smART 17 Girls

Their Own Rebellion

Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin wrote and directed a foreign film titled 17 Girls which depicted a sensation of teenage rebellion, and is based off of true life events that happened in Gloucester, England. A town that shared strong catholic beliefs and for the teenagers that meant no birth control. The movie started by introducing the character of a beautiful young lady, Camille, who accidentally got pregnant and somehow rallied a group of 16 other girls in her high school to do the same. All of these model-like teenagers were not contemplating the consequences of their decision, but instead taking control of their own bodies -creating something they can call their own.

After Camille got pregnant, her group of girl friends got together and thought, hey! We should all get pregnant so we can move out of our parents house and be free of rules! We could all live together! So the group of girls went out, got drunk, had sex, and all managed to get pregnant at the same time. Soon, girls outside of Camille's friends began to follow the trend which led to 17 high school girls getting knocked up. The rebellion went beyond pregnancy -the girls continued to party, get plastered, and smoked what seemed to be more than just cigarettes. They were taking control of their bodies by doing everything their parents didn't want them to be doing.

Although most of the parents were unaware of the drinking and smoking -they still had a meeting about the outburst of pregnancy within the high school. At the meeting there were three different options brought to the table: expel Camille, suspend the pregnant teenagers, or add condom dispensers to the bathrooms. In my opinion the results of this meeting meant that the girls have won their battle -the parents and faculty truly had no answer to their mischief.

At the end of the film Camille was drinking and driving and unfortunately got into a car accident. The leader of the pack lost what they had all fought for and had a miscarriage. Shortly after the accident Camille and her mother fled the town and never came back. I found this twist at the end ironic for three reasons: Camille was the initial reason for the group of girls rebelling. She lost the one thing she could call her own. The other 16 girls were left behind raising their rebellion.