Uptown Girls, Army Dreamers and the Hyper Analysis of Adulthood and Empathy

Hello. It's been a while since I wrote an article. A year almost! But I have finally returned to write some new stories on Vocal. Media, as well as revise my old articles. ( Lord knows I NEED to do that.)

Anyways, back to the original topic, I wanted to introduce my so-called "hyper-analysis" about the 2003 film "Uptown Girls", a film starring Dakota Fanning and the late Brittany Murphy.

Now before I take a deep-dive on the notes I took, I do wanna disclaim one thing. I AM in no shape or form a therapist, psychiatrist, or have a degree in psychology. This is literally just a page on my opinions of the film. Please don't be weird and take my words into consideration.

Another disclaimer, there will be spoilers. Now don't say I didn't warn you.

Alright let's begin! If you like this kind of writing, please subscribe and leave a tip! Even a dollar is generous enough:)

A Quick Look at The Characters

Molly:

Molly is a 22-year-old woman who celebrates her birthday in the beginning, and is played by Brittany Murphy, the it-girl actress who starred in movies such as "Girl Interrupted" and "Clueless." We get a quick glimpse of her character in the film and can immediately tell that 1. She's a whimsical girly girl with a flair for fun and adventure and 2. She definitely has a lot of growing up to do.

Ray:

Lorraine Schlein, also known as Ray (and played by Dakota Fanning) is a 8-year-old child with the impatience, sarcasm, and mannerisms of a 60-something-year-old-woman. We get a first glimpse at the character wearing all black, with pearls on her neck, and constantly nagging (loudly) about how the music is too loud, and how Huey (you'll learn more about him in a second) has horrible music taste.

Yikes.

As we can clearly see, she is the exact opposite of Molly.

Ingrid:

Ingrid is a great character to analyze and compare in the movie. Also known, as Molly's friend, they are both at opposite extremes in terms of her personality. Her position in the film, shows the maturity level that Rey is apparently lacking. But what if that wasn't true?

More on that later.

Huey:

Huey (far right) is a more fun, supporting character with empathizes on Molly and her difficult time. At times he is unserious but all in all, he's mature when it comes to his emotions. He has aspirations of being a successful manager for the singer Neal, an emotionally immature character with a hobby of accusing people rather than taking the blame for his own mistakes. (We're not even going to analyze the character Neal because I believe he was an unneeded character for this movie. Only liked the ending, point, blank, period.)

Comparing Ingrid to Rey

The dullness of the character is supposed to be an example to the audience of how Molly should be. Ingrid is well rounded, has a nice apartment, has a career, as well as maintains her personal setting as minimal and strict. But I couldn't help but wonder, just for a moment if Ingrid had fun. Even in the beginning of the film, she's calling the birthday girl, upset that she's late to her own birthday party. (Which I understand but still, lighten up sis.)

Ingrid is set in the film to kind of see who Ray is subconsciously trying to be. (Or at least, how she wants to act emotionally in terms of mourning her father's comatose state, which is soon to be his death.)

If you pay attention, you can even see their hairstyles and their fashion sense is identical. Though they haven't met each other (despite their mutual) I believe it was like that to focus on the characters and their flaws separately, and seeing and acknowledging the subtle flaws that the characters have.

Comparing Rey to Molly

Rey and Molly, though seemingly contrast to each other, actually have alot more in common. This we see towards the end of the movie, where they end up creating a bond with people. Molly confronts Rey, explaining her reaction of her parent's death, which caused her to almost lose herself completely. Rey is going through a similar experience, where her father is in the state of comatose. Her reaction of it, or what she believes is a safe reaction, is to just be mature. Completely. From the way she dresses, to the way she talks. Molly sees her mask of grief, tries to console her using her personal reaction of her parent's death. Rey sees her grief simply as anger, and assumes Molly feels the same way. But she can analyze her emotions from her childhood experience and decides to share it with Lorraine.

Here is the transcript from the movie, where Molly explains how she truly felt:

"I wasn't mad, Ray. I was confused. Everyone was talking to me, and I couldn't understand a word they were saying. Then their voices became a blur... and soon I couldn't even recognize their faces. They were like these blobs. Then they started to grow fangs... and their eyes became green. I knew I had to run away. I packed my knapsack got on the train, looked up at the map, and decided that I wanted to live in Coney Island. I thought it was gonna be a real island... and I could hide away there like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Imagine my surprise. The Teacups was the only ride they'd let me on by myself. I got on it and started spinning myself round and round. I feel like I'm still there, spinning round and round and round, and the ride won't stop, and I won't dare get off. You were right, Ray. I am scared. But you're scared, too. You're as scared as I am. And I thought maybe... I thought maybe if we... could go together..."

And then, it cuts to the next scene. It wasn't brought up again until the end of the movie.

Understanding The Ridiculousness of Maturity of A 20 year old

Back to the topic of Ingrid and Molly's clear differences, I wanted to talk about the way Ingrid handles her emotions and even how she dresses. As you can tell, they dressed actress Marley Shelton, in mature clothing, taking inspiration from preppy fashion. But if you look closer, you'll see Ingrid has a headband, almost exactly the same as Rey's in the beginning of the film. It should comparison to the two, though their only mutuals between the two are Molly and Huey, they don't even interact in the film. I believe that was done on purpose to show how similar they are, maybe even going as far as how Ray would turn out if she continued to try to act way too old for her age.

Ingrid is around the same age group as Molly, I will even go as far to say they're the same age, if not there's a 3-4 year difference. But Ingrid isn't as old as she portrays herself. She goes as far as to "help" Molly purge her things while living with her, because she refuses to actually tell her true feelings about how she feels about Molly and her whimsical nature. You can even see she tries to "improve" her life by doing yoga or be in a cooking club. This causes some influence on Molly unfortunately, as she slowly starts to wear less glittery, bright colors and starts to wear the color black.

Ingrid's behavior of controlling Molly's nature, and lack of understanding caused them to have a huge argument and stop talking for a short period of time. Her constant control of Molly's "immature" behavior was based on

The only time she was true to Molly, emotionally, was when she met her at the Ray's father's funeral. Overcome with great emotion, you can see she felt empathy not only towards Ray's loss, but Molly's as well.

Teacup Rides & The Army Dreamers Trend Online

The teacup scene is so powerful for a multitude of reasons. In this moment of the movie, Rey is grieiving of the death of her father, who passed away. But instead of allowing herself to grieve and do it in a healthy way, such as crying and experience the loss fully, she instead, cuts off Molly and decides to be mute, refusing to be emotional to anyone. She even goes as far as expressing to her mother to fire Molly.

The next scene cuts to Rey's mother and Molly discussing her severance pay. Molly then asks Rey's mother, Heather (played by Heather Locklear) why she was being let go. Her response:

"I don't know what's been going on between you and my daughter, but she has made it clear she never wants to see you again."

Molly seems taken aback but still is concerned about Rey, commenting that she must be grieving. Her mother disregards her concern, by saying that she's grieving pretty well, even goes as far as saying, that she was doing her homework.

Uh huh.

After back and forth with disagreements, Molly rips the envelope and says how she's not being motherly when it comes to Rey and her grieving process, and justifies and accepts her "maturity" because she doesn't have to deal with her.

A few days after that, Molly receives a phone call from Heather, saying that Rey has ran away and she doesn't know where she is. Molly sprints to Cony Island, with hopes that Rey is there.

After arriving, she sees Rey all alone on the Teacup ride, she silently steps into the ride, facing Rey, and without words, the ride begins. They start to spin, and everything around them becomes a blur. Lorraine tries to avoid Molly's gaze, meanwhile Molly looks at her with sadness and desperation in her eyes. It's a devestating moment, but truly touching. Two characters who seemed alike, are seeing the world the same. In a constant blur, with sorrow in their chest.

The "Army Dreamers" trend on TikTok has some relevance to this scene but using it from an artistic viewpoint. An artist facing their OC, or original character, with either sadness or fear. With the same feeling between the two people in these videos. Some are funny, but some are very personal with references applied to their character from the artists' own personal life. I think the trend is absolutely awesome and dark, with almost an exact reference to this scene from Uptown Girls.

The song from Kate Bush, may even be a stretch to some, but looking at the lyrics, has the faint theme of growing up too face, and how truly upsetting it is to see a child, try hard to be an adult.

To conclude:

This movie was extremely underrated film, but now with relatable memes, and a Tiktok trend that persuaded artists to express their true reaction to their creations, it allows everyone to truly relate to the film. This movie is not just about grief. It's about the bond of a emotionally mature child and a struggling adult that mourn and connect in such a way, it causes a blur around them

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you so much for reading my article, please like, share and subscribe to my page, I will make an effort to post more film, music and media analysis soon!

Also, please send a tip, to support my writing! As much as a small pack of gum, is much appreciated!