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Social reactions / interactions teen/young adult : page 2......
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| It
would be so awful to live my life outside myself -- to be motivated by
how others perceive me. I try not to worry about it. You'll always have
people hating or loving what you do, so I think you should just do what
makes you feel authentic.
Jewel*****[Interview mag. Oct.00] Her book: Chasing Down the Dawn |
 |
~ ~ ~ ~
Jessica Simpson was tested to have an IQ in the 160s, according to her mom, interviewed for Vanity Fair magazine. [extratv.com, July 7, 2004] "Growing up I was always the blonde that everybody made fun of, and I just played into that, because that was how I got the guys. That's how I charmed people." [et.tv.yahoo.com]
. ~ ~ ~ ~
"I chose to have my own hair bleached instead of having the streak painted in each day. This made it very difficult for me to walk around Vancouver. People would scream and wave at me. I got very attached to a blue baseball cap I wore to gain some semblance of anonymity." Paquin says she was shattered last year on her 20th birthday when someone taunted her for looking like a skunk. "We were out celebrating, so it was a real downer," she says. "I don't think the person could ever realize how hurtful that comment was."
Anna Paquin- about her appearance as Rogue in X2 ... [Calgary Sun, April 27, 2003]
...related page:.....intensity / sensitivity
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|
Party
of One: The Loners' Manifesto by
Anneli S. Rufus
In
this compendium of everyone who was anyone who ever spent a moment
alone,
readers bump fleetingly into Kurt Cobain, French Resistance fighters,
the
Lone Ranger ("Tonto notwithstanding"), Michelangelo, Alexander Pope,
John
Lennon, cowboys, Saint Anthony and other solo acts. Rufus, the books editor of East Bay Express, views Degas's plain-faced dancers as "pretty ballerinas" whom the artist leaves every time he exits his studio, and Warhol's biography as "tellingly titled Loner at the Ball." She chases her motif, not so much a manifesto as a cri de coeur, through an assortment of perspectives: religion, advertising, clothes, crime, art, eccentricity, environment, literature, religion and popular culture. [Publishers Weekly review] |
 |
~ ~ ~ ~
No matter what, it won't ever be Michelle Rodriguez the actress, it will always be Michelle Rodriguez the Latin actress. And it's just something I have to live with, because of the fact that people need labels to understand things.
I can't even get into this ignorance that I'm dealing with. So I just ignore it, you know? Ignore the ignorance.Michelle Rodriguez .. ["Girlfight" etc.] [Interview mag. Sept.2000]
~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. "Are you gay?" a friend asked curiously, without any sign of hostility, recalled Ashly, now 15. The girls were in the school locker room, changing after gym class. As she thought of how, or whether, to answer, Ashly said another student didn't wait for her answer, loudly blurting out: "She's a lesbian!" |
The
exchange would lead to Ashly's expulsion from gym class, and weeks of
taunts
and insults by classmates about her acknowledged lesbianism...
Ashly and her mother, Amelia Massey, described the teen's experience Tuesday as they announced the filing of a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Banning district, the superintendent, the principal and then-vice principal of Coombs Middle School, and Karen Gill, the physical education teacher who threw Ashly out of class. ... Ashly, who acknowledges being gay, said she hoped her stand would inspire other youths. "I hope other kids see me standing up," she said, "and maybe they'll take a stand too. Nobody should have to hide who they are." from article Lesbian Teen Sues District for Bias - by Peter Y. Hong, LA Times December 18, 2002 |
~ ~ ~ ~
"I'm so sick of everyone being so proud of me." Lisa Simpson
~ ~ ~ ~
I'll try to be more sensitive to the fact you're dumber than I am. Tahj Mowry - as the "Smart Guy" [Disney series] - an intellectually gifted
10-year-old who becomes a high-school freshman~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. Just don't listen to them. Whoever makes comments about someone's hair is really miserable inside, because they're unhappy. So just pay no attention. I didn't. Everyone said, "Why do you dye your hair that color? Why do you do this, why do you do that?" |
And
I was like,
"Because I like it. And if you have a problem with that, fine. But do
you
have to voice it to me? No." You can find people who don't care. I
liked
my hair and I didn't care what people thought of it -- I still don't.
I wanna be my own person instead of following the crowd, but I've known my friends for a very long time now, and I am scared to death about what they will think of me. I don't even know how to begin finding out who I am and what kind of person I want to be. What should I do? -- Pretty Eyes When I had friends like that, I spent every minute with them, and then I realized I wasn't getting a chance to do my own thing. If they don't accept you for who you are, then they're not really your friends anyway. I never felt like I was following the pack. If I don't like something, I'm not doing it. My best friend and I have been close since we were two, and if we didn't like something, we'd do our own thing. You just need to find that one person who feels like you do. All you need is one friend. Kelly Osbourne - responding to questions sent to "Ask Kelly" at YM magazine ym.com |
*related article:**Eccentricity and Creativity****related page:**relationships: teen/young adult
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When [James Dean] got to L.A. and became a star, he was seen as a dangerous, reckless individual. Once he had more power in the business and was a desirable commodity, he could get away with more, and I think people thought it brought out a bratty side of him. ... A lot of this perceived brattiness was his desire to protect his artistic integrity and do the work he wanted to do. I haven't been in the business all that long and I've already discovered that integrity is very important. You're dead without it.
James Franco [starred in TNT biopic "James Dean"] [Interview mag., Aug.2001]
~ ~ ~ ~
"Kids can be vicious and they can be cruel. They can be very fickle -
nice to you one minute and mean the next. That goes without saying
for any teenager in high school or junior high, but especially if you're
an actress and you make a film such as ["Welcome to the Dollhouse"]
where you get ridiculed onscreen.Kids feed off of that to ridicule you offscreen. People would call me 'Wienerdog."
I wouldn't fight it, I'd just ignore it because I hate provoking arguments."Heather Matarazzo... [Film Scouts interview, 1999]
> related page: bullying
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Celebrities' Schoolday
NicknamesCameron Diaz, Denise Richards and Gisele Bundchen... suffered cruel playground taunts before they blossomed into the stars we know and love.
And the covergirl trio are not alone - a whole host of celebrities were tortured at school with unpleasant nicknames.
Schoolyard tormentors called Diaz Skeletor, Richards Fish Lips and Bundchen Olive Oyl.
Whoopi Goldberg, born Caryn Johnson, was called Whoopi Cushion as a kid because of her constant flatulence.. Leonardo DiCaprio was nicknamed Leonardo Retardo because of his habit of cheating off classmates' papers.
Celine Dion's long fangs earned her the moniker Canine Dion, full-lipped Julianna Margulies was branded Flounder Mouth, Lara Flynn Boyle was Lara Flame Broiled, and Nicole Kidman was Storky because of her height.
Robert De Niro's pallid complexion earned him the nickname Bobby Milk in his Greenwich Village neighbourhood, and Keanu Reeves' blank stare made him The Wall. [imdb.com Celebrity News: July 24, 2001]
~ ~ ~ ~
[Did you ever suffer from the same alienation and lack of self-confidence
as Phoebe - your character in "The Invisible Circus"]?"More so at the age of 14 and 15, 16--especially when we moved from Brazil to America.
I felt like I didn't belong at all. Everyone sort of mocked me for really being close to my
family and close to my mother. I always hoped something would click, and I would feel fine
about myself and not be anxious. It is like once you get over one insecurity and there is another one."[Did everything eventually click for you?]
"No. That is when I really felt hopeless. I felt it is either going to happen in college--everyone
considers that a passage into adulthood--but no, I didn't feel that happening. I am really independent
in a sense that I worked at the age of 15 and made that decision on my own. But on the other hand,
it wasn't like I wanted to get away from home. I sort of like my home and I love relying on my
mother for advice. I never felt I had to gain that independence and, in a sense, I haven't."Jordana Brewster [LA Times Feb.01.01]
~ ~ ~ ~
I think originality is believing in your individuality; believing in yourself, and being willing to take risks, even though people might think you're weird for doing it. Drew Barrymore~ ~ ~ ~
I'm a huge dork, trying to please all the wrong people. I just did not get along with those girls [at a public junior high school]. She asked her parents to be home-schooled... now conducts her classes via correspondence courses offered by the Laurel Springs Home School program.
About actress Madeline Zima [People mag., 6.26.00]
~ ~ ~ ~
"I just love her cockiness. Girls can't usually get away with that. They're considered bitchy, while guys are called charming if they're cocky. Max doesn't care. She has no fear of death. She is so hyper-aware, and she doesn't have to apologize for who she is." Jessica Alba - about her character 'Max' in "Dark Angel" [LA Times 9.24.00]
~ ~ ~ ~"When younger, I was a lot more worried about people's perception of me.
I wanted their approval, so I always came across happy... when they finally
heard this more honest part of me.. they were like, "yikes!'" Alanis Morissette
~ ~ ~
At this point, you know, the acting is for me... I do it for myself.
I can't do it for anybody else. I can't do it hoping that other people
are going to approve of it and that it's not gonna hurt anybody's feelings.
I gotta do it for myself...... Cameron Diaz .. [TV Guide online]
~ ~ ~ ~
...
In grade school I had been ridiculed for being different, for wearing glasses and using big words. I realize things in high school are different. Here I have been ignored into nonexistence.
So this year I became a member of that all-too-ominous, nonexistent, antisocial group, the Outcasts. It's not just that I'm too smart, because there are smart people who are popular.
They have the ability to turn off their intelligence, to turn the volume of it down so that it doesn't make them say anything unfortunate or intellectual. I have no such adjustment -- I run at full power at all times.
I enjoy discussions in class, I like to analyze poetry. I have yet to find anyone to sit with me at lunch and debate euthanasia. So a lot of my life is in my head, in my thoughts. I've learned to handle solitude creatively.
..
..
from "Lilacs Bloom Every Spring" by Julia Rodriguez
...in the book Blue Jean: What Young Women
Are Thinking, Saying, and Doing -
by Sherry S. Handelimage from a dvd of Heathers (1989) -
starring Winona Ryder, Christian Slater,
Shannen Doherty etc~ ~ ~ ~
At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. "If someone told me to hop on one foot for a day and a half, I'd have to do it. And hopping on one foot wasn't the worst order I could be given. If you commanded me to cut off my own head, I'd have to do it. I was in danger at every moment."
Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: "Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally."
Consider Lakesha's story. An attractive African-American junior high student, she sat silently in the corner, never speaking.
..
..Although Lakesha was extremely bright, she was shy and performed more like an average student.
Added to her discomfort was the fact that her good looks attracted the attention of the boys who enjoyed staring at her and making remarks just loud enough for her to hear.
Lakesha felt uncomfortable about this, because it seemed to make the other girls, with whom she wished to be friends, feel hostile toward her. In response, she retreated into herself.
from article: Gifted Girls by Joan Franklin Smutny
Gifted girls crave freedom. They long for someone to see who they are, open the often closed door of their minds and say, "Go, fly!"
For gifted girls, a sensitive, caring teacher may be all that stands between quiet resignation and the beginning of fulfillment of their potential.
photo: Nkechi from book Girl Culture
~ ~ ~ ~
There's more to her fascination with Girl, Interrupted: She has never seen mental illness among young women explored onscreen the way it was explored for men in movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "You grow up hearing things," she says, shaking her head.
"I have an older brother, and when I was little we had this garage with a pinball machine, and all his friends would be over, and somebody would go, 'Ah, she's psycho.'
Girls were always called psycho if they said to the guy, 'Why did you break up with me?' or did anything like that. It was always, 'Oh, she's psycho, she's a freak.'
"So you grow up thinking that if you do anything, you're a psycho. And so I led my whole life being the pal, the buddy, the little sister with guys.
"And when I started to date, if they were awful to me, I'd be like, 'Oh, that's cool. Sure, walk all over me. No problem.' All because I never wanted to be called a psycho."
..
..Winona Ryder*
[Los Angeles Magazine, Nov, 1998]Girl, Interrupted - book by Susanna Kaysen / dvd
bio: Winona Ryder by Holly George-Warren
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more :---social reactions / interactions: teen/young adult : page 1***related pages:---social reactions / interactions*[main] .........collaboration.........parenting ........bullying
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