Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Overheard at Booth 1: It's a Boy Girl Thing (2006)

Watched Sept 20, 2016

Found this movie in my notes, and had never written the synopsis/review.  As I recall, it was fairly cute/funny at the time, but going back and reviewing the plot, boy, how times have changed.

These days, this movie, made in 2006, would be slammed hard for being homophobic and playing into transphobic tropes.

Breakdown, a nerdy girl and a jock get switched into each other's bodies and have to navigate high school trying to be each other until they can figure out how to switch back.  Misunderstanding of each other as what is now called "cis" as well as each other's different social personas (nerd/jock) leads to comical hilarity.

In the end, they both have a deeper understanding of each other as both individuals and as their gender.

It is a "walk a mile in the other's shoes" story, that these days, as I said before, would be harshly criticized for maintaining cis-patriarchal norms.

Which actually brings us to an interesting point that, even when I watched this film a mere 7 years ago, I would not have written this blog post.  Something in our culture has shifted - hard and fast.   This tsunami of gender fluidity did not happen gradually - it opened like a floodgate.  (And I make no apologies for the water metaphor and simile, which were inspired by the word "fluidity")

Were this movie to be remade today, as it stands, it would be called "It's a Cis Thing" and if the script were to be re-written to be all inclusive (or at least, "woke") it'd be called, "It's a Fluid Thing" (which actually sounds a trifle scatological, if you ask me).



It's a Boy Girl Thing (2006) - IMDb


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