I disagree with this post.
While, for the most part, Chimo's friends assumed her type without having known her at all, his counterpart said that she touched herself when she looked at him --- though this may or may not be a lie, and either [lie or truth] has equal back-up.
So I can only say that, even though Lila may have only intended to share her come-hither's with Chimo, talking pornographically in public or dressing in short skirts without panties, aware of the elders in the waiting room who are hearing the explicitness of your "alter ego" --- and then brushing their, "You Slut!" reaction off shamelessly as though it would not translate to others outside of Chimo, is still recklessness, and mild awareness of that recklessness. She openly ignored this by choice.
Trusting Chimo's character is also irresponsible thinking; how could she have known that he wouldn't have shared her sexual acts on him with others? You can not predict or secure a guy's actions or reactions just because of the default traits they portray to you personally, especially not when he believes you and doesn't know what to make of it in his private mind. It's like a roll of dice. You do not know what goes on in another's mind, and there are some "sweet, shy, resistant guys" who will share received sexual acts and/or spite this kind of, "I'm an all-around girl" behavior at the end of the day to the point of exposing them.
His mother viewed her as a sexual teenager because that type of culture has certain socially pushed standards, and "showing your thighs" is "a sin" to them; these are things she openly ignored by choice.
And it doesn't matter for who it was. When has it, when it becomes used as a foothold for overexaggerated exposure?
Talking the way she was to Chimo, riding around on a bike in a skirt without underthings and walking throughout town with the wind flying it up, having fantasy porn comics, is still enough "expression" to possibly provoke a bad ending through other parties no matter what shape or form it comes in. You can not talk that way, dress that way, or act that way in general and expect it to be confined to "this one guy you're testing" when there's more than just "you and this guy" in your society. People WILL eavesdrop, people WILL overhear, people WILL pry [more or less women], people WILL find a way to use these actions against you, things WILL get around, you WILL put off a vibe, and to prevent all this from being used against you, it's best to not portray or have these messages/materials existing at all if you are not that portrayal [this is basic tact].
Or any kind of lie for that matter, because lies always catch up on you. It can build up to this, fair or not; these things are not about fairness, and thinking fairness is privileged or everyone is "victimized" is not realistic in a world where most of our actions hold some grain of responsibility.
However, I do agree that the jealousy of Chimo's friend was the biggest fuel to fire in all this. For that, I felt her actions weren't exactly equal to what ended up happening, and I don't think it was fully fueled by her actual provocation, it just gave the already jealous boys "a leg to stand on." At the same time, I also feel like she could've practiced much better responsibility in awareness and not have been flaunting a persona that didn't exist period, regardless of who it is you're "only telling" [and where you're telling it], and allow no such messages to hit the air at all, or it will bite you back in the most unexpected, painful way. On her part, she was a victim of her own naviete and there was indeed a lack of responsibility here, as I feel was the point, though the second side of this is also fuled by the envy in those boys, if not being the real root. But you don't want to give the root any "extra limbs" or have wrong-place-wrong-time "connect the dot" pieces lying in reach to "nurture it," because it ends up being used as "they're right" validation because you allowed it to exist.
So for me it's all the combination of both. Without these elements the add-up would not have felt real, so it all played its parts, because it was supposed to, and for that, it made a great movie.
After all, this movie was not like Malena, where the woman sends no messages to anyone at all and does not playfully/naively encite possible public mistranslations or accidental interpretations being exposed ---- save for what her misunderstood lifestyle eventually pushed her to. She was silent, close-lipped, and private; yet the town saw her as a whore because she was beautiful, and literally that was it; which admittedly made it hard for me to view it as a believable foundation, but still, it was a good movie. Lila's different attitude is partially due to her age and molestation by her aunt, and I feel that this naviete concoction it created was a big, important part of her; it showed a teen innocence to me. A greenness I see in teenaged girls today, who think selection can limit or prevent consequence when lying about being up under thousands of men.
I can only speak for the movie, though. I have never read the book.
That being said, I enjoyed the surreal sensuality this movie carried; I just also understand the argument being argued here, only because I've been Lila quite a few times in high school. Although I was only expressing overt sexuality to a sweet boy I liked [mainly through dress code], expressing it at all -- when it wasn't my character -- was counterproductive in different ways. For Lila, it was almost counterproductive in regards to her relationship with Chimo, who would grow insecure and begin to get angry at the image he believed to be the truth about her anyway because he questioned her loyalty or depth in any future romance --- so it could've sacrificed that if the story had been written that way, because some boys do get to that mentality.
All in all I think the movie went the way it was designed to, with all elements intending to play their parts [both Lila's, the boys, the society, and etc. It all went together].
reply
share