For all Belly’s antics and indecisiveness, I’m definitely going to miss my weekly The Summer I Turned Pretty debriefs with friends. After three seasons at Cousins Beach, the wildly popular TV series has come to a close. Well, for now at least. The show is based on Jenny Han’s book trilogy and follows the story of Isabel ‘Belly’ Conklin and her relationship with two brothers, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher. In a sea of YA media, all adopting this specific brand of love triangle, the show’s carefree coastal aesthetic and sprinkling of Easter eggs captivate audiences and encourage fan theories.
The first season of the show centres on Belly’s experience of ‘turning pretty’. With her change in appearance instigating Jeremiah’s romantic attraction towards her, and fuelling the conflict between him and her childhood crush, Conrad. With an emphasis on Belly’s transformation, The Summer I Turned Pretty aligns itself with the makeover trope that dominated teen cinema from the 1980s through to the early 2000s. Classic examples include The Breakfast Club, She’s All That, and Clueless. These films often borrow from a simple formula: a principal character, often a socially awkward and clumsy high school student, is given a makeover that aligns her with conventional beauty standards. Suddenly, she finds self-confidence and is no longer ‘invisible’ to her crush. In the famous makeover montage of 2001’s The Princess Diaries, Mia’s hair is straightened and her glasses are snapped in half. In its reliance on visual shorthands to convey change, the makeover trope continues to perpetuate negative stereotypes that suggest glasses make one appear nerdy and that textured hair is unkempt. Whilst challenging these outdated stereotypes is nothing new, film and TV continue to fall back on them.
Many fans draw attention to how The Summer I Turned Pretty attempts to re-examine ‘glow-up culture’. Unlike a conventional movie makeover, Belly’s season one transformation isn’t pre-planned but is presented as a natural change. Nevertheless, the show relies on the same outdated visual cues of a classic makeover movie. One of the ways Belly’s transformation into ‘prettiness’ is communicated is through her decision to stop wearing glasses.
The marketing for season three celebrates the inspiration that Jenny Han drew from the 1954 film Sabrina when crafting Belly’s love story. Han draws on the mythic potential that Paris holds for Sabrina as a transformative space. Yes, Belly gets a bob in Paris, but it’s the major internal transformation that really stands out. She gains independence, owns up to her mistakes, and takes control of her own future. After two seasons rooted so heavily in how the Fisher brothers perceived her, it’s refreshing to see Belly rediscover a sense of self that isn’t tangled up in them.
The finale’s flashbacks give the impression that Belly was always going to choose Conrad because he cared about her before she ‘turned pretty’. Whilst many makeover movies end by emphasising that what really matters is on the inside, videos and reels on ‘how to glow up’ seem to always be trending. Some of this content has shifted in recent years to focus on promoting inner beauty, confidence, and personal expression. However, pressure to undergo a drastic transformation lingers, with creators profiting from the promotion of ever-changing skincare routines and workout plans. As trends change and conventional standards of beauty are challenged, who knows what’s to come? Maybe we’ll see Mia embrace her natural curls in Princess Diaries Three and Belly in a cute pair of specs in the TSITP film.