Odd Girl Out

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Odd Girl Out

Guys are so stupid,” asserts Vanessa (Alexa Vega). “And violent,” adds her best friend Stacy (Leah Pipes). They’ve just heard that a couple of their classmates are fighting in the gym, and dismiss such overt aggression as childish. Of course, they rush off to see who’s bloody and who’s winning. And when they see that one participant is the object of both girls’ crushes, dreamy Tony (Chad Biagini), they’re more inclined to ask how it went than to judge the fight outright. Even if boys are stupid, they’re still property worth claiming.

Odd Girl Out exposes the ways that girls can also be stupid and violent, even when they’re not physically assaulting one another. Anyone who’s experienced high school as a girl knows how such aggression manifests. But the repetition is the very reason this story is worth telling—if only to get people talking. Kids are afraid, angry, and frustrated in high school and they find outlets in bullying others. Unfortunately, many of them learn to be adults in this way, and the behavior carries over. In this way, sadly, high school is preparation for life, not some phase you survive and move past.

Here, vanessa flirts—seemingly innocently—with Tony. Nikki sets on this betrayal with a vengeance, and organizes a veritable army of girls to ostracize and berate their former friend. They accuse her of being fat and having unfashionable hair. Stacy goes along with her clique as it sways against vanessa, calling her a “bitch” and a “slut,” oversensitive and selfish. Eventually, Nessa feels she can’t go back to school, as every moment is painful. The kids gang up in their own fear of being rejected.

The fact that Vanessa is Latina, has a straight-A average, and less money to spend on shopping sprees than her friends are tied up in the rejection. Vanessa’s mother Barbara (Lisa Vidal) is single and working, alongside Stacy’s mother Denise (Rhoda Griffis), equally clueless and self-defensive when events begin to spiral out of control, as when Stacy sets up vanessa to look like she’s cheated in class.

This movie shows how to stand up to bullying.
I definatly recommend this movie.
I give it a 5 out of 5.