Telling the truth about high school
High-schoolers are like vultures. If you are even slightly different, they attack you and target your deepest insecurities, feeding off of your pain. Plain and simple, high school is not fun.
Sometime in July, I was scrolling through the explore section of Instagram and started watching movie trailers for upcoming releases. One of them was Sierra Burgess is a Loser, which was released on Netflix this month. The few seconds I watched were interesting: The main character was an intelligent, heavyset girl, played by Shannon Purser, who interacted with a thin cheerleader. The storyline was centered on the idea of a secret crush, but with some unaddressed conflicts.
As September rolled around, I got excited and asked my boyfriend if he would like to watch it with me. As someone who prefers action movies to chick flicks, I thought it was wonderful. It was as though the movie painted out my life for me (well, except for the “crush” who thinks that I am someone else), with all of the insecurities that I have felt throughout my high school years.
Honestly, for a lot of teenagers, society sucks. Women are expected to look like models and wear a full face of makeup everyday. But Sierra Burgess does not fit the societal norm. She is smart, she is dedicated to school and she is the size of an average woman! And her story is one that relates to teens today. A popular cheerleader ends up giving Sierra’s phone number to a member of the football team, and the two end up connecting and falling for each other. But the football player does not know he is talking to Sierra — he believes he is talking to the popular cheerleader. As time progresses, Sierra and the cheerleader end up working together to keep the relationship going without divulging her true identity.
Being compared to another woman is hard, especially when the other person represents your biggest insecurities. So you find yourself asking, should Sierra tell the truth and risk losing him or should she keep the truth hidden and let him fall deeper in love with the pretty cheerleader? From a high school senior’s perspective, maybe there is no correct choice. High school does not have fairy tale endings where the guy suddenly becomes a great human being or the girl always makes the right decisions. Sierra Burgess is a Loser is a realistic film that tells the truth about life in high school: It sucks.