Female Trouble: Certainly Unique

     

    Before I focus on the question, I’ll first tell my thoughts on the movie. I actually had to take Benadryl

about 30 minutes before watching the film, and if you know anything about Benadryl, it makes you very

drowsy. The film was so obscure that it kept me awake, and I was able to watch the entire thing through.

Also, in the beginning, I thought the film was going to take place at the high school and Dawn would go

back to the school complaining to her friends about not getting the Cha Cha heels she wanted. But once

she ended up sleeping with Taffy’s dad, I was like okay… things are gonna be whack. What I found

most memorable about the movie were the extravagant costumes. 

I thought the costume design of the film was really well done. All of Dawn’s dresses were on-point with her personality, and really added that unique element to the film. When I think of Dawn Davenport, not just one image comes to mind. I can imagine her in almost every costume of the film. There is also the character of Donna Dasher, who was very against sex and impurity. I think that can help explain her all-white garments, especially when she was wearing the white dress and the white head covering that covered most of her body. The color white is a symbol for innocence, so I thought that made perfect sense for her character. To contrast Mrs. Dasher is Aunt Ida, who wore a tight-dominatrix looking lingerie piece. That costume was also very memorable, as it has pretty much imprinted itself in my mind. 

Other than the costuming, I thought the set design was fantastic. It painted an ugly form of beauty. The set design of Ida in the cage was something I found to be really unique and something I hadn’t seen before. I think the display of ugly beauty was ironic, as the characters focused so heavily on beauty. Some even went as far as to inject liquid eyeliner into their veins. I believe that without the set, the idea of beauty would still be present, but it wouldn’t have been as ironic or prominent. It really does help enforce the film’s focus on desperately trying to achieve beauty. Overall, the depiction of the ugly environment in which the characters strive to be beautiful is something to take note of. Even in the end, where Dawn loses everything that she believes is beauty, like her hair and makeup, she still strives to have that sense of fame and love as she makes a speech before being executed.