Three years after the debut of The Summer I Turned Pretty, I turned the show on as “a joke.” My boyfriend scoffed when he saw I was watching it.
“That show is so cringey,” he said. All I did was laugh and tell him I just wanted to see what everyone was making such a fuss about. For weeks, I had been seeing posts all over my feed trashing the show for the plot, the acting, and mostly, the characters.
My own comments to my boyfriend contributed to the demonization of female-oriented pop culture. When I allowed him to see the show as inherently bad because of its audience and even supported his comments, I contributed to the demonization of things made for women.
The Demonization of things made for women
When I explain to a man that I’m only watching a show because of the jokes I’ve seen online, my commentary adds to an ever-increasing discourse of demonizing and labelling things made for women as “bad.”
This phenomenon is not only seen in TV shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty, but it’s also directed towards singers whose audience is primarily female, such as Taylor Swift. It’s also directed toward content creators who make content for women, such as body-positive creators like Spencer Barbosa or female fitness influencers who are critiqued for wearing makeup or sports bras to the gym. It’s even directed towards women who dress for the female gaze; when I step outside wearing a fully pink outfit, I get weird stares or comments from others.
Women shouldn’t feel embarrassed about watching a show or dressing in a particular colour. These female-created spaces are important for us, so why do we make comments on them? Society.
Humans inherently feel the need to fit in, especially women. We are too quick to say or do things that we think will make us fit in or even make us feel equal with our male counterparts. We’re wired this way, biologically, from years of being seen as the lesser gender, and having a community is important to survival.
Why not take part in a community of women who uplift other women and cater to women? Why not celebrate romance novels and songs written for women instead of judging based on comments spurred by men?
The Bigger picture – things made for men
The demonization of TSITP is part of a bigger cultural dismissal of things coded feminine: makeup artists, fashion programs, and romance. When men obsess over things like sports games or take part in male-oriented fandoms such as Marvel or DC, it is seen as “serious.” However, female fandoms, such as the TSITP fandom, are seen as trivial or silly. Who gets to decide what is seen as good “art?” Why does media have to be “serious” to be respected? Why can’t joy, desire, or romance be meaningful cultural topics?
Game of Thrones was another book-to-series adaptation featuring similar tropes and romance, but it fits into the category of “things made for men.” Jenny Han’s book, The Summer I Turned Pretty, was written for a primarily female audience. Now that the show has reached a wider audience beyond girls and women, with men having also seen it, it has been shunned. Despite similarities that can be found in the two shows, the one directed towards young women has faced harsher critiques. And let’s not forget—Game of Thrones has some traumatizing scenes, including sexual assault, that I believe, should have faced harsher critiques for its involvement in the adaptation. This is part of a larger culture in which media tied to young women, especially women of colour, is being further critiqued.
What women can do
Now, three seasons in, I have found that there is literally nothing wrong with the show. It is entertaining, heartwarming, and riveting.
I admitted to my boyfriend and my friends that I watch the show because it’s good. I admitted that I judged it too harshly just based on what I had seen online. And I stood up to my boyfriend and told him to stop making fun of the show when he had hardly watched it for five minutes.
For years, I shielded others from seeing things that I liked because they were too “girly” or too “cringey.” But female-oriented pop culture isn’t fundamentally cringey or wrong. And I watch The Summer I Turned Pretty because it’s a good show.