EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | Contact
It’s been discovered that ‘horse girl movies’ may be indirectly responsible for encouraging women to pursue bad boys later in life, under the belief they can fix him with enough time, effort, and a cool montage.
Popular in the early 2000s, roughly 90% ‘horse girl’ movies involved a misunderstood protagonist with fire in their belly, forming a special connection with a wild horse that many have tried and failed to tame.
From ‘Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron’, to ‘My Friend Flicka’, and of course, that plotline in the Saddle Club where Lisa forms a special rapport with an untameable black stallion, the wild horse trope could be considered a predecessor to the mid 2000s vampire era, which pretty much follows the same formula – but instead of the climax being the wild horse allowing the protagonist to finally ride him, it’s getting turned into a vampire after suffering a fatal accident.
Speaking to the head of English literature at Betoota Polytechnic University, Dr. Sharon Hanneman, The Advocate learns more about this interesting phenomenon.
“By the time a woman reaches the age of eighteen, they’ve probably been exposed to 100 different versions of the byronic hero”, says Hanneman, referring to the brooding character type notable for being mad, bad and dangerous to know, but usually possessing a softer side accessible only to one special person, “Heathcliff, Edward Cullen, Anakin Skywalker.”
“Even Shrek.”
More to come.
