Sierra Burgess is a Loser

Disclaimer: this article is based on solely personal opinions, it is in no way written to make fun of or shame different body types, but rather deliver a critique to the film making industries and their way of portraying them.

If you have Netflix you have probably seen the streaming service’s original film “Sierra Burgess is a Loser” pop up on the main page. Many have made good reviews of the movie. However, I didn’t find it either entertaining or inspiring, but rather a mediocre plot sending contradictory messages through characters that are terribly hard to empathize with.

So the general plot of the story goes like this: Sierra Burgess is a teenager with excellent grades that is seen as rather nerdy, as well as what she describes are some “less than average looks” making her the object of attention of yet another Mean Girls Regina George ripoff bully named Veronica. Then, a random number of a guy she’s never met starts texting her, as if he knew her already. When Sierra realizes he has

Honestly, I’m not even going to try to hold back I really really think this movie is horrible. Normally, I wouldn’t be too mad because of it - there are thousands of terrible movies - but what really gets on my nerves is the fact that this movie romanticizes and tells the teenage audience that catfishing, minor sexual assault, publicly shaming, pretending to have a disability, etc, are quirky and cute personality traits that will get you a hot boyfriend (they won’t). Now, kids and especially teenagers are highly impressionable due to their brain still going through major development. I’m not saying every teenager will think of Sierra as a good role model, as level of maturity and moral values are different in every individual; however, the problem lies in the “some or few teens” that will. Throughout the whole movie, Jamey thinks he is texting and video chatting Veronica, and Sierra hiding her own identity behind the phone is not romantic or cute - or even normal. It is plain catfishing and lying to a person you “care about”. Then, using Veronica’s insecurities of not being smart enough in order to convince her to deceive Jamey is complete manipulation, and even after they became “friends” Sierra decided that instead of talking out, correctly expressing her feelings or even having a normal fight over the kiss between Veronica and Jamey she would instead publicly shame her through social media and slut-shame her in a place as broad as the internet. We have all been taught the TIC method for online security for long enough to know about the prolonged impact of such a photo being uploaded online. And at this point you may be thinking, alright, she’s got a point, what Sierra has done is not okay and maybe I shouldn’t follow her as a relationship example. But isn’t sexual assault too much to describe what this character has done?

No.

the wrong number, because he had been meaning to text Veronica rather than her, instead of coming clean and revealing her identity she keeps texting him and even starts pretending she is Veronica. Sierra starts to fall for Jamey, the cute guy she’s been texting to, and thinks he could fall for her too, so she decides to keep her scam going on for a bit longer; she includes Veronica herself in her plan and promises to tutor her to make her smarter in order for her to be able to win her ex-boyfriend back (who had dumped her because he considered her dumb), as long as she lent Sierra her face when video chatting Jamey and going on dates with him. Of course, things take a turn for the worst, and before a football match Jamey and Veronica kiss. Then obviously Sierra gets jealous, hacks into Veronica’s Instagram account and publicly shames her for getting dumped via dms. To conclude the story, everyone was mad at Sierra, but she then writes a song that victimizes herself and tries to make up for her already inexcusable behavior without admitting she was in the wrong. Everyone forgives her, Jamey falls in love with her and that’s it. The end.

The definition of sexual assault is: an act in which a person intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. In this case, what Sierra did might have been considered as a mild form of sexual assault, since she kissed Jamey when he thought he was kissing Veronica. Jamey had given consent to Veronica to kiss him, not to Sierra. If it is still hard to grasp on the concept then put yourself in his shoes. You have had a good date with the person you think you’ve been talking to, until when you decide to kiss him or her and suddenly, they put their hand against your eyes to make sure you don’t see anything and someone else kisses you, someone who you’ve never seen before, or consented to even talking to. Seems like assault to me.

Now, everything would’ve been okay if in the end Sierra had apologized appropriately for what she did, but instead she delivers the message that she commited everything she did, plenty of things that can even be considered crimes punishable by law, because she felt sad, had a low self-esteem and thought that she was ugly and would never get anything because of it. What kind of body positive message is that? In the end, it just tells girls that if they have below than average looks it is okay to scam guys because otherwise they will never notice them. And that is not an opinion, the male lead of the movie actually says in the end, “what you did was wrong but otherwise I wouldn’t have ever noticed you.” Is this really a message we want teenagers to live by? Is this supposed to make them feel good about themselves and their bodies? It doesn’t seem to embrace in any part of the movie that Sierra could have loved herself a bit more and gotten a boyfriend in a normal way because she was ugly. If only, this movie simply shames its own main character for her looks, because the only reason she found love in the end was because she pretended to be someone else.

To wrap things up, I think Sierra Burgess is a loser, and should, by no means, be taken as a role-model. However, I want to clarify that I didn’t like the movie because of the message it ended up delivering, and the way it romanticized a completely toxic

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relationship and behavior between the characters. But it is okay if you liked the movie; personally, I liked the aesthetically pleasing photography the movie had, as well as the development of other characters such as Veronica throughout the movie. If people weren’t allowed to like movies with bad role models in them then Joker and other great movies would not exist. However, the important things to realize while you watch them is that they are, indeed, bad role models, you wouldn’t try to act like the Joker as well as you shouldn’t try to act like Sierra; they may have reasons to act that way, but nothing can ever justify the harassment of other human beings and much less the romanticizing of it. If you are looking for some better body-positive movies I would rather recommend Dumpling, a movie about stereotypes in typical pageants and how they are defeated; To the Bone, an anorexic girl’s struggle to accept herself and overcome her disorder, and last but not least, (and honestly my favorite out of all three,) Kung Fu Panda. I am not kidding. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Kung Fu Panda is a film that narrates the story of, well, a panda that likes Kung Fu. In the first film we learn about how he struggles to become a Kung Fu fighter because of his not very athletic panda body, and how people (or rather animals?) shame him for it, but in the end he overcomes all obstacles and makes himself a place in the world of Kung Fu, without changing his appearance for it. Even more, in the second movie we see how he

is struggling with self-acceptance after realizing he is adopted and how he must learn to control his emotions and find inner peace. Obviously, these movies are meant for kids, but they are entertaining to adults nonetheless with Jack Black’s funny lines and voice acting as well as an interesting story all along. It actually promotes a better role model for kids, that teaches them that the special ingredient for becoming something special is nothing other than just being yourself.

By Valeria Beltrán, 10A