The DUFF is a film about how a content teenage girl is labeled by a jock in the first 20 minutes- and then spends the rest of the film changing and embarassing herself to prove that she is not, in her own words, "the Designated Ugly Fat Friend"- despite the fact that she is neither fat nor ugly. Her actions lead to isolation and ridicule in her quest to become the stereotypical popular girl.
Our "heroine" Bianca leads a comfortable life: she has two best friends, a crush, and likes zombies (as evidenced by the poster that blatantly reads "ZOMBIE"on her wall). But one day she goes to a party, where a stereotypical jock labels her the "DUFF" of her group of friends. The more she thinks about this, the more it creeps into her life,and the more extremes she tries in her attempts to become "un-duffed". She strikes up a deal with the jock to help her become popular and beautiful in exchange for her helping him pass chemistry (by giving him her notebook), and so our story begins.
We have all the standard teenage girl stereotyped characters here: the mean popular girl, her lackey, the geeky outcast we're supposed to like, the hot guy she likes even though they have nothing in common, and the outcast's friends who exist only to be fodder for her rage.
The character of Bianca is one-dimensional in the wrong way: she is called something and obsessed over what it means for her life and becomes increasingly determined to discover a way around it. But the ironic thing is, her attempts to become more likable and popular only make her more UNlikeable in my opinion. She ostracizes her friends for not knowing the word, yells at people trying to be kind to her, bothers random people in the classroom and performs a horrifying display in a store.
Of course, we all know how it's going to end: she'll become the cool girl and beat the mean popular girl for the affection of guys, her cool crush will be a louse and she will fall back to her tutor, and everything will resolve itself in the end. But why?
It's not like the girl did anything to fix her reputation- if anything, she made it worse. Is this how popularity works? Is cyberbullying, slander, insults and smut really how you become known? If s, count me out. The DUFF paints a wrong image of popularity and reasonable behavior that teenage girls would be unwise to follow.
Overall Rating: 4/10
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DUFF can stand for 2 things:
1- Designated Ugly Fat Friend
2- Dumpy Useless Failed Film
I'll let you figure out which one is mine.
Our "heroine" Bianca leads a comfortable life: she has two best friends, a crush, and likes zombies (as evidenced by the poster that blatantly reads "ZOMBIE"on her wall). But one day she goes to a party, where a stereotypical jock labels her the "DUFF" of her group of friends. The more she thinks about this, the more it creeps into her life,and the more extremes she tries in her attempts to become "un-duffed". She strikes up a deal with the jock to help her become popular and beautiful in exchange for her helping him pass chemistry (by giving him her notebook), and so our story begins.
We have all the standard teenage girl stereotyped characters here: the mean popular girl, her lackey, the geeky outcast we're supposed to like, the hot guy she likes even though they have nothing in common, and the outcast's friends who exist only to be fodder for her rage.
The character of Bianca is one-dimensional in the wrong way: she is called something and obsessed over what it means for her life and becomes increasingly determined to discover a way around it. But the ironic thing is, her attempts to become more likable and popular only make her more UNlikeable in my opinion. She ostracizes her friends for not knowing the word, yells at people trying to be kind to her, bothers random people in the classroom and performs a horrifying display in a store.
Of course, we all know how it's going to end: she'll become the cool girl and beat the mean popular girl for the affection of guys, her cool crush will be a louse and she will fall back to her tutor, and everything will resolve itself in the end. But why?
It's not like the girl did anything to fix her reputation- if anything, she made it worse. Is this how popularity works? Is cyberbullying, slander, insults and smut really how you become known? If s, count me out. The DUFF paints a wrong image of popularity and reasonable behavior that teenage girls would be unwise to follow.
Overall Rating: 4/10
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DUFF can stand for 2 things:
1- Designated Ugly Fat Friend
2- Dumpy Useless Failed Film
I'll let you figure out which one is mine.
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