expresses her wish to study "African-American history". (She gets accepted into Princeton but she decides to waste it on something useless as that. Who's gonna hire her with a degree like that?) Otherwise, this film about the increasingly dumbed-down (American) youth is interesting to watch. The revenge scenes are fun, and the dialog is generally good. Taylor is quite good. The (c)rap soundtrack is hideous, though (but fitting in a way, I suppose).
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