WITH former tween starlets in court and rehab, daily turning up in tabloid stories more suited to Tom Sizemore than perky pink Elle Woods, Hollywood is rediscovering the appeal of a fresh-scrubbed, wholesome face. As "edgy" heads over the cliff, it's time, it seems, to give girls a few new plotlines.
The good girl-versus-mean girl high school dramas that have played out at the multiplex over the last decade are being pushed aside in favor of stories that let their heroines do more than shop, snipe or try to throw the nearest rival in front of a bus.
Starting this summer, a new crop of tween movie characters with big-studio backing -- some endorsed by actress-producers Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster and Charlize Theron -- are emerging. There's a girl detective who runs circles around her local police force, a dancing high schooler who by force of sheer exuberance integrates her local TV station, and a little girl who survives alone on a remote island, a pocketknife around her neck, in the company of a sea lion and iguana. That last heroine, played by Abigail Breslin in Fox-Walden's "Nim's Island," planned for release in the spring, also has the distinction of being the first girl at the center of a kids' action-adventure film with a blockbuster budget.
Emma Roberts: An article in today's Calendar section about actress Emma Roberts says that the Nickelodeon series in which she appears, "Unfabulous," is ending its third season in July. The show's third season begins in September.
"Unfabulous": An article last Sunday about "tween" films and heroines said that the Nickelodeon series "Unfabulous" would end its third season in July. Its third season premieres in September.
"Young female culture has swung so far out now, with Lindsay, Britney and Paris being the center of attention, in a very self-absorbed and worrisome way," Fleming said. "So many girls are more like Nancy Drew, but they're living in a world right now where they don't get any kind of validation for being kind or thoughtful or conscious of right and wrong."
It's not that the extreme-teen plots weren't classic, said Carrie Rickey, film critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer. "The whole mean girl-versus-nice girl drama has played out since Jane Austen -- they just weren't called queen bees and wannabes. But," she added, "The whole drive to pink up girl culture misses the mark since most thinking girls consider themselves tomboys who don't fit in."
