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The Summer I Turned Pretty: Belly's Real Problem, Explained
The Take Film TV Movie
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1 day ago
Go to http://uncommongoods.com/thetake for 15% off! | The Summer I Turned Pretty has become one of the biggest teen dramas of our current era, and one of the most contentious aspects of the...
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00:00
The Summer I Turned Pretty has become one of the biggest teen dramas of our current era,
00:04
and one of the most contentious aspects of the show has actually ended up being the girl at
00:09
the center of it all, Belly Conklin. She is quite the polarizing figure. While many find her to be
00:15
relatable, others have had a very hard time connecting with her at all, and some have even
00:20
come to see her as the villain of the show. Belly's story digs into the true messiness of
00:26
growing up and trying to figure out who you are in a world that doesn't always seem to make sense.
00:31
She's cringe, messy, indecisive, a little, okay, maybe a lot, selfish, but not necessarily
00:38
unrealistic. So let's take a closer look at Belly and her story to uncover why her flaws are an
00:44
integral part of her growth journey. Even if they make us want to yell at the TV sometimes.
00:50
We first meet Belly as she's entering a new era. She's 15, about to turn 16,
00:55
and she's begun evolving from a kid into a young adult. Part of this, as the title suggests,
01:01
includes becoming pretty, as she's grown out of her awkward stage and into a beautiful young woman.
01:06
For much of her life, she's felt overlooked, like she was just filler in other people's stories.
01:12
But now, she's ready to start being an active participant in her own life. A big impetus for
01:17
this is the physical changes in herself. Becoming pretty means that she's being noticed by everyone
01:23
around her in a new way. And she is, for the first time, learning what it feels like to be at the
01:29
center of other people's attention, particularly boys. Belly has always felt that the house she
01:34
spends her summers in at Cousins Beach served as a refuge from the rest of her life and the bigger
01:39
problems of her world. Though things may feel fraught in her regular life, from her parents' divorce to
01:53
dealing with school, here she's able to exist in a safe bubble, free from those stressors,
01:58
even if only for a little while. And so, it's no surprise that she sees this summer as her big
02:04
moment to really break out and start trying new things. She feels that her new look and lease on
02:09
life combined with the other-world-feeling nature of her life at the beach house in Massachusetts
02:15
will allow her to embrace this whole new era of herself. But it's actually her connection to the
02:21
idea of the house, and the family in it, that comes to cause some problems. Because Belly's summers at
02:26
the beach have become so important to her, they've actually come to form a large part of her own sense of
02:32
self. She feels a deep connection to the home itself and the Fisher family, to a degree that
02:37
she comes to find she can't quite shake herself out of. On the one hand, this is nice because it
02:42
provides her with a familial feeling she loves. But on the other hand, it creates some major issues.
02:49
She has a difficult time conceptualizing herself as anyone other than Cousin Beach Belly who's in
02:55
love with Conrad Fisher. Which means that her efforts to expand her world beyond that
03:00
often end up getting sidelined by her own missteps. Belly isn't alone in her troubles, however.
03:06
Everyone is having a difficult time dealing with the changes they're encountering in their own
03:10
lives to some degree. And much to her annoyance, they're also all having a hard time accepting
03:15
Belly's own growth. Her brother still sees her as a little kid, while Conrad and Jeremiah have
03:21
noticed her changing, but don't know how to deal with it. This can make things difficult for Belly,
03:26
like when she finally gets to go on a date with a new guy, and all three boys show up just to
03:31
check in on her. Her brother because he's in older brother mode, Conrad because he's in
03:36
I like you but won't admit it mode. She also has to deal with the fracturing of her relationship with
03:41
her best friend Taylor, as they realize that their growth might not be setting them off on the same
03:46
path anymore. Conrad and Jeremiah's mother, Susanna, want to embrace Belly's moving into a new
03:51
stage of life by having her become a debutante. This is unlike anything Belly has ever been
03:57
interested in before, but that's ultimately what does draw her in.
04:02
Things change, whether you want them to or not. So maybe I'll change too.
04:08
Belly's fire to really start her life and try new things quickly begins to spiral due to her inherent
04:14
impulsiveness. This certainly leads to some positives, like her getting to meet some great new friends
04:19
through the dead ball, but it also very often swings in the other direction, causing chaos for
04:25
Belly and everyone around her. And this leads into one of the central issues some people seem to have
04:30
with her character. Did turning pretty bring out an ugliness in her personality? One easy way to not
04:37
come across as selfish is to make sure to show the people around you that you care for them.
04:42
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we're all out of the ordinary.
06:14
Belly is not a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination. She is very much a teenager
06:20
bouncing up against boundaries and trying to claw her way into some kind of vibrant, interesting life,
06:26
even if she doesn't actually know what she wants that to look like just yet. She's messy,
06:30
sometimes selfish, and often indecisive. As more and more eyes are on her and her actions,
06:36
she also starts to turn more inwards and think more about herself, which develops into a bit of
06:42
main character syndrome. It's good that she's taking control of her life and actually working
06:47
to progress her own story forward instead of just floating, pulled along by everyone around her.
06:52
But because she's so often only focused on how what she does might benefit or affect her,
06:58
it often leads her to hurting those left in the wake of her actions.
07:02
The most obvious place this is apparent is in her relationships with the Fisher brothers.
07:07
She'd been in love with Conrad for as long as she could remember,
07:10
but then she also developed feelings for his younger brother, Jeremiah.
07:15
She spends much of the show wrestling with which brother to choose, but this is really just another
07:19
manifestation of her larger issue, that she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life.
07:25
Each brother represents a different possible path, and because she has such a hard time imagining
07:30
herself on any path that doesn't lead back to that cousin's beach house,
07:34
she essentially locks herself into having to choose between just those two options.
07:38
Avon and things are clearly not working. She continues to oscillate back and forth between
07:43
these two options because the idea of having to break out of that habit and truly step out into the
07:48
unknown, away from the fishers and the beach house and the cousin's beach belly, terrifies her.
07:54
This stagnancy combined with her deeper desire to break out and change her life causes constant
08:00
turmoil, because she knows deep down what she needs to do. But actually taking that leap is another
08:06
story.
08:06
While Belly might be particularly grating to some, she's not out of line with many of the biggest
08:12
teen show icons. And if we're being honest, even some of the adults. From dating brothers,
08:17
to being chaotic and messy but never really having to deal with the consequences of her choices,
08:21
to struggling with deeper issues that she doesn't quite understand how to deal with.
08:25
You really want to know what's bothering me? Do you really want to know what's on my mind?
08:29
Yes.
08:34
She's a young person making mistakes as she tries to figure out who she actually wants to be when she
08:39
grows up, and what she wants her future to look like. That certainly doesn't absolve her of everything
08:45
or diminish the fact that she's hurt people, but it does help put her choices into a context where they
08:49
make a lot more sense. Also, it's a teen soap opera, so dramatic young people causing chaos is
08:55
kind of the point. And as the show reached the end of its final season, Belly was finally able to have
09:01
some of that much needed growth. The third season has a time jump, leaving teenagerdom behind and
09:07
finding Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah as young adults. Belly has settled into her relationship with
09:12
Jeremiah, trying to force it to work even when she knows deep down that it won't, because she is still
09:18
unable to let that vision of herself and her life go. But after breaking off their ill-advised
09:24
engagement, Belly finally starts to take control of her life in a real way for the first time.
09:31
She takes a big leap and goes to Paris, where she's totally removed from everything that she
09:36
had once centered her sense of identity around. And this is precisely what allows her to figure out
09:41
who she actually is as an individual. She develops a new group of friends, interests, and hobbies.
09:47
And in a true act of leaving that younger version of herself behind, even begins going by her full
09:52
name, Isabelle. While the struggles of her teen years were certainly a part of her growth journey,
09:57
this is her true coming of age. It's unfortunate that we didn't get to actually witness more of
10:04
this part of her story. After struggling along with her through so much of the lead-up,
10:08
it would have been great to actually get to watch her put the pieces of herself together,
10:13
and evolve into Isabelle in Paris. It might have also softened some people's animosity towards her
10:23
to get to see that character development. But of course, we now know that Belly's story isn't
10:28
quite over just yet. There's going to be an entire feature film to cap everything off,
10:33
and who knows where things might end up. Belly is a bit messy and definitely makes a lot of mistakes,
10:39
but that's not really that unrealistic for a teenager or someone in their early 20s.
10:44
There's a bit of an interesting divide in the discourse around the character,
10:48
where people in their 20s and 30s are more willing to give her grace. While some younger viewers claim
10:53
that she should have been more mature because they're definitely already super mature by that age
10:58
and would never make the same kind of mistakes she does because they're so mature. Hmm, sounds familiar.
11:04
Belly's imperfections are what make her human, and watching her, slowly but surely,
11:10
learn from them and grow as a person is also what makes her story so engaging to watch.
11:15
Life isn't about being immediately perfect and knowing everything and being sure about how you
11:19
want everything to go from the jump, but about being willing to take those big scary leaps and
11:25
work on figuring things out. We can't wait to see where Belly takes her life next,
11:30
now that she's finally decided to put herself in the driver's seat.
11:34
That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love,
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