{"id":157279,"date":"2025-09-20T15:24:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/157279\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:24:19","slug":"the-summer-i-turned-pretty-and-the-ugly-ways-we-still-treat-female-leads-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/157279\/","title":{"rendered":"The Summer I Turned Pretty and the ugly ways we still treat female leads online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Lola Tung attends the French premiere of the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty in Paris on Wednesday. Tung has spoken out about problematic reactions that some fans have had to her character\u2019s behaviour on the show.Michel Euler\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Coming-of-age teen drama The Summer I Turned Pretty ended its three-season grasp on viewers on Wednesday, finally answering the unrelenting question \u2013 Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah? <\/p>\n

While I\u2019m not going to tell you which brother the leading lady chose, fans online seemed happy overall with the fairy-tale ending. Despite rejoicing in Belly\u2019s final decision, however, viewers haven\u2019t always supported her character, treating her at times like an outright enemy on social media.<\/p>\n

Audience backlash to Lola Tung\u2019s character (and that of Gavin Casalegno, who played, Jeremiah) was so strong that Prime Video issued several statements surrounding the treatment of cast members online, and Tung herself has addressed the intense responses<\/a> to her character\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

To be fair, it\u2019s no surprise that viewers are so invested in the series. The third season, especially, has sent this infatuation into overdrive, with more than 25 million viewers worldwide<\/a> tuning in to the two-part premiere, a 40-per-cent increase over the same timeframe in Season 2. Despite being billed as a YA show and focusing on the lives of 16- to 22-year-olds, it was especially popular among millennials. Amazon says the last season was the most-watched among women between the ages of 18 to 34<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve been one of them. Since the first season, based on the books from author Jenny Han, premiered in 2022, I\u2019ve been all in. I\u2019ve hosted TSITP themed parties with my friends, listened to recap podcasts and excitedly explained the premise of the show to my unsuspecting first dates. The show has transported me, at 32, back to the giddy promise and terrifying uncertainty of being a teenager.<\/p>\n

Stars of The Summer I Turned Pretty reveal what they think of the way the hit show ends, at a red carpet celebration for the Season 3 finale \u2013 where it was announced a movie is to continue the story.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

For Dr. Lisa Bradford<\/a>, a Toronto-based psychologist, the draw to shows such as TSITP from this age demographic makes sense, because that uncertainty about life never really goes away. \u201cPeople are dealing with relationship issues at every age,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s this idea that we all struggle with identity issues at every stage of life.\u201d <\/p>\n

But despite relating to this uncertainty, we continue to criticize young women on TV for how they choose to navigate it. We\u2019ve seen this treatment of female characters before. From Girls\u2019 Hannah Horvath to Gilmore Girls\u2019 Rory Gilmore, people love to hate a heroine who doesn\u2019t subscribe to their expectations.<\/p>\n

But while previous coming-of-age shows like Lena Dunham\u2019s Girls saw female characters facing criticism for their frank sexuality and overt selfishness, years later, we\u2019re now able to rewatch that show and truly understand its complexity, not to mention give the characters \u2013 and young women as a whole \u2013 some grace. <\/p>\n

Or at least we thought we were. Because, almost a decade after Girls ended in 2017, the same age demographic that was criticizing Dunham\u2019s Hannah is now doing it to Tung\u2019s Belly. <\/p>\n

These responses to TSITP are not necessarily a case of audiences not understanding Belly\u2019s experience or lacking empathy for her, says Bradford, but rather a reaction to the unstable time we\u2019re currently in. With political upheaval in the U.S. and ongoing conflicts globally, millennials are looking for some sort of escape from the horror of every day life. <\/p>\n

This not only means immersing ourselves deeper into fictional worlds as a means of forgetting, but also using these worlds to help us feel better about ourselves. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The cast of The Summer I Turned Pretty.Michel Euler\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Bradford refers to responses to TSITP\u2019s heroine as moralization, a \u201cholier than thou\u201d defence mechanism. Millennial viewers are watching a life phase they\u2019ve already lived through, \u201cso I\u2019m going to judge it and devalue [it] and feel better,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n

Often, it\u2019s not malicious, but a way of thinking in black and white, right and wrong that gives a sense of clarity and control in a world that\u2019s very uncertain and ambiguous.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another reason we continue to comment on and judge Belly\u2019s escapades \u2013 because we can see ourselves in them. <\/p>\n

In many ways, Belly and her Gen Z peers aren\u2019t so far from where millennials are now. We\u2019re less likely to own a home or have settled roots, less likely to be married or in a serious romantic relationship, more likely to still be living with our parents, and nowhere near as financially secure as we\u2019d like to be, or as the generations before us have been at our age. <\/p>\n

In essence, we\u2019re kind of a mess, which is why judgement of characters such as Belly feels not only hypocritical but may actually be rooted in judgement of ourselves.<\/p>\n

These shows and characters are a sounding board for the human experience, and in watching Belly flounder and eventually flourish on screen, we not only have a more interesting show to tune into but can continue to learn from her mistakes and give ourselves leeway as we inevitably keep making our own. <\/p>\n

This is something viewers of TSITP\u2019s predecessors reckoned with. As one viewer of Girls, writer De Elizabeth, wrote in a 2017 essay<\/a> for Teen Vogue, the version of New York and millenial-dom put forward in the show was \u201ca rabbit hole into a world of self-reflection and personal reckoning,\u201d and the characters\u2019 on-screen mistakes were a message to the viewer that \u201cit\u2019s okay if you make mistakes, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that sentiment still stands. The idea that there\u2019s one way to be is unrealistic for a 22-year-old, but it\u2019s equally unrealistic for a 32- or 42-year-old. So, maybe we should show Belly some compassion and extend some to ourselves while we\u2019re at it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Lola Tung attends the French premiere of the third and final season of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,2922,2785],"class_list":{"0":"post-157279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-noastack","13":"tag-yessnap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}