Season 1, Episode 12 - Wannabe

Original Airdate - February 3rd, 2002

Paige is finally getting her Spirit Squad off the ground, despite some 00s era quasi-feminist critiques of cheerleading. Manny wants to join, and has the best cartwheels in the school. But Emma is firmly in the anti-cheerleader camp. She thinks the short skirts, tight shirts, and woo-ing around are all very sexist. Manny is caught between her interest and Emma’s opinion.

Meanwhile, JT and Toby are eating all of the Pringles they can get their hands on. There is a contest where if you find a can marked with the ace of spades and another with the ace of clubs, you win a million bucks, and they have the ace of spades. They run up to Liberty as she finishes a can and beg for her trash. Sure enough, they’ve found the ace of clubs. Liberty isn’t giving up her can that easily. They decide to split the money 45/45, because Spinner sees them and protection rackets his way into 10%. JT will bring the ace of spades tomorrow.

Paige launches a huge charm offensive on Manny, making Hazel jealous. Manny lets slip that Emma is considering writing an anti-cheerleading opinion piece for the Grapevine, and Manny’s interest in the Spirit Squad is the only thing stopping her. Paige turns up the heat on Manny and invites her to hang out. It’s all a ploy to stop Emma’s article. The Spirit Squad needs a few more members to sign up, and bad press could ruin their recruitment efforts.

Emma calls while the cheerleaders are hanging out. Manny was supposed to go to Emma’s to study, but she lies and says she’s sick, but Emma hears Paige’s voice in the background. Emma secretly watches the squad practice the next day, and gets too jealous. She writes the article after all, and Liberty agrees to print it. Liberty is already spending her new wealth and has bought shiny new boots.

Bad news on that front. JT can’t find the other can. Spinner and Liberty are ready to beat him up him when he remembers. It’s in his locker! He digs through the layers of layers of trash and finds— a second ace of clubs. Oopsie! No money for them!

Emma rubs Manny’s face in the article and they have a huge fight in the bathroom. Emma has enough self-awareness to know that jealousy is a huge motivator. She’s mad that Manny is dropping her as a friend for Paige, who Emma insists will only backstab Manny. Manny doesn’t care. At least Paige is fun. Manny finds Paige and Hazel in the gym. They stole all of the Grapevines and are ripping out Emma’s article. Manny helps.

Mr. Simpson confronts Paige about the Grapevine destruction. Manny feels guilty, and is about to come clean, but Paige jumps in and blames Hazel instead. Manny confronts her, why lie and throw Hazel under the bus? Paige is cutthroat. Someone is going to have to take the fall, and she needs Manny’s talent more than she needs Hazel. Manny thinks that’s messed up and wants to tell the truth, but Paige threatens her.

Manny doesn’t back down, threatening Paige back. Neither goes to Simpson, but Manny has clearly pissed off Paige by standing up to her. Emma watches the fight. She finds Manny after school and apologizes for the article. Emma knows she should have just supported her friend. Manny is upset, because she just wanted to do something fun, and it got all messed up. Plus, there’s no way Paige will let her on the team now. Emma hypes her up. With her talent, Paige wouldn’t dare cut her and Emma is proud of the way Manny stood her ground. Yay friendship.

I feel so embarrassed when I try to get attention from men. Every time I put a look together for a date or a night out, I’m a little ashamed. Men get too much attention in the world, as is. American culture is all sports and guns and hot chicks and trucks. And now I’m going to take my evolved, freethinking self and curate it for male attention? Gross.

But of course I do. I post the slutty little close friends posts and buy the pants that make my butt look good. I stand up a little straighter in the bars and I double check my hair in the mirrors. I can’t help it. It’s nice to be wanted. By a frustrating and lovely genetic lottery, I am attracted to men and I want them to be attracted to me too. Nothing to be done about it.

I don’t think Emma is coming from a great place in this episode. Manny is not joining Spirit Squad to attract men. She wanted to show off her excellent cartwheels and cunty split! It’s very close-minded to think that anything someone does that a man happens to be attracted to is being done for the purpose of attracting men. That’s bad feminism! And it would be bad feminism to criticize Manny even if that was her motivation.

But obviously, I get it. For all of the embarrassment I feel around my own efforts to get dudes to think I’m hot, I feel something darker when my friends do it. I feel judgmental.

I do think some of this is coming from a good place. I think my friends are beautiful beacons of human goodness. It’s why I decided to be friends with them. Any man would be lucky to be in their presence, and they shouldn’t have to do anything to earn that attention and affection. Sometimes I see a friend putting in effort and think, “you don’t have to do this! Don’t you know how great you are?”

It’s rarely actually that kind. It’s projection. All of that grossness I feel when I primp and show off is removed from my body and put in front of my face. Like Emma, I can’t even be sure why my friends are doing what they’re doing. Maybe they just wanted to wear a cute outfit for a night out. Maybe they’re just hot, and so it always seems like they’re dressed for attention.

But I will look at them and see nothing but an effort to get validated by the least valuable half of society. It will seem misguided. It will seem performative. It will seem pathetic. It is not good that I feel this way.

Slut shaming is a fascinating phenomenon. We all want positive attention from people. Humans are social creatures, and feeling like our society or community ascribes us value is intoxicating. It’s in our genes. But we are also competitive. We understand that our value comes from comparison. And if someone is going to win that unavoidable competition, we despise the idea that they won because they tried.

But there’s another layer to this. We don’t just hate when our competition is trying more than us, we hate when those we’re judging are trying to put a thumb on the scale. That is why people, especially women, are taught to make themselves presentable to men but not too presentable. You must be an object of desire, but you must never seem like you are trying to be an object of desire.

Combine this with the capitalistic insistence that we can never think our appearance or our bodies are adequate and you get our fucked up culture of shame. That leads us to the slut. The slut is someone who refuses to play by these arbitrary rules.

The slut is someone who knowingly and intentionally presents themselves in the most positive light. The slut eschews all of these stupid layers of trying to hard and shame and returns to the heart of the competition. The slut puts their best foot forward to get attention. And the slut inevitably wins by doing so.

We must shame the slut because we are jealous of the slut. If only I could reject shame. If only I could reject the inner critic that says that winning by trying is cheating. Then I too could expose my body without judgment. Then I too could get attention.

This episode of Degrassi does something very smart. It uses the frame of “slutty cheerleaders” to tell a story about basic interpersonal jealousy. Emma is mad at the cheerleaders, mad at Manny, because she wants the attention, from Manny and from boys. It’s normal, and so is the shame that comes from feeling that envy.

Yes, I want my friends to know they’re beautiful and worthy of attention without trying. Yes, I look at my friends trying to attract men and feel embarrassment for my own efforts to do the same. But the dark, nasty core is jealousy. I wish I felt as confident as they do to put myself out there.

I feel that even when I’m dressed just as slutty as they are.