How Ghost World inspired me to leave my quiet… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

How Ghost World inspired me to leave my qui­et sub­ur­ban town

26 May 2018

Words by Georgina Guthrie

Woman in yellow uniform stands behind a popcorn counter.
Woman in yellow uniform stands behind a popcorn counter.
Daniel Clowes’ sto­ry of teenage apa­thy stirred in me a desire to break away and be alone.

Sub­ur­ban sum­mers were safe and con­sis­tent; a slow, stretched out six weeks of water fights, bus trips to the out-of-town shop­ping cen­tre, paper rounds and flat cider shared five ways in the trees by the park. Some unlucky friends were sent off to music camp. Oth­ers were whisked off to France or Spain.

Those of us who stayed would cre­ate small per­son­al goals: learn to hula hoop. Get a boyfriend. Be slight­ly less of a los­er than the year before. Of course, you nev­er actu­al­ly achieved any­thing in those six weeks, and when the nights turned chilly and you could smell wood smoke on the air, you realised with a pang of regret that it was over and the glam­orous new grown-up per­son­al­i­ty you’d imag­ined for your­self was still just out of reach.

Ghost World came out in 2001, but I didn’t watch it until the sum­mer after, when I was 16 and just about to decide what to do with the rest of my life. The film’s set­ting, sub­ur­ban Los Ange­les, looked noth­ing like my small semi-rur­al home­town in Som­er­set, Eng­land – but its slow, mean­der­ing plot full of slow after­noons, baby strollers, local adverts, tacky cafes and pre­dictable local char­ac­ters per­fect­ly evoked those lethar­gic sub­ur­ban sum­mers grow­ing up.

I remem­ber instant­ly bond­ing with the film’s con­fused teenage pro­tag­o­nist, Enid Coleslaw (played by Tho­ra Birch). She showed a ver­sion of wom­an­hood that didn’t involve makeovers and find­ing the love of your life. She was dif­fer­ent, not just because of her pale skin, jet-black bob and glass­es, but because she was aim­less, grouchy and mis­an­throp­ic. She talked about sex­u­al frus­tra­tion and played cru­el pranks to amuse her­self. She falls for a much old­er guy then casts him aside like one of her out­fits when she dis­cov­ers he is not what she wants, after all.

There comes a point in most teenager’s lives when you open your eyes, look around at the world and realise that the tran­si­tion from child­hood to adult­hood isn’t as easy as you’d imag­ined. In fact, it is often under­scored by doubt, anx­i­ety and a daunt­ing pres­sure to define your­self. Daniel Clowes, the cre­ator of the com­ic on which the film is based, has said of Enid’s char­ac­ter: When I start­ed out I thought of her as this id crea­ture… Then I realised halfway through that she was just more vocal than I was, but she has the same kind of con­fu­sion, self-doubts and iden­ti­ty issues that I still have – even though she’s 18 and I’m 39!”

Two young women, one with red hair and the other with glasses, standing in front of some greenery.

Like Clowes, I was less vocal than Enid, but I still relat­ed to her far more than any char­ac­ter I’d ever encoun­tered on screen. In her, I saw my own dis­sat­is­fac­tion with my parent’s safe, sub­ur­ban life; my own need to break away and be alone, bal­anced against the fear of lone­li­ness and rejection.

Enid doesn’t know what she wants, and is only able to artic­u­late her frus­tra­tion. Her expe­ri­ences per­fect­ly evoke the anx­i­ety that comes with under­stand­ing what it is you desire, test­ing your own auton­o­my – and the iso­la­tion that results from real­is­ing nei­ther your fam­i­ly, nor your clos­est friend sup­ports your rebel­lion. She’s aim­less and unhap­py in a way I could relate to as a teenag­er grow­ing up, and she pro­vid­ed a refresh­ing, emo­tion­al­ly nour­ish­ing alter­na­tive to the prep­py teen expe­ri­ence depict­ed in so many 80s and 90s films.

Where most of these com­ing of age movies are about pro­tag­o­nists who grow up and gain under­stand­ing of their place in the world, Ghost World is about loss: Enid even­tu­al­ly sheds every­thing that ties her to her home and takes off into the night. In a 2002 inter­view Clowes was asked if the film’s end­ing was a metaphor for sui­cide, and he answered: It’s hard to fig­ure out why peo­ple have that response. The first time I heard that I said, What? You’re out of your mind. What are you talk­ing about?’ But I’ve heard that hun­dreds of times.”

Like most teenagers, Enid is just mis­un­der­stood. In the film’s open­ing scene, the cam­era pans down a street of iden­ti­cal sub­ur­ban hous­es at dusk, giv­ing us a glimpse into the fab­ric of her town’s mun­dane exis­tence – match­ing table­ware, exer­cise bikes, cig­a­rette smoke, fast food and cou­ples slumped in front of the TV. Final­ly, we reach Enid, robed in scar­let satin, wild­ly danc­ing to the sound­track of a 60s Bol­ly­wood film in a room stuffed with colour­ful prints, toys and books. She isn’t apa­thet­ic or hope­less, and she’s def­i­nite­ly not sui­ci­dal: she’s full of life and ener­gy. She just can’t find any­thing in her small home­town that inter­ests her anymore.

That last slow sum­mer final­ly came to an end, and on a melan­choly Sun­day when I could smell wood smoke on the air, I left my best friend, my fam­i­ly and my sub­ur­ban home­town behind. Say­ing good­bye is nev­er easy. Going out into the world with­out real­ly know­ing who you are or what you want is the hard­est thing of all. But Enid taught me it’s okay to feel dis­sat­is­fied, sad or lone­ly, so long as you move on – and that if you wait until you’ve got your shit togeth­er, you’ll nev­er leave.

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