![]() I love how confessional Rodrigo is, how her lyrics seem to be almost ripped out of a composition notebook. But we are still romanticizing the ephemeral teenage space today and paying to be inside the heart, mind, and bedroom of a teen dream. The much-analyzed Rolling Stone cover, featuring Spears in tiny pajama shorts and a bra, splayed out suggestively on a bed, snuggling a Teletubby in one arm and holding a corded phone to her ear with the other, reads, “Inside the Heart, Mind & Bedroom of a Teen Dream.” Looking at this image decades later, it’s clear the way executives used and sexualized the raw feelings of a teenager. In her fantastic essay on the Britney Spears documentary, Tavi Gevinson argues that it’s impossible to have agency in an industry ruled by men. But also, this pang is all we were expecting from her anyway.īerrin took the prized image of the cheerleader and redefined it in her own alternative space Hilton Als once described the white girl as a person who is “visible and marginalized at the same time.” We are seeing only a certain kind of teenager feel a certain kind of pang. Women of color of different class backgrounds invented punk, but many presume riot grrrl to be a movement for wealthy white women with baby bangs. It assumes whiteness, and it also assumes a certain class privilege: You live in the suburbs you have a room to yourself to set on fire. The edginess that the sleepover aesthetic gives-this pushing against the innocent constraints of girlhood-also implies a presumed innocence of white teenage girlhood. ![]() Sleepovercore stops being about being seen, and becomes more about how to sell being relatable. ![]() But there is nothing DIY about having a production team and a large budget and being, well, a Disney star. Rodrigo’s Sour soars, because she has been slighted, been the subject of gossip, and it’s finally her turn to make a name for herself. You want to root for them, because they are scrappy, because they have been wronged, whether by society or by an ex. Is it truly embodying DIY if somebody else is doing it for you? Imagination goes stale if somebody else is making it for you.Ībove all, sleepovercore values the underdog, a concept that implies a lack of privilege and access to resources an emergence from the bottom that brings about a need for a DIY aesthetic. This is a huge part of Rodrigo’s success her use of this aesthetic gives us the immediate romance of teenage-hood and a yearning for a simpler time. Sleepovercore combines a nostalgia for millennials, as well as a visual culture for people who are currently teen girls, to get a rise out of us, to make us jump up and down and feel like we just lost our virginity. But unlike the zine counter culture that it borrows its aesthetic from, Moxie is a film on a streaming platform with a $25 million budget, starring a thin, able-bodied white girl living in the suburbs. Stapled together and featuring text scribbled in Sharpie and images hastily cut out with scissors, these zines with names like “Germ Girl” showcased young women making loud, anti-capitalist statements and declaring agency for themselves in an industry ruled by men. This collage moment is directly taken from the riot grrrl movement, during which bands like Bikini Kill incorporated zine making into their music scene. Moxie, Amy Poehler’s feminist, coming-of-age film on Netflix, uses the collage corner of the sleepover aesthetic to tell a story of a teenager who creates a zine dedicated to combatting sexual harassment at her high school.
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