Does Tall Girl Fall Short?

Photo by Netflix

Photo by Netflix

A new movie causing recent stirrings on social media is Netflix’s recent original, Tall Girl. This movie centers around a girl, Jodi Kreyman, who is very insecure about her height. She stands at about 6’1” and wears “size 13 men’s Nikes”. While being bullied at school and her dad being scared for her health, Jodi starts to develop a crush on the new foreign exchange student, Stig Mohlin. However, on the sidelines is her friend, Jack Dunkleman, who has been in love with her all of his life. From there, the movie then takes classic “rom-com” twists and storylines to create a normal movie. So why is this typical teen-romance movie getting the massive amounts of backlash and criticism? 

East Leyden Junior, Savannah Torres, believes the cause to be that many people think that “Netflix is making a ‘minority’ of a tall white girl.” However, she also thinks that “people are just taking it way too far.” The recent backlash has been of the fact that Jodi, the character in the movie, believes to be the only one who has it as bad as she does when in reality, there are real minorities that go through major difficulties as well. 

Another look into why this movie is receiving so much hate, is in the movie Jodi claims, “You think your life is hard? I’m a High School junior wearing size 13 Nikes …Men’s size 13 Nikes.” As a response, many teenagers on social media app, “Tik Tok”, have made videos making fun of her statement. People in these Tik Toks share true and untrue exaggerated stories to poke fun at the very bold statement Jodi said. 

Photo by Netflix

This brings up a good question of how other people’s opinions on something controversial, affect other’s opinions. Was the first person to say something about the movie, also the first person to make a Tik Tok video, a tweet, or snap chat about their hate for Tall Girl? And in return, did that influence other people’s reactions or opinions to the movie? Savannah thinks that it could, “because people tend to follow other people.” To add to that, East Leyden Senior, Nayeli Gutierrez states that it “has definitely changed my [her] opinion.” Gutierrez had never seen the movie prior to the outpour of tweets and hashtags. “I was confused… how can Netflix make this movie, but not a movie based on how minorities are treated in America.”, Gutierrez states. She brings up a question that many have asked Netflix, sparking outrage on social media. To which   the director, Nzingha Stewart, in an effort to address the issue stated, “If it’s not offending you, let it live.” 

Tall Girl, although having some misguided choices along the way, does send a powerful and very important message of self-love. Which, is a very important topic to talk about and encourage in today’s society. As the movie ends, Jodi starts her monologue and includes, “We’ve all got something about ourselves we wish we could change. But, it’s completely out of our control.” Within the time of today; we should at least learn to live and to love ourselves. Ending with this powerful message, Jodi states, “And the way I see it, we have two choices…..We can lay low, or we can stand tall.”