Writing Works

Romanticization and Sexualization of the Female Handgun

Witten in 2018, by Isabelle Schumaker

Below is a swift analysis of three works popularized by the sexualization and romanticization of death involving teenage girls. Ideas such as the lust in poetic young boys and the individualism behind death are topics built upon in The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. As the exploitation and sexualization of youth are provided by perverted adults in Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, death is also used as a tool for overpowering men to get what they want. And quite differently in Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, death is used as a symbol of ending a painful life, but in turn, causes more pain in others and the misuse of rumors after she is gone. All three of these pieces include the male perspective to the fullest and completely neglect female representation. These works hold a relation of glorifying the distress evident in young female lives.