The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

This film does a really good job at voicing several real concerns of teenage girls entering their womanhood. While this film does partially focus on romance as well as opposite sex flirtation and discussions, that is not the main point. It focuses on four girls whom are best friends and the various challenges in life that they encounter. Most importantly it is about the feminist ideal of "womanhood" and how together they are able to help each other overcome several situations. I most found interesting that all these women are different in personality, interests, taste, style and body types but yet they are united by a pair of jeans that fits them all perfectly. I feel the jeans represent their bond, their friendship, hope in life and most importantly their unity.The fact that the jeans fit them all regardless of their different body types can be a symbolism of how their "sisterhood" and unity is so strong regardless of their differences. I feel that this is something that should be seen more in today's society. If women were able to set aside their differences and unit for the simple fact that we are women and all face very similar challenges in life we can overcome a lot together.

All the girl in the film have situations at home that they deal with and help one another with. As well as dream careers that they aspire to reach, extracurricular activities that they enjoy such as soccer, directing, filming and acting. They also share their wishes and hopes for college. This is a real input into what a typical teenager goes through at that stage and yes we do spend time talking about boys as well but I like that this film doesn't only focuses on that. For example Carmen goes through the difficulty of having her father remarry a women who already has two kids of her own. She is also a girl who is proud to be half Puerto Rican and curvy but when she spends the summer with her Dad's new family who are all white and blond she finds herself questioning her body and identity. I love Carmen because I can most definitely relate to her story everything from being in a predominately white environment and being the only Latina who was always proud of her image and culture and now finding herself alone and questioning why she feels so outcasted. Down to the fact that my parents when through a divorce and my father remarried. This is what I would like to see more of.

Another interesting fact I found as I began to do research on who were the auteurs was that although the director was a male, majority of the cast were females, the writers were all females, the author of the book is a female, and there were 11 producers for this film only 3 were male. Films that portray what real teenage girls go through and not a bunch of chick flicks about boys and mean girls trying to sabotage one another is important in today society. A group of girls helping each other and the antagonist being life's challenges is more of what we need to see. The world is slowly shifting but if we can see women helping one another we will want to be apart of that therefore helping the pace of media to movie quicker and into the direction we'd like to see it in.