Award-Winning Author and Designer, Audiobook Narrator

Film Shows Female Side of Growing Up in the Good ol’ USA

 

Posted on October 22, 2014

Note: This article was written for The Sunflower Newspaper when I was a student at Wichita State University in Kansas.

 

The Student Activities Council presents another film in the Women’s History Month Film Series: Girls Like Us. This Emmy Award-winning film follows four ethnically diverse girls from the ages of 14 to 18 as they flirt, flaunt, and profess to their own sexual awakenings.

​

“(Students) wanted to have a wide range of movies to represent different women and experiences,” said Cynthia Jennings, Student Activities Council member. “They thought this would focus on girls that are growing up and the experiences that they have.”

​

This film by Jane C. Wagner and Tina DiFeliciantonio features candid interviews and footage of the four girls, Anna, De’Yona, Raelene and Lisa, as they face the obstacles of growing up female in America. Girls Like Us provides an in-depth look into girls’ lives and hopes for the future.

​

Anna’s need to experience the freedom that a new culture provides conflicts with her parents’ strict rules. De’Yona dreams of a singing career as she tries to face a family tragedy. Raelene is a teenage mother who must deal with violence and her own issues of self-esteem. Lisa must reconcile the conflict between her own ideas of feminism and the ideas she was taught growing up as a Catholic.

​

Jennings believes Girls Like Us is more than just entertainment: it can broaden horizons too.

​

“I think anytime that you get to see a film that either takes you back to a time in your life where you remember, ‘yes, I was going through that’ or if you did not have those experiences, it increases you knowledge base and helps you have a better understanding of what other people’s experiences may be,” said Jennings.

​

Girls Like Us will be at the Rhatigan Student Center for one showing only. Students can see this free film at 12:30 p.m. today in the RSC Regents Room.

​

For more information about the film Girls Like Us, or those who need special accommodations due to disability, contact the RSC Activities Office at 978-3495.