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Greta Gerwig’s 2017 breakout film Lady Bird garnered praise, accolades, and a coveted spot amongst the most beloved coming-of-age films of all time. In her senior year of high school, the story of a teen girl desperate to escape her hometown for college and her tumultuous relationship with her mother resonated with many. With honest and raw depictions of first love, friendship fights, and a backdrop of early 2000s Sacramento, a strong and tight screenplay, and outstanding directing, Lady Bird proved to be a stand-out movie of 2017.
Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the film, transformed into a household name. Despite being released four years ago, discourse around the film recently began to swirl around social media, including the notion that Lady Bird deserves a spot amongst the ‘Joker For Women’ movie lineup. In the depths of film Twitter, movies such as Joker, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Pulp Fiction get worshiped by male-dominated audiences. Some of these male viewers praise and even admire the main characters despite their obvious toxic behaviors and actions.
A few different female-centered films saw themselves bestowed with the ‘Joker for Women’ title, including Midsommar, Gone Girl, and Promising Young Women. When many Twitter users noticed Lady Bird amongst these titles, they quickly grew confused. Lady Bird as a character is no saint, sure, but she never framed anyone for murder, sacrificed an ex-boyfriend to a cult she’d later be brainwashed into joining, or even laid a finger on anyone. Lady Bird’s titular character is selfish, immature, and downright flawed, but she needed to be those things in order to change and grow into the woman we see right before the credits roll.
Is Christine/Lady Bird Selfish?
Throughout the film, the audience gets glimpses into the personal lives of the supporting cast. Christine/Lady Bird is the main character who the audience knows little to nothing about. Lady Bird’s father, Larry, loses his job and struggles to find a new one. After a shower, Lady Bird finds his antidepressant pills in the medicine cabinet. Upon asking her mother about them, she finds out her father has struggled with depression for years. However, it isn’t until she finds physical evidence that something’s going on with her dad that Lady Bird even considers the possibility that he could be struggling. Prior to discovering the pills, the only scenes she shares with her dad include telling him to drop her off from school a block away due to teenage embarrassment and asking him to help with her college financial aid forms. Everything she asks of him is purely for her. She never inquiries about his life, struggles, or triumphs.
One of the pastors who help with Lady Bird’s class drama productions eventually goes to her mother at the psych hospital for professional help, with Lady Bird none the wiser to his struggles. Her best friend Julie’s relationship with her mother’s new boyfriend goes unexplored. Lady Bird never looks outside of her own bubble to see what’s going on with the people in her life. The conversations she has with her friends always managed to come back to her and what’s going on in her little world. Julie eventually tells Lady Bird, “You can’t do anything unless you’re the center of attention!” (( Gerwig, Greta, director. Lady Bird. A24, 2017. )). And Julie’s point proves to be accurate.
Lady Bird’s selfishness doesn’t just hinder her ability to pay attention to those around her; it hurts her family and friends as well. When the cast list for the fall drama production comes out, all Lady Bird focuses on is her casting in the ensemble, not on the leading part Julie gets. Lady Bird has every right to be disappointed, but she doesn’t show an ounce of enthusiasm, pride, or joy for her best friend’s success. Julie’s triumph takes a back seat to Lady Bird’s frustration. The film as a whole purposely takes on this structure; Lady Bird’s feelings are what’s most important, despite the numerous struggles other characters face.
Lady Bird’s Working-Class Roots
Lady Bird’s family struggles to make ends meet, and not having as much money compared to her peers at her upper-class Catholic school strikes a nerve with her. She tells her first boyfriend Danny she’s from the ‘wrong side of the tracks.’ She discards the lunches her mother makes her in favor of the ones her friend Julie brings to school instead. When she attempts to fit in with Jenna, a popular girl in her class, she lies about where she lives, instead claiming to live in a large house that actually belongs to Danny’s grandma. Her wanting her dad to drop her off a block away from her school has nothing to do with enjoying the walk; rather, she’s ashamed of the car he drives, the car that couldn’t possibly compare to the newer, shinier models her classmates and their families pull into the parking lot with.
Lady Bird isn’t always ungrateful or even bothered by her family’s economic status. She appears to enjoy visits to the thrift shop and willingly gets a job at a coffee shop to save up some extra money. She does show gratitude for the small Christmas gift of socks her mother gives her and her father finishing her financial aid forms. She isn’t always ungrateful towards her parents and their financial status. But the times where she’s ashamed of where she comes from are too plentiful to ignore. Her family’s financial struggles strike a nerve with her.
Lady Bird’s Deplorable Mistakes That Her Young Age Can’t Excuse
Seventeen-year-old girls make plenty of mistakes. Excusable or not, many can be chalked up to immaturity and adolescence, much like Lady Bird’s own ones. But her young age can’t be a shield for every one of her faults. After finding out she didn’t get into Berkeley, the college her father and adopted brother Miguel went to, Lady Bird tells Miguel the only reason he got in there was because of affirmative action. Prior to this awful comment, Lady Bird and her brother bicker and get into a few petty squabbles, but nothing so unforgivable and cruel ever left either of their mouths.
Her young age doesn’t excuse what she said to her brother, not in the least. The narrative doesn’t try to make light of this either. Miguel calls her evil, and instead of apologizing or taking any form of accountability, Lady Bird proceeds to scream in his face and continues her temper tantrum. Not only does her selfishness make an appearance here, but her immaturity and refusal to see how her words and actions affect those around her do as well. The narrative makes it clear that what she said and didn’t do afterward is not only awful but inexcusable.
Lady Bird messes up pretty regularly during the film, from ditching her best friend to defacing a nun’s car in order to impress popular girl Jenna. What she says to Miguel tops her long, continuously running list of mistakes. While she seemingly patches things up with her mother, at least temporarily, at the end of the film, she never does the same with her brother. The film doesn’t try to justify what she said, but it missed the opportunity to have Lady Bird show genuine remorse and take accountability for the first time in the whole movie.
But These Flaws Exist For A Reason
Lady Bird isn’t meant to be a likable protagonist. For every argument where you side with her over the mother, there are two more times she treats her friends and other family members with disrespect. For every kind thing she does for someone, she doubles down on a poor choice. Growth isn’t linear, and Lady Bird does an impeccable job of displaying this, especially when it comes to relationships. Every time it appears she and her mother reach common ground, another fight breaks out between them. While it is clear to the audience that Kyle isn’t the right guy for her, Lady Bird keeps trying to get him to care about her as much as she cares about him, so when she finally does leave him, it’s impactful.
Every time Lady Bird realizes she’s messed up and works to fix things, it’s both realistic and refreshing. Teenage girls get scrutinized for every little thing in fiction, and real-life rarely allows them to receive the kind of grace and forgiveness often awarded to much older, usually white, men. Having a flawed character doesn’t inherently make a movie bad, especially when that movie makes it known that this character’s flaws are there for a reason. Without these flaws, how can the leading lady, much less any character in any piece of media, grow and evolve?
Lady Bird’s Worst Mistakes Are Not Excused
When Lady Bird makes a mistake, the narrative doesn’t try to excuse it. After months of ditching her best friend Julie in favor of the popular crowd, Lady Bird asks her jerk of an ex-boyfriend, Kyle, to drop her off at Julie’s place on the way to prom. Instead of spending the night with Kyle and his friends, Lady Bird reunites with Julie, and the girls end up going to prom together. Even after Lady Bird spent months ditching Julie and trying to be someone she wasn’t, Julie forgives her, and the two reconcile. Julie may forgive Lady Bird, but the audience doesn’t have to.
Lady Bird ends with the titular character calling her mother and thanking her for everything, and this choice to end is intentional. Lady Bird and her mom may never have a perfect, or even close, relationship. But that doesn’t mean she can’t express her gratitude for all her mother did for her. Likewise, that doesn’t mean she can’t see all the times she was wrong in hindsight. The film’s coming of age label isn’t slapped on for marketing purposes; the titular character’s entire arc revolves around growing up, maturing, and truly recognizing the impact her words and behavior have on those closest to her.
When a character makes a mistake, there doesn’t need to be a neon sign flashing above their head that says ‘this is wrong!’ While there’s no scene of Lady Bird apologizing to Miguel for the horrendous affirmative action comments, it’s obvious what she said was downright reprehensible. Yet, the narrative never tries to paint what she said as true or good. With a runtime of only ninety minutes, it’s easy to recall Lady Bird’s mistakes long after other characters have already forgiven her, moved on from them, or both. The audience is under no obligation to accept apologies she never gives.
Actually, Lady Bird Is Not The Villain
At its core, Lady Bird is about a selfish character who eventually sees the error of her ways. The film’s thesis never tries to hide. Lady Bird is never paraded as the perfect daughter, sister, or friend. If you don’t like her, then congratulations, you understood the point of her character and the film. Even through her kinder moments, such as promising to her ex Danny that she won’t tell anyone he’s gay and following through on that promise, she makes enough mistakes to drown out any and all good she’s done over the course of the film’s runtime.
By having the credits roll right after Lady Bird’s arc of realization and growth begins, the audience doesn’t know if she’ll continue to work on actively improving herself and working to be a better person in all of her relationships familial, platonic, and romantic. It’s up to the viewers to take what they saw from her in the ninety minutes of the film and determine for themselves whether to not they think she’ll make tangible change to her life and the lives of those around her, especially with her making a fresh start for herself in a new state, city, and school.
Lady Bird proves to be a dynamic character in a film that, while explicitly showcasing her numerous mistakes, doesn’t deserve a spot amongst the catalog of ‘Joker for Women’ titles. Seeing a teenage girl not only be centered in the narrative but be allowed to mess up and learn and grow is tragically rare in media, and, hopefully, it’s opened the door for more teenage-girl centered stories that focus on messy and complex girls from all different backgrounds with a woman behind the camera and in the writer’s room.