Let's Really Think About What Makes Her "All That".

Yesterday, I was watching the classic 90’s movie, “She’s All That” with my roommates; this was a favorite of mine as a tween, but as I watched it again with wiser eyes, I noticed a few things that I found disturbing. The main thing I’m referring to is the climax, in which the main character, Laney Boggs, leaves the prom with Dean, who wants to take her to a hotel room. Upon hearing this, Zach, the male lead, races out of the dance and attempts to stop her from making this horrible decision. (Just to be clear, Laney is single.) We later find out that Laney did not, indeed, sleep with Dean, and it is implied that when he became aggressive in his advances, Laney held a fog horn up to his ear. The fact that Laney is still an assumed virgin is supposed to be of great comfort, both to Zach and us, as viewers. The fact about the sexual assault and the fog horn is thrown in for comedic value. Why are we supposed to be relieved that Laney didn’t lose her virginity to that jerk, Dean? Because of the emotional regret she would suffer from it, or possibly because he seemed to be capable of rape if she was not interested? No, it seems we as an audience were supposed to be relieved, because otherwise Laney would have been “ruined” for Zach. This is ridiculous, and reflective of a culture that places far too much value on a girl’s virginity. If Laney were to choose to have sex with someone else, she would not lose her quick wit, her fearlessness, or her amazing artistic ability, and everything else that draws Zach to her. And if rape was ever a real threat (that isn’t made clear), then it is an issue that deserved much more attention than its use a punch line. Laney Boggs, for the most part, is a strong, independent female lead who isn’t afraid to go against the crowd or to speak her mind. She deserved a better plot than one that places so much value on whom she went home with after prom.