So there's nobody like Evie? The girl who's super hot, or the guy with the amazing house whose parents are always out of town...

Kate: Popularity has never been a big thing at Packer, at least in my grade. There are a few girls who are like Evie in that they're known as being hot, or easy. But it's not like, "She's hot, she's wearing that, so if I wear that, I'll be hot, too."

Nikki: Usually the hot girls at Stuy are the girls who have the most expensive clothing, instead of some cheap shredded thing.

Kate: Some people, before they talked to me or knew me at all thought I was a druggie because of the way I dress -- because I was artsy and often tired. But I don't do any drugs at all and I'm sort of against them. I guess maybe why I don't do drugs is that my parents were never that strict about not doing them. So I guess I never really felt a desire to disobey them. They were never like, "If we find you smoking or drinking we're going to cut off all your allowance and ground you." They're like, "If you do it, be safe and do it in your room at home." So there's not really a point.

Why do you think Evie and Tracy did so many drugs. To be cool? To escape?

Kate: One of my friends says that smoking pot and drinking for him is a way to let go. And it's the same thing for another one of my friends. It's a way for her to let go and stop worrying -- worrying about school, worrying about the fact that she doesn't have a boyfriend, or isn't getting an A in bio.

Nikki: I think there's a really vast difference between what people do when no one else is around and what people do with other people. I know people who've smoked pot in social situations but they're not locking themselves in their room and smoking a few joints out of despair.

Kate: That's when it gets bad, when you're doing it alone.

Did you find Tracy at all sympathetic?

Kate: The one time I felt really bad and really sympathized with her was when her mom was kissing her arm after she discovered all of her cuts. For some reason that was a really striking scene to me, because it seemed like something that would really happen if your mom loved you and you were in that situation.

Nikki: I just had so much trouble sympathizing with the characters. I really didn't like Tracy.

Kate: Neither did I. It was like, "Your mom made you pants! Be nice to her!"

Thana: I related to some of the stuff she was going through because one of my closest friends has gone through some similar stuff, so I've grown to understand her. Some things about Tracy really pissed me off, though. Like the pants part. She just wanted to hate her mom.

Did you think the movie was blaming Tracy's parents for her actions?

Nikki: I think the movie gives teenagers a bad name. I know the way I look at my mother ... I look up to her and see someone who's managed to pull together her life in a really good way. I take her advice really seriously. I just couldn't sympathize with someone who abused their mother like that.

Kate: Yes, there are kids who yell at their parents all the time, and yes, there are parents who give them good reason to, but more often that not, the people I know aren't constantly yelling at their parents.

Thana: Even the people that I know that may do drugs, they're not angry at their parents. It's something they keep to themselves. They won't tell their parents, "Listen, I'm depressed all the time and that's why I smoke pot." They don't have that kind of relationship. But it's not like they don't appreciate anything their parents do for them.

Do you think that the girls were making a conscious decision to try to look sexy, with their thongs and ripped shirts?

Thana: Yeah, they were advertising themselves.

Kate: I can't say that I'm not affected by media at all, because that's impossible, but I think Evie and Tracy were definitely portraying an image that had been fed to them by the media.

Did it seem to you that Tracy and Evie were using their sexuality to get certain things from people?

Kate: I think Evie's a power freak. And I think she was using the fact that she was 13 and had curves as a tool to get power. Sex is a tool to some extent.

Nikki: I think Evie used Tracy in some ways to get into her life and leech off her mother. And I think part of her slightly sexual behavior toward Tracy had something to do with that. That's how Evie usually gets things from people.

So, overall, it sounds like you guys didn't really relate to this movie.

Nikki: I had a lot of trouble trying to associate myself with the movie. I've seen people do one or two of these things, but I've never encountered somebody who's gone completely berserk. I had so much trouble believing this stuff, because my life is completely different from Tracy's. My parents have always been super-concerned about my life, and I've never really minded that.

Kate: I'm also surprised something really dangerous didn't happen.

Thana: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Kate: I was assuming one of them would get raped or would've overdosed or something.

When I saw "Thirteen," I thought about the movie "The Virgin Suicides." In that movie a family doctor asks the 13-year-old who attempts suicide why, and she says, "Obviously, doctor, you have never been a 13-year-old girl."

Kate: Melodramatic representations of teenagers always bother me. It's not like you come home and you're like, My life sucks! And you throw down your bag and think about taking pills. It's not like when you reach adolescence you suddenly have nothing to live for.

Thana: They make it seem like every 13-year-old is bipolar. And there are definitely those days where you come home and you want to be alone, but it's not like, I want to be alone and try to commit suicide.

Kate: Yeah, it's like, yes, puberty affects you, but it doesn't make you go crazy. We're all fascinated with stories like this to some extent. But it's not like every 13-year-old's life is like the movie.

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