Thought #2 - The DUFF

So I've just come back from seeing the new movie The DUFF in the cinema - it's awesome! Honestly, this is one of the best teen movies out there right now. It isn't your everyday teen movie - a girl who doesn't think she's pretty but then puts on some new clothes and gets the guy she always wanted, the hottest boy in school - no, this is different.

Now before you say "That's what everyone says, they're all the same", hear me out. Bianca Piper is in the popular crowd. The only problem is, she isn't as good looking as her two best friends. This makes her the DUFF - Designated Ugly Fat Friend. This is the friend who makes their friends look pretty and the one you have to go through to get to said friends. They are the approachable, friendly ones - just never the dateable ones. However Bianca is unaware of this label until Wesley Rush, captain of the football team and her next door neighbour, points it out to her head popular girl Madison's party. At first she thinks this is just a way to annoy her, but then she looks around and realises she is, and maybe that's the reason she can't talk to her crush rocker and musical genius, Toby Turner. So after falling out with her friends and blaming them for her label, she reaches out to Wesley to help her change her label before the homecoming dance, one of the biggest events of senior year. You then follow Bianca on her journey of realising labels don't matter and that she doesn't need to change herself, but instead just be who she is.

This movie is important as it teaches us the lesson of self appreciation and not living up to our labels. Those labels are what other people think of us, not what we think of ourselves. In fact, Bianca's mum gives us a lesson on that, saying to Bianca:


"Honey, you're a weirdo. But you need to go out there and be the biggest weirdo you can be."

Most teen movies tell us that the only way we can get a guy to notice us is to be pretty and skinny and have designer clothes and be a bit of a bitch, but The DUFF teaches us that in reality, we don't need all of that, we just need to be true to ourselves. In fact, when Bianca is about to go on a date and sees Wesley and asks him what he thinks, he tells her:


"Bianca you look great and all, but you don't look like you."


So, even after all the work he;s done to help her look less like a DUFF, he prefers the old Bianca, the girl she really is, not the one she's hiding behind, so at homecoming, after she has truly accepted herself and walks out in an amazing dress that signifies her personality and who she is, that's when people notice. People will only notice you if you are comfortable in your own skin and accept fully who you are.


As Bianca's mum says, we all need to be the biggest weirdos we can be.


But seriously, if you were even only slightly thinking about seeing this, you definitely should. Mae Whitman and Robbie Amell do amazing jobs to create the friendly banter between the two characters and show the audience what being the DUFF really is. Bella Thorne, Skyler Samuels and Bianca A. Santos all do amazing jobs as supporting characters to bring the movie together and Ken Jeong plays the funniest teacher I have seen in a long time. It is an incredible movie with incredible actors, and an incredible message to teenagers everywhere.