Keywords

Indie Film; Girlhood; Greta Gerwig; Film; Genre; Girl

Abstract

In a growing digital age it is important to highlight films that shed light on young girls’ sense of self. Within the genre of independent cinema, there are plenty of films that identify themselves as ‘coming-of-age,’ but there is a subgenre within that category that highlights female driven stories that express what it is like to grow up as a girl. Active and Dreamy Minds, an analytical research project, theorizes guidelines for a girlhood subgenre. Four films have been selected and identified as clear-cut examples of what a girlhood film should look, sound, and feel like and examined to set guidelines for other films to match the standard. The findings for the criteria are as follows: a protagonist with a need to be heard, a group of female friends who help the protagonist through obstacles, a complicated relationship with a parental figure, a plot that exists on the brink of a life event, and cinematic shift in the visuals to indicate change. Applying this to other independent films and grouping them in the subgenre shows that girlhood films revolve around a girl’s desire to be heard and are denied or manifest in their desires through the films.

Thesis Completion Year

2026

Thesis Completion Semester

Summer

Thesis Chair

Elizabeth Danker Kritzer

College

College of Sciences

Department

Nicholson School of Communication and Media

Thesis Discipline

Film

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus Access

None

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

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