Today is International Day of the Girl!! The best day of the year!!
It’s purpose is to raise awareness of issues facing girls internationally including education, nutrition, child marriage, and legal and medical rights – all of which cannot be ignored and action must be taken on them, because it’s a real problem.
Girls are incredible. They are raised in a world where they are demeaned, owned, stereotyped and dismissed. And yet, we come out brilliantly.
Here are my favourite brilliant girls from on screen:
Matilda
Mara Wilson
Matilda
If there’s any one girl to start this list, it’s Matilda. She’s born into a family who cannot relate to her and therefore have no interest in her, and instead of letting this diminish her she learns to grow in her own way. She is a determined little girl with a brilliant sense of right and wrong and a passion for education, and she fights for not only her own freedom, but for that of who she loves – all before turning seven.
Olive Hooper
Abigail Breslin
Little Miss Sunshine
Olive is a little girl with a dream that most tell her she is not worthy of pursuing, but does she let them stop her? No. Despite living in a mad family, she gets to achieve her dream and honour those she loves in what is probably the best ending to a film ever. Olive is the little ray of sunshine in this family filled with problems, and I love her for it.
Mija
Seo-Hyun Ahn
Okja
This is an example of a girl whose simple actions cause a huge ripple effect on the world. She has one goal: to save her best friend, and her impact is massive enough that it causes the downfall of a celebrity, a product ten years in the making and a huge corporation. She is wise enough to recognise the bigger picture, but really she is just a young girl who doesn’t want to be separated so cruelly from her beloved companion, and it’s her determination that inspires the world.
Eleven
Millie Bobby Brown
Stranger Things
This girl is quite extreme – she was bred to become an experiment and spent the first decade of her life in captivity being submitted to countless experiments. Despite never fully knowing of a life outside of what she was experiencing, Eleven escapes and finds friends and family of her own accord. Also she has badass superpowers.
Latika
Rubina Ali, Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar, Frieda Pinto
Slumdog Millionaire
This is a little girl forced into a world she has no right to be put in. She was raised in the slums in absolute poverty, then taken into a life where she is used and abused by men running unimaginable businesses, beginning with begging and moving onto prostitution once she hits the first signs of puberty. Even once she seemingly escapes she is traded from one powerful man to another, and though after all this she would be expected to be scared and timid she decides to fight back and take control of her own life.
Gertie
Drew Barrymore
E.T the Extra-Terrestrial
Imagine being a three year old and your older brother brings home an alien. That’s what happens to a baby Drew Barrymore in this classic film – and what does she do about it? Give him a makeover, wig & all. She is fiercely passionate, smart and loyal in this mad adventure with her brothers, their friends and the government and that’s what makes her beyond great.
Rue
Amandla Stenberg
The Hunger Games
Rue is another example of a girl thrown into a life she did not deserve, nor ask for. She’s selected at random to compete in a literal life or death challenge and however terrified she is, she remains peaceful and loving, right until the end.
Karen
Ramona Marquez
Outnumbered
When I was fresh on Facebook aged thirteen, I had my religion on my profile listed as “Karen from Outnumbered“. And honestly, I don’t think my opinion has changed much. You see her grow up throughout the show’s run but she always remains the overly inquisitive, smart and brilliantly funny girl she was as a tiny five year old in the very first episode.
Madeline
Hatty Jones
Madeline
I began with a girl who’s the titular character of her story, and so I’ll end with one too. Madeline is an ordinary little girl who is wise beyond her years. Orphaned and living in a tiny school for girls, she is adventurous, thoughtful, unafraid and wonderful. She is my favourite girl from any film, and the amount of adventures she has before hitting ten always enthralled me.
Girls are underestimated on a daily basis. And it’s little things like what they’re actually capable of being represented on the silver screen that are starting to change that mindset.
Happy Day of the Girl everyone.
Visit the official Day of the Girl website here.
fivethreeninety 