You can imagine how hard it is being in the shoes of 16 year old Jodi—especially when those shoes are size 13. She wakes up in her house in the suburbs, eats a three-course breakfast with her two loving parents and drives to school in her S.U.V., where she faces life-altering insults from bullies including “How’s the weather up there?” and “Taylor Swift? More like Taller Swift.”
Netflix’s Tall Girl, a rom-com about a girl who is six feet one inches tall, shows the daily adversity faced by above-average-height high school girls. Jodi’s record-breaking height makes it hard for her to find love with shorter boys or to be seen as anything other than the “tall girl,” despite also being smart, kind and attractive.
Representation of the hardships tall girls deal with was lacking before Tall Girl. Finally, people can understand the crippling pain supermodels and women’s basketball players deal with because of their height. Many supermodels, including Peggy “The Leg” Longbottom, have expressed their support of the film.
“Being tall is horrible,” Longbottom said in an interview. “People started calling me ‘The Leg’ in high school and I hated it, but luckily the nickname helped me in my modeling career. Like Jodi, my biggest problem in high school was that many guys turned me down because I was too tall. I’m so glad this movie came out so people can see how out of everyone, tall girls have the hardest lives.”
Tall Girl shows us that the lives of tall supermodels are not as perfect as they seem. The next time you see a tall girl, remember the story of Jodi and acknowledge her struggles. Know what she has been through and recognize that her life is undoubtedly much harder than yours.
Supermodels finally feel represented in Tall Girl
