So I want to yap about Cherry for a minute because I'm tired of people treating her like she's Satan's daughter.
First of all Cherry is 16 I feel like we were expecting way too much of a 16-year-old that probably knows no different.
Second, No duh She is not going to go visit Johnny He did kill her boyfriend but everyone ignores that she went to court to stick up for Ponyboy, She didn't need to do that.
I do agree there are some arguments to say and this is coming from someone that got really ticked off by her But y'all let's not treat her like she's a horrible person cuz she's not.
okay before i share my two bits (😏) i havent watched a boot of the musical version yet, this is based off the book and the movie
i think the point of her character is to show why exactly the greasers and the socs could never actually get along even if they tried. the socs can try to understand the greasers’ situation, they’ll never be able to fully let go of their prejudices.
the socs dislike the greasers simply because they have less money then them, but the greasers dislike the socs because they’re pure classists. there’s multiple instances of socs beating up defenseless, kid greasers just for the fun of it; but the greasers only go after the socs WHEN the socs have unfairly gone after their own. the socs literally drive to the east side (i cant remember which side is which but im pretty sure east is greasers?? idk i just woke up) to find greasers to hurt. young ones at that. we never see or hear about the greasers going into the socs’ territory like that. because when the socs do it, its seen as a funny diss on the poor, wheras if the greasers went and sought out fights with the socs’, they’d be labeled as dangerous and unsafe hoods; perhaps even get arrested.
even though cherry and pony can get along as individual people without labels attached, it’s more than just the pressure from the environment around cherry that makes her leave in the end. (the greasers were accepting of cherry, even liked her. cherry was who made the decision to step back.) and i believe that it’s her choosing comfort.
the greasers dont have the option to turn a blind eye to their situation. they can’t look away from or forget the cards theyve been dealt like the socs’ can. if the socs’ simply look away, they don’t need to know about poverty or any of the poor conditions people live in all around the world because it doesn’t affect them. if they didn’t do that, and they actually learned and cared about said classism, they’d need to let go of their moral superiority. which would be uncomfortable for them, because the greasers live in uncomfortable and unfair conditions in an unfair society, an unfairness that they contribute to; and they cant let go of their egos to admit that. and at the end of the day, even though it was all laid out in front of her to understand this, cherry just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
tldr, yes she is a bad person and maybe even worse so than the other socs. she had the unique opportunity TO understand and not be a product of her environment. you cant use the excuse “knowing no different” after the events of the story. she quite literally was the closest a soc had ever gotten to the greasers and had the full opportunity to know different. but when it got too uncomfortable for her she chose to pretend she didnt. she does know different, she does understand what shes doing in a way the other socs dont. she just cant handle anything outside of conformity when it becomes not a quirky personality trait but actually having to be humble. “shes 16” so is johnny. pony is FOURTEEN. and they live drastically different lives from her bc they have no choice. they cant choose to turn a blind eye like she so selfishly did
