Livin la vida Lolita: LoliGirls film review

Theatre. This past weekend I was invited to attend the fifth annual Women in Film Festival at the Vancity theatre. WIFF celebrates the works of women in film and is put on by the Canadian chapter of the international Women in Film & Television association. WIFTI is a networking and support association for women working in the film and television industries, offering connections, education, and promotional opportunities. The films showcased on Sunday were all short documentaries spanning a range of topics, but I was there specifically to watch the short documentary LoliGirls: The Story Behind the Frills and Bows.

LoliGirls probes into the lives of three American young women who are immersed in the Lolita lifestyle. The Lolita movement originated in Japan and is known primarily for how its followers worship fashions from the Victorian and Gothic periods and for their love of all things pretty, romantic, and sweet. Girls typically prance around in knee-high stockings, lacy dresses complete with pinafores and corsets, while their heads are adorned with over sized velvet bows. The three girls in the film explain their attraction to Lolita life, and how their attraction to all things pretty goes deeper than the average person, verging on an addiction. They are shown posing on picnic blankets, frilly parasols tipped just so, and delicately sipping tea from floral china cups. At first one thinks this is just a teenage phase, but as the film continues you begin to be convinced of the girls' sincerity. These Lolita girls are not about emulating a foreign culture's obsession with cute things, it's their own love of cuteness that drives them. After all, what is wrong with preferring sweetness to sexy? In what is one of the most introspective moments of the film, one of the girls state that Lolita is acutally a deep expression of feminism, as it allows her to dress for herself in what she likes, instead of wearing what will attract men. Here here ladies!

The fashions in LoliGirls are an overload of lace, bows, and pinkness and I loved it! It's a familiar feeling when I read Japanese magazines and sigh over how pretty and girlish some of the fashions are. Why can't North American fashions be so daring, so fabulously unique? The American Lolitas are to me the real brave modern women. They wear what they want, despite the narrow conventions around them and the curious looks of onlookers and they forge their own rules in society. What we as women should ask ourselves, is who is the one more constricted by the rules - the ones in the strawberry pink corset, or the ones shooting them looks of disdain?