girlmagic.
i invented a new media term: girlmagic, originally when i watched the virgin suicides, i couldn’t get over how the lisbon girls were shot. they were framed with flattering lighting and pretty music, which showed the way the boys viewed the lisbon girls. additionally when watching saltburn, i noticed felix was as also framed in a way that always complimented jacob elordi, there was music that played that added to his allure, which was oliver’s perspective and when we looked at felix through his eyes.
what girlmagic means is to be idolized, to never be truly be known, for your youth to be romanticized, to ultimately be objectified. to have your suffering be ignored, your cries for help fall on deaf ears, until and after your death. characters that are girlmagic are used as inspiration to their shitty protagonists that need inspiration and a reminder that beautiful things still exist. to be girlmagic (regardless of your gender), you’re only here to further the development of a man. we often look at characters as magical because romanticizing them is mistaken with loving them, though they are not the same. like even though mary lisbon survived, everyone acts like she died with her sisters because it’s easier to think of the lisbons as a distant memory. it’s easier to think that the lisbons’ mass suicide was a mystery and not something they might have caused or something they have to answer for, even their parents.
other examples of girlmagic:
psyche was the original girlmagic. she was idolized by everyone she knew for her beauty and wanted to die because she was never truly known until she met eros. she was a lucky one.
priscilla in baz lurhmann’s elvis movie (2022) was girlmagic. she was a spunky teen, but then tamed herself when it was time to become a wife, and seldom complained about his cheating until she left him when his drug addiction got out of control.
tyler durden in david fincher’s fight club (1999) is kind of girlmagic because of the manner in which the narrator idolizes him. tyler is always a mess, yes, but in an aesthetically pleasing manner that the narrator never achieves. even though he lives in an abandoned house with dirty water as his only way to clean himself, his hair is always perfectly spiked, his clothes are dirty but in the way designer brands try to rough up pieces that still cost thousands.
