Ask any girl in your circle, and she'll likely remember the first time she was called a slut. It might have been scrawled in the girl's bathroom by a frenemy, whispered at recess, shouted by a group of boys looking to bruise an ego, or casually mentioned by a Republican congressman during a radio interview.
It's an unfortunate right of passage for so many young women — a searing reminder of hundreds of years of patriarchal control over our bodies and sexual mores.
But what if we reclaimed the word? What if teenage girls could enjoy the same freedom to explore their sexuality as their male peers? It's that very attitude that permeates Sophie Lorain's Slut In A Good Way, a French-Canadian coming of age film distributed by Comedy Dynamics, set to hit theaters March 29,
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When high school senior Charlotte (Marguerite Bouchard) finds out her long-term boyfriend is actually gay, she's devastated. To get her mind off things, best friends Mégane (Romane Denis) and Aube (Rose Adam) convince her to join them in getting a part-time job at a local toy store known for its hot — and available — male employees. For the serially monogamous Charlotte, turning over a new leaf means lots and lots of casual sex. But when she finds out that the guys have been badmouthing her behind her back, she's forced to confront the double standard that looms over female sexuality.
In any other film, this would be the part where Charlotte is ostracized and relegated to the loner lunch table. But what's refreshing here is that rather than shun her, her female friends rally to her cause, declaring a collective abstinence campaign for charity — with an added bonus of revenge.
In this exclusive clip, Charlotte, Mégane and Aube throw a girls-only party for their work friends to air their grievances. And with no boys around to use as a chaser for their berry-flavored Sour Puss (ugh, high school), they're left with nothing but tough existential questions.