A teen just trying to figure it out Tavi Gevinson
[Music]
[Music]
today exactly actually I started a
fashion blog called style rookie last
September of 2011 I started an online
magazine for teenage girls called rookie
mag calm
my name is tavi Gevinson and the title
of my talk is still figuring it out
and the mspaint quality of my slides was
a total creative decision in keeping
with today’s theme and has nothing to do
with my inability to use PowerPoint so I
edit this site for teenage girls I’m a
feminist I am kind of a pop-culture nerd
and I think a lot about what makes a
strong female character and you know
movies and TV shows these things have
influenced my own website so I think the
question of what makes a strong female
character often goes misinterpreted and
instead we got these two-dimensional
super women who maybe have one quality
that’s played up a lot like you know a
Catwoman type or she like plays her
sexuality up a lot and it’s seen as
power but they’re not strong characters
who happened to be female they’re
completely flat and they’re basically
cardboard characters the problem with
this is that then people expect women to
be that easy to understand and women are
mad at themselves for not being that
simple when in actuality women are
complicated women are multifaceted not
because women are crazy but because
people are crazy and women happen to be
people
so the flaws are the key I’m not the
first person to say this what makes a
strong female character is a character
who has weaknesses who has flaws who is
maybe not immediately likable but
eventually relatable I don’t like to
acknowledge a problem without also
acknowledging those who were to fix it
so just wanted to acknowledge shows like
Mad Men movies like bridesmaids whose
female characters or protagonists are
complex multifaceted lena dunham who’s
on here her show on HBO that premieres
next month girls she said she wanted to
start it because she felt that every
woman she knew was just a bundle of
contradictions and that feels accurate
for all people but you don’t see women
represented like that as much Congrats
guys
but I don’t feel that I still feel that
there are some types of women who are
not represented that way and one group
that we’ll focus on today are teens
because I think teenagers are especially
contradictory and still figuring it out
and in the 90s there was freaks and
geeks and my so-called life and their
characters Lindsay Weir and Angela chase
I mean the whole premise of the show the
shows were just them trying to figure
themselves out basically
but those shows only lasted a season
each and I haven’t really seen anything
like that on TV since so this is a
scientific diagram of my brain around
the time when I was when I started
watching those TV shows I was like
ending middle school starting high
school I’m a sophomore now and I was
trying to reconcile all of these
differences that you’re told you can’t
be when you’re growing up as a girl you
can’t be smart and pretty you can’t be a
feminist who’s also interested in
fashion you can’t care about clothes if
it’s not for the sake of what other
people usually men will think of you so
I was trying to figure all that out and
I felt a little confused and I said so
on
my blog and I have said that I wanted to
start a website for teenage girls that
was not this kind of one dimensional
strong character empowerment thing
because I think one thing that can be
very alienating about a misconception of
feminism is that girls then think that
to be a feminist they have to live up to
you know being perfectly consistent in
your beliefs never being insecure never
having doubts having all of the answers
and this is not true and actually
reconciling all the contradictions I was
feeling became easier once I understood
that feminism was not a rule book but a
discussion a conversation a process and
this is a spread from a zine that I made
last year when um I I mean I think I’ve
let myself go a bit on the illustration
front since but so I said on my blog
that I wanted to start a this
publication for teenage girls and ask
people to submit their writing their
photography whatever to be a member of
our staff
I got about 3,000 emails my editorial
director and I went through them and put
together a staff of people and we
launched last September and this is an
excerpt from my first editors letter or
I say that rookie we don’t have all the
answers we’re still figuring it out too
but the point is not to give girls the
answers and not even give them
permission to find the answers
themselves but hopefully inspire them to
understand that they can give themselves
that permission they can ask their own
questions find their own answers all of
that and rookie I think we’ve been
trying to make it a nice place for all
of that to be figured out so I’m not
saying like be like us and we’re perfect
role models cuz we’re not but we just
want to help represent girls in a way
that shows those different dimensions I
mean we have articles called on taking
yourself seriously how to not care what
people think of you but we also have
articles like oops
I’m figuring it out if you use that you
can get away with anything we also have
articles called how to look like you
weren’t just crying in less than five
minutes so all of that being said I
still really appreciate those characters
you know in movies and you know articles
like that on our site that are just
about being a totally powerful maybe
finding your acceptance with yourself
and self-esteem and your flaws and um
how you accept those so what I want you
to take away from my talk the lesson of
all of this is to just be Stevie Nicks
like that’s all you have to do because
my favorite thing about her other than
like everything is that she is very has
always been unapologetically present on
stage and unapologetic about her flaws
and about reconciling all of her
contradictory feelings and she makes you
listen to them and think about them and
yeah so please be Stevie Nicks thank you
[Applause]