WANT YOU, WANT TO BE YOU, NO, THAT'S NOT IT
olivia rodrigo! mean girls! ingrid goes west! and my rotting, horrible jealousy of some girl i see online!
I hate her, I think, just when I’m starting to feel pretty good about myself. She turns up on my Instagram feed. I accidentally click on her story. She’s insufferable, she’s doing nothing worthwhile, but here comes the applause. Not from me, of course. I’m just an observer. I grit my teeth and try to feel happy for her: why tear down another woman in her early twenties that doesn’t know shit? I don’t know shit, obviously. My teeth grind. They ache. I keep drinking a lot of pink lemonade and not enough water. I have issues. But why do they act like she DOES know shit? Why does she get everything I want, with less of the work? Why is it whenever I see her - and I’m awfully, totally nice, then - why is it that she sort of laughs at me? Keeps me at arm’s distance? She clearly doesn’t want to be my friend. Probably. Maybe? I don’t want to be her friend, but the idea that someone doesn’t like me, someone I see all the time nonetheless, it kills me, rots my insides. I feel like a bad person. I shouldn’t be so OBSESSED. I’m like Ingrid Goes West. Not really. I tell a friend that I feel like that and she’s like, “Well, you’re not like Ingrid. You wouldn’t go to her L.A. house and commit massive CRIMES or whatever.” In some of my nightmares I’m in some vast, dark space with a big, giant stage, and I’m wearing my favorite dress, planned it for months, and no one says a single word about it because we’re all too busy clapping for SOMEONE ELSE. I smile and clap, too.
Gonna spill my guts for you. Not sure you want it. Gonna spill them anyway.
The feeling is JEALOUSY. I cringe. I wince. I don’t feel JEALOUS. I’m a good person; jealousy is for weirdos. Jealousy implies lack, and desire, and people who are very confident do not DESIRE like a WEIRDO. That’s fine; jealousy doesn’t care if you name it or not. Jealousy is there. It festers, and all that. It’s sticky sweet. Can be peach-flavored or murderous, or some combination. It’s the start of spring, right now, and everything feels wrong. She always got the things I wanted, in college and now after college. Meanwhile: I’m a LOSER. I feel like a LOSER, I think, and then I cry and then I stare at my bloodshot eyes and swear, I won’t look at her Instagram anymore. I’m normal, ALL RIGHT?
I want to talk about jealousy between women. Or perhaps “female jealousy”. “Female” is a word I feel annoyed by, but I want to point at certain things relating to gender, so I apologize for its apparent cisnormativity. I actually think that anyone can feel female jealousy, regardless of gender expression. It’s because of the commodification of femininity, the competitiveness of it, the joy of it. Anyone can express femininity if they want to. Sometimes this expression can mean clashing with others who are doing the same (or the opposite). Is this inevitable? Is this how I’m made? No. I’m made for-
The subject of female jealousy is well-treaded in my mind, but perhaps not to everyone else. We have movies like Black Swan, or Hustlers, or Perfect Blue, but we also have movies like Mean Girls, Heathers, Do Revenge. Female jealousy often involves the popular girls versus the non-popular, doesn’t it? Obviously female jealousy is usually about the DESIRED GIRL versus the NON-DESIRED. Obviously this means a lot of misogyny, internal and external, a lot of, hm, placing too much stock in the opinions of men, usually cishet. Even as a queer and genderqueer person, I still find myself subconsciously thinking about the opinions of MEN. And if not that, then the other people who care about the opinions of men. We are influenced by the people around us, who may or may not impose heteronormative gender norms onto us. I grew up around people who were very concerned about all of these OPINIONS, and though even as a child, I was over it, sometimes these feelings have finally popped up for me as I’ve traversed into adulthood. The sudden urge to be SEXY. To be COOL. To be SUCCESSFUL. These traits are not only imposed on women, of course, but the specific flavors of these traits when related to women have commonality. Isn’t being a sexy, cool, successful woman all you could want? You’re not supposed to want it, but you want it, don’t you? Won’t that prove them all wrong? Won’t it look even better when it seems like it just fell into your lap?
I came running to write this because Olivia Rodrigo released the deluxe version of her album GUTS: GUTS (spilled). The song “obsessed” is notable to this essay, as well as “lacy”. Olivia has always been a master of feminine rage and all its facets, I think. The wailing sadness in her ballads, the bittersweet mania of her rock bangers. Her 2021 song “jealousy, jealousy” had struck me, back then, as being skillfully vulnerable and whiny, a timeless rendition of teen and young adult envy in the 2020s. The feeling of scrolling through social media and feeling like you want to disappear, and the subsequent embarrassment at feeling that way over INSTAGRAM FEEDS. I keep thinking I’ll grow out of my jealousy, but it keeps coming back. I listen to “jealousy, jealousy” and still I ache. I seethe. The thing about “jealousy, jealousy” is that it’s self-flagellating. It’s degrading. The chorus goes “I'm so sick of myself / I'd rather be, rather be / Anyone, anyone else”. Olivia is very good at writing angry songs that also seem to be on the verge of a full body-wracking sob. It can be hard to admit you’re jealous, because, again, that admits that you’re WANTING for something, that you think someone is COOLER, or that you’re at least acknowledging what other people see. This is not universal (probably) but it’s how I feel about jealousy: admitting it’s there feels like losing. Like letting others win. And I want to fucking win.
I say this and jealousy just snickers at me.
Also in “jealousy, jealousy” is the lyric “All your friends are so cool, you go out every night / In your daddy's nice car, yeah, you're living the life”, and so on. Jealousy and classism. The RICH GIRL and the NOT-RICH GIRL. I don’t like being the not-rich girl, I say. I want to be the rich girl, but I can’t tell anyone that. It’s gauche. I play the game; I wear clothes I’m proud of. I go to the party, and someone does not compliment me but instead tells me something that implies that they think I’m wealthy, that I’m the elite that doesn’t understand them.
I should have wanted that, I think, late at night. I should be happy. They didn’t see me at all.
Oh, maybe this is a sad one. I don’t know. I don’t even want to be the RICH GIRL, I just want to be… comfortable. Happy. Jealousy is SAD! It’s pathetic! I listen to Olivia’s song “love is embarrassing” with its spikes of resentment, its crazy lilts of a third chorus, and I feel like I want to dissolve. I know, Olivia, I wail, clutching my pillow. The audacity of them all. I hate them. God, I’m embarrassing. She’s so obviously desired and yet she’s not the POPULAR GIRL, at least not in her own eyes. People listen to this sort of thing and say, boredly, "Well, all of these feelings are self-made. You don’t have self-confidence. This is why you will always be chasing being the POPULAR GIRL. You can stop chasing, you know. You can just stop caring.” I shriek back, “THEN WHY DOESN’T THE WORLD STOP CARING?”
Because when you look at their daddy’s nice car, their nice clothes, their beautiful apartment in Los Angeles being furnished as you still live with your parents in your awful hometown, you are confronted with real rules the world seems to be so rigid with. Some people are wealthy through luck, through birth, and the rest of us work so hard it kills us. Sometimes those people are on your Instagram story, you went to school with them or you met them at some horrid afterparty and then you feel like they’re always laughing at you. Maybe you’re me - who’s “you”, anyway - and you feel like you work as hard as you can but can never catch up. Writing this feels like I’m bleeding out, by the way. Admitting I’m not doing incredible ALL THE TIME. I don’t want to give anyone any leeway. But who’s reading this anyway. She’s not reading this, I’m sure. I laugh to myself. Jealousy raises an eyebrow.
I don’t want to have to prove myself to anyone, anymore. I’m working on it. But, sometimes, I get kind of scared that without this need to prove myself, I’ll lose a lot of motivation. I reach into my innards and fish around my intestines, squeeze at my heart and feel the red ooze out, and I don’t know how to recognize a lot of it and so it seems like a lot of it is just RAGE. Need for REVENGE. I’m not really a vengeful person, I don’t think. I’m just… trying my best. I don’t want to do any of this. But that’s a lie, surely.
Pysch, this essay is actually a stab at defending Regina George from Mean Girls. She’s cruel, and a bad friend, sure, but I also feel less and less anger at the capitalized Mean Girl as I get older. I feel weird amounts of sympathy. I feel sympathetic for Cady, I guess, but she’s a snake, too. Regina is an even larger snake, but somehow it feels like her obvious insecurity and need for control make her less evil… to me? I would say that Regina is more plain to see as an asshole and that makes her endearing, as opposed to Cady’s innocence that turns sour, but Regina’s whole deal is falsity, so maybe that’s not quite it. Maybe it’s about what the audience sees as opposed to the characters at large? It’s that feeling I get when I watch Sharpay in High School Musical now. Like, there’s a lot where she’s characterized as awful and classist and genuinely mean, but she is also, well, trying very hard. And lately I’ve been truly understanding the notion that women in this world either get lucky - rare - or have to TRY VERY HARD. Hell, I try very hard. Many women I respect do. It’s, like, basic-ass feminist analysis but, yeah, the world isn’t kind to women who are lazy, or easy-going. We get stepped all over. If we have ambition and we care, morally, about kindness, it gets difficult. I haven’t even been in any sort of ruthless workplace and I already feel like I get pushed around constantly by male coworkers who don’t respect me unless I really assert myself. I don’t want to have to actively assert myself! I don’t really want to play to win! A lot of the time, it’s not fun! I see Regina asserting dominance over Cady with Aaron at the Halloween party and I’m like, First of all, Cady, if Aaron is so eager to play around like that, he’s not worth it anyway! I’ve always disliked Aaron. And most of the love interests in these sorts of movies, for that matter. Maybe that’s a whole other essay, but, like, is it really Regina’s fault if he goes to her? Regina is, in fact, showing you that he’s weak and not worth your time. Does that make me a MEAN GIRL to say? When I was a teenager, and people would get all She’s stealing my boyfriend, I’d always be like, Let him go, then! Drop them both! He’s not actually in love with you! But maybe that’s the gay in me.
In Mean Girls, we watch several girls get threatened by others’ femininity. Primarily we focus on Regina and Cady, but Gretchen and Janis are both interesting to look at, too. I know it’s a stupid movie written by Tina Fey, but its unapologetic use of tropes and social dynamics in the 2000s makes it great to analyze, actually. So be it! The idea of the Burn Book is a manifestation of jealousy, I suppose, if you can cede to my idea of asserting power as a manifestation of jealousy. Regina must bring others down to bring herself up, and so, too, must I reason with myself that the girl I see on Instagram is not actually that interesting, or that cool, or that pretty (this is where I start to feel truly bad). So does that make me the bully? So does that make me the loser? Probably? If I could just get rid of all these feelings at will, I would, I assure you. There’s only a small level of sadomasochistic joy in there. Most of it simply feels defeating.
It’s the crying undertone of upbeat Olivia Rodrigo songs. The loneliness. The despair. The unfairness of the world. It’s the feeling of doing everything right, everything “they” told you to, and then it’s like, no, this other girl is going to get it quicker and faster and better, and you’re going to be left in the dust. And then you’re the villain for being bitter about it! Awful. I’m thinking about the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Emily’s in the hospital room and is distraught about Andrea taking her place at Paris Fashion Week, and though Emily has been pretty horrible to Andrea the whole time, as an audience we’re supposed to look at Andrea as the offender because she utterly betrayed her! Emily has worked HARD for it, and Andrea has snatched up the opportunities through unsavory means, becoming the NEW mean girl. What does it mean, that we get angrier at Andrea even though she’s doing the same thing as the ones before her? Is it, like Regina, the oxymoronic directness of Emily’s cruelty versus the innocence of the protagonist (Andrea or Cady)? It’s similar to the sympathy for Sharpay when she doesn’t get into Julliard but Gabriella and Troy do, for some reason. In the theatrical, Disney Channel world of High School Musical, this makes sense, as characters with obvious “moral goodness” should win, right, but then there’s this disconnect with what the world truly is like (if you’re more cynical about it, ha). Isn’t hard work supposed to get you further? Can you not WORK HARD at femininity, and WIN at femininity, and desire? Not that Sharpay or Regina work hard, really, as they’re born into wealth and are white blonde girls who use this to their advantage, but what’s up with all that? Wow, being a woman is kind of miserable, sometimes. No one seems to win, I guess. Great. The point of these movies is to steer you towards moral goodness, I think, to make the choice Andrea does at the end or that Cady does or that Gabriella does (?), because at the end of the day being a kind person should rule out whatever horrible competition misogyny has concocted for you. I agree, of course. Of course! But then sometimes you still end up as a floor mat. And, well, taking a step back, what is Gabriella’s moral goodness, really? That she gets the boy through earnest means? Sharpay is an asshole, and she’s pushy, yes, though characters in movies are analyzed differently than real life people. But Gabriella is also portrayed as sweeter because she’s more bookish, less bimbo-core, though Sharpay is somewhat a scholar of theatre, and certainly passionate about it. Evidently all of this involves male desire, and the male gaze. In Black Swan, Nina is furious at Mila Kunis even though Mila seems to have little actual malice towards her, but it’s this smooth and painless attitude towards getting attention that makes people like Nina - and, perhaps, me - even madder.
Thinking about this has me questioning whether I’m actually the Regina in situations more than I’d noticed, but I also think that’s not really true. (To say you are a Regina, also, is kind of funny, apologies.) Regina is obviously furious at Cady aiming to steal her spot as queen bee, but it’s also, I think, that Cady is very directly copying her and trying to BE HER, which is an aspect of female jealousy that I see often. The stealing of identity, and all that. The Ingrid Goes West of it all. The Snotgirl of it all. The Black Swan, the Perfect Blue! We as the audience get at least slightly unsympathetic toward Cady, because she betrays Janis and Damian and also seems to betray her true self, leaning into what we have established that she dislikes the farce of. She becomes cruel and it’s much less fun than Regina’s cruelty, for some reason. Perhaps it’s that copycats are always unsavory because of their inherent lack of originality. But there’s something to be said in defense of Cady there, too, because maybe it’s that we can see she’s TRYING and it’s a little embarrassing in the face of Regina, who makes it seem effortless on the surface. It seems that there is this cycle of seeing which woman is trying harder to get attention and the one who just gets it. I definitely see this cycle in my own jealousy. The girl on Instagram makes it seem easy, though I know that logically she has her own problems, too. When she asks for attention too blatantly, I smirk. When I want to ask for attention but don’t, because it’ll surely be clumsy, crude, I feel resentment for her uncomplicated, casual way of gaining it because of whatever reason. Her followers! Her job! Her apartment! Her family, who travels constantly and throws extravagant weddings! The way people invite her to dinners I planned specifically so she wouldn’t go to them! I’m resentful. I try to talk to her, connect with her, and she either brushes me off or acts too excited, and so then I’m uncomfortable with my scheming in the face of her earnestness. I would hate it if someone thought, I’ll be friends with her, to be the bigger person, but I think that, sometimes, and then she doesn’t take the bait. Instead she messages me at all the wrong times, gets in my business in ways that make me furious, tries to get in with all my friends and then completely ignores me. She’s not a rival, surely, because I don’t consider on my level, but she GETS TO ME, doesn’t she? I tell someone, “If she were hot, that’d be bad for me,” and then later I’m like, jeez. Fuck, man. What’s wrong with me? I’m not in love with her. Yeah, you can laugh. I have issues with obsession and hate/love. I know, though, that my feelings for this girl are not love, but a complex hate where I know what state she’s in and pretend not to so I have something to ask her when we’re forced to small-talk. She got some awards I really wanted, once, and I don’t bring it up to anyone but I do think about it. With her, it’s all about things I don’t bring up to anyone but do think about. Not constantly, but - perhaps once a month or two - I am reminded of her existence and I want to tear something to shreds. Something nice, and cinematically fruitful, like a pillow, or a stuffed animal. I’d love a RIVAL. A rival would be more fun. I don’t want to be her, I just think I’d be better at being her. Is that so wrong? Is that so fucked-up? I just think that if I had those opportunities, I’d- if I had that amount of fanfare, I’d-
I watch movies like Do Revenge or Heathers or even Mean Girls and I think that the homoeroticism between the protag and the supposed mean girl is undercelebrated. I like that Olivia Rodrigo is so unabashedly bringing it up in her most recent album. It’s a pleasant surprise. My main problem with Do Revenge was that the protagonists should have made out and been together forever. Heather Chandler was very in love with Veronica, I think. That homoeroticism is what fuels a movie like Jennifer’s Body, though on the flip side is the lack of autonomy Jennifer has, even with her supposed power. Needy is jealous of Jennifer but Jennifer is jealous of Needy- so goes the aforementioned cycle. There’s the age-old phrase, sourced from ancient texts, “why pit two powerful women against each other”, but it’s easier said than done, dude. Sometimes letting jealousy go means losing. At the end of the day, losing feels bad and there’s always someone more ruthless than you that’s going to make you feel as if you were just too weak to achieve your full potential. I think there’s a lot connecting this feeling and capitalism and femininity and the American dream, which makes it tougher. Within femininity you must also somehow embody and deconstruct all that is good and bad in the world. Easy peasy.
I think as you gain more self-confidence and ease in your self-expression, you lose much of the urge to be jealous; I feel much less fire within my jealousy since graduating college and I’m sure it’ll keep simmering to lower temperatures with time. I have less space in my schedule to be mad, which helps. Eye-roll. Even as I write this essay, I feel myself getting less bothered, more sympathetic. The girl on my Instagram is not living the life I want, anyway. I just want her money, her comfort. Her thousands of followers that she got when she was seventeen. Her ability to use her visibility for whatever she wants. Is that conniving of me? Ha, maybe. I want to use large followings for things like “making a living creating art I love”, which I don’t think is particularly malicious, though manipulation as a concept has people cowering when you’re a woman. Well. Do I have to forgive her for laughing, supposedly at me? I don’t want to. Instinctively, I sharpen my claws, narrow my eyes. I’m not sure, at this point, what parts of me are innate personality traits - only worth sharpening or sanding down, not completely removing - and which parts are fleeting, and should be changed. I’ll get back to you if I figure it out. I should just unfollow her.
But can I not just surpass her, and then I’ll finally stop thinking about it all? Isn’t THRIVING the sweetest form of revenge? Oh, god.
alex this is so good!! i love the segway into character analysis halfway through your (i say this very affectionately lol) literary monologue. i feel like jealousy is just such a fundamental human trait unfortunately (i have deleted ALL my social media except for tumblr!! TUMBLR!! and i am still envious of someone sometimes! it's wacky!) but your awareness of your own makes this such a fun piece to read <3 immaculate as always! good job 👍🏻