#anita needy lesnicki

[viceandmature]

[peachykneesjellybees]

horror sapphics you mean everything to me

[tabithatwo]

it's yellowjackets / jennifer's body parallels time!

hi hello keep reading if you would like to hear about shauna/jennifer and jackie/needy, here's my totally noncomprehensive, very much off the cuff thoughts on this very complex and interesting dynamic!!

(i'm not getting into the basic parallels, i'm gonna assume you know the karyn kusama of it all, the heart necklace, the homoerotic female friendship, the death)

yellowjackets is so brilliant because it feeds you stereotypes and absolutely does not deliver on them. there could be an entire paper on each girl and how this is true for them specifically, but walk quickly with me because i want to get into the nitty gritty gory fun stuff! a brief oversimplified example: nat is referred to as a burnout, some would assume she's a loner based on that, but she cares about the team as a unit more than arguably anyone else. (this is common in real life too, our stereotypes often don't hold water in reality and yj reflects that beautifully!)

now to the jackie/shauna of it all. it would be oh so incredibly easy to look at jackie and think she's the jennifer of the duo. we are set up to see her as prettier, more popular, more demanding. but that illusion falls apart QUICKLY if you pay attention to the things that jackie actually says and does. she's not a mean girl. she's actually one of the kindest on the team. she doesn't pick on shauna, she clings. there are plenty of takes on this on tumblr so i won't exhaust it, my adhd loves to digress and meander but i'm forcing myself back onto the trodden path to this point: people look at the first few minutes of the pilot and they immediately decide that they know who these girls are. the audience typecasts jackie as a jennifer and shauna as a needy. the popular, bubbly girl and her shy, bookworm best friend.

a lot of people, especially casual viewers who don't study this show like its their job (god, wonder what that would be like lol) understandably stop here. but to me the BRILLIANCE of yj is that they don't actually make it HARD for you to undo your initial impressions. the material is there. it isn't hidden. it isn't some deeper self of each character that is unraveled throughout seasons. they push, push, push to see just how far they can carry our deeply held stereotypes/expectations. how forward and violent can shauna be, with viewers still clinging to a shy and sweet girl, who was really their own creation? how kind and honestly pathetic kicked-puppy can jackie be, with viewers still clinging to a mean girl, who was really their own creation? how far will we go to warp the characters intentions, so that we can keep them in the box we understand them in? they ask this of the viewer and of other characters, but AGAIN i digress.

so, while this might sit strangely with some, yes i think that jackie is very much aligned with needy if you peel back just one layer. but far above and beyond that, shauna is so very fucking jennifer.

the overall veneer is thinned immediately in yj. there isn't one girl in the stands and one on center stage. jackie and shauna are both on the team. they go to the same parties, they play the same sport, i would argue that shauna isn't even coded as "less pretty" (please note the word coded, because i'm not saying needy is literally less pretty than jennifer, i am simply saying that we have hair, makeup, clothing, glasses trends that we use to stereotype characters, are you with me?)

so now what? now these girls are both and neither. shauna thinks that she is the needy to jackie's jennifer. jackie wears the necklace and the introductory shots frame her as important. but we're already diverting from that set-up.

our absolute clearest common denominator here is one that i rarely see people mention funnily enough: JENNIFER IS A SUCCUBUS. she CONSUMES. she KILLS. she WANTS and she TAKES.

now before you get TOO EXCITED!!! i see some of you getting ready to say i'm a shauna shipman hater, put the pitchforks down!! shauna is one of my favorite characters of all time. i love her crazy ass so deeply that it's alarming. (i don't hate jennifer, either, for the record.) i love her largely for WHAT she is. i think sanitizing or sweetening her is a disservice. she's amazing and complex and wounded and capable of deep love. but she also, quite LITERALLY, consumes.

her character is sex and desire and violence and obsession and consumption. and it's AMAZING. she's POWERFUL. she's our main framing character (in this dynamic), rather than needy. the scripts are switched. jennifer dies and needy lives, and that's one story. that's clearer cut, simpler, made for a horror film. but here, jackie dies and shauna lives, and that story is deep and rich and goes on to include a whole lot more death and destruction and chaos.

shauna tells us herself that it excites her. she likes it. she is this girl. this woman. she reminisces and she recreates and she covets.

jennifer tries to consume needy, shauna literally consumes jackie.

there's more to this story, obviously. you could deep dive and mine for the intricacies of the set up and fall of stereotype and expectation, or collect all of the exact parallels. but i'll stick with a few, because this is a quick outburst of thought.

a huge one, who is taking whose boyfriend?

here's another personal favorite of mine, just for kicks

is it too complex to neatly tuck away? absolutely. they're different stories with different themes. shauna isn't simply a teenager possessed by a demon. it runs far deeper. as is the essence of this show.

but if you want to look at parallels, look at the one who has been holding the knife the whole time.

[tampire]

Into the Johnny Simmons-Verse: featuring Matthew Patel and Jennifer Check hovering and levitating.

[vibrantvenus]

Very interesting to think abt the fact that Anita is the one nicknamed Needy (presumably by Jennifer) when it seems like Jennifer needs Anita more than the other way around.

[magicalshopping]

♡ Jennifer's Body Bloody BFF Necklace by Bored Bunny ♡

[levhaibaluvmail]

jennifer’s body my beloved

[cerutwidraws]

Needy

[fearlessfairy]

One thing I can't fully sympathize with Jennifer is that she basically killed guys who were harmless. Her first victim was Ahmet, an exchange student we know nothing about. We don't know much about the other one, but he cried and mourned in public, so I'm guessing he was not probably that awful to deserve such fate. Colin was not only a harmless, shy outsider, but he seemed genuinely interested in Jennifer. All of her, not just her body. That's my impression. And Chip, what did he ever do to her? It just doesn't make sense to me that the guys who didn't hurt her in any way are the ones she's targeting when the ones who turned her last night into a complete nightmare and treat women exactly how Jennifer has always hated it (Low Shoulder) are left out . They were at their prom and she didn't even mention that she wanted revenge on them. Someone with Jennifer's drive would have turned the prom into a scene from Carrie, but she'd rather go hurt a boy who never hurt her just to hurt her best friend.

Yes, she liked what she turned into, but it does not change a fact they were the exact type of men she hated and that's why her victims are only males. Not mention they tied her, terrified her, laughed into her face when she was suffering, crying and begging for her life.

I'm glad Needy finished them, but I think it should have been Jennifer.

[808-i-likie]

🎬

«JENNIFER’S BODY» | 2009 | dir.: Karyn Kusama

[formulanni]

Hell is a teenage girl

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls @brawngp2009

[tabithatwo]

Ella Purnell as Anita “Needy” Lesnicki

4.11.23 / live read directed by Karyn Kusama

[tampire]

#Checking out your crush among the audience

[baltharino]

Jennifer's Body (2009) Dir. Karyn Kusama

[omegawolverine]

happy pride from the genre of horror

Body of Water, Florence Welch / Ana Teresa Barboza / Leash, Sir Chloe / I Am The Dog, Sir Chloe / Walton Ford Gleipnir / Desire, Clementine von Radics / War of the Foxes, Richard Siken / Speeches For Doctor Frankenstein, Margaret Atwood / UNKNOWN / Be Nice To Me, The Front Bottoms / Wayward Son, Rainbow Rowell / Planetarium, Adrienne Rich / @/aliyafatima / Conception of Merlin, Maître d’Adélaïde de Savoie / I Don’t Smoke, Mitski / For Your Own Good, Leah Horlick / Killing Eve (2018-2022) / Hannibal (2013-3015) / Scream (1996) / Jennifer's Body (2009) / Yellowjackets (2021-) / Chucky (2021-)