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Granted, the advanced workings of TikTok’s algorithm in my feed probably says more about me and my PMDD than it does about the cultural moment we’re in more broadly. But there’s certainly a subset of women and femmes who’ll know exactly what I mean when I say: the problematic brat is back.
First there was the prevalence of content documenting being in one’s dissociative #FleabagEra. Then there was the trend of indie sleaze, ballet slippers and coquette ribbons, messily placed. Then there was Red Scare catholicism and provocation. Then Pearl, then AI robot Megan. Even Taylor Swift identifies as anti-hero. Now, there’s rewatching Girls.
The first time around, I watched the first season of Girls then gave up. I understood the criticism initially thrown at it—that it depicted a world of white privilege, navel-gazing, and shocking entitlement—but I understood the line fans towed too—that the entire point of the show was to depict and satirize that world. And it did so deftly.
It was probably true that only the children of NYC’s cultural elite could make a show about the bizarre inner and outer landscape they inhabit. And it was definitely true that the lack of inclusion (and a cast full of nepo babies no less) was an embarrassing and telling oversight. And it was also true that Girls and its creator—like countless women-led projects before and after—had infinite shit thrown their way.
And it was also true that Lena Dunham was/is a great writer (see: Catherine Called Birdy). And it was also true that even if she wasn’t, she likely would have had just as many doors open for her. Her gift and her curse was creating the most narcissistic, spoiled female characters to ever appear on TV. A bunch of brats.
And here we are, over a decade later, and every second she/her online seems to be #RewatchingGirls. As something of a brat historian, I had to join in. And it’s good! The breakup scene between the characters played by Lena Dunham and Donald Glover (who improvised his lines) alone is an incredible meta-commentary on privilege and white feminism.
Why are we so thirsty for the problematic feminine? Why, when we know femininity is socially constructed by patriarchal culture as unhinged, vain, dysfunctional, and “too much” are we drunk on the messy bitches we’ve all been implicitly taught we were? An answer that goes without saying is that characters like Fleabag and Hannah Horvath were written by real-life, sentient women. Rather than straight men illustrating their own neuroses or fantasies.
The archetypal brat on the other hand, mourns with you and cackles with you. Says and does and breaks the things you can’t. The brat is validating, but not placating. Cathartic, but not healing. Not when there are wounds still being poked.
Then there’s perfectionism fatigue. In the Western collective consciousness slash online discourse of the past few years, the brat was somewhat rejected. She was stuffed in a box labelled “inappropriate” and “uncool” given the intense global events we were living through. Pandemic, war, oppression, protest, and a new levels of earnest, politically correctness. No place for a chaotic queen.
Having waited quietly for years now, it seems the brat’s awoke from her slumber with a pointy reckoning, to paraphrase that megabitch, Abigail Williams. You could call this the cultural murmurings of a certain kind of young white girl who’s given up on definitions of proper, including left of centre ones. These characters, public figures, and trends have been something of a permission slip for the public reemergence of contrarianism and messiness.
It’s been a shit century for mainstream feminist representation thus far—co-opted by corporate platitudes, sassy tweets, and public trashings, such as it’s been. Most of us have dealt with life by striving for self-actualisation through some combination of work, wellness, and wokeness. As a former employee of a media company called Girlboss, I was on the frontlines of capitalist-feminist propaganda at its peak.
I did my best to bring complexity, intersectionality, and class consciousness to the space. But then I burned out. Not long after, the company pivoted to being a “LinkedIn for women” app, which never eventuated. It was sold, bought, sold, and bought again. And in that process, all the voices I had tried to amplify were silenced, their stories deleted from the internet forever.
Now there’s a whole new generation of girls that weren’t alive in the 90s, let alone privy to its brat resistance. You can see these characters affecting Gen Z viewers in real-time, awakening a kundalini of feminine rage so strong that even soundbites from Gone Girl are read as glamorous and empowering. It feels like, consciously or not, they see themselves and their salvation in characters intended to be read as broken or myopic or conceited cautionary tales.
And just like in the 90s, the rhetorical question brats are met with remains the same; what do you have to be so sad and/or mad about? After all, there are people starving and dying. The idea that “there are women/people worse off than me, so I shouldn’t complain”, is sometimes a sign of deep maturity and sometimes the cattle prod of good behaviour. The ceaseless repetition of the question itself—devoid of any acknowledgement of the majority of women and femme’s material reality—is what has created and shaped the brat’s existence.
And that’s kind of the rub. Where to put this rage? How to break the simulation of “woman”? Surely it can’t be done without breaking that of white supremacist industrialism too. And in the immediate, creating and upholding actual laws that grant gender equality in our respective countries, and demanding those laws be brought to bear.
Sure, you could start an angry all-girl band (remember those?) and you could dress in a way that signifies feminine dissent and you could stop being dishonest about your feelings. And yes, all that might seem akin to shouting into a blaring speaker. And maybe it is.
There will always be more to fix and better ways to do it. But still, we can’t deny that there is a creative force pulsing and moving through every act and every encounter when approached with vision. We know this. We, especially the most marginalised among us, know the ways that the human expression of “too muchness” and righteous anger, when applied with vision, can inconvenience to great effect. Can transform. Can move mountains and birth whole egregores of change.
It’s entirely valid and valuable to make any kind of creative gesture or direct action or cathartic movement in the spirit of the emergent, generative, and intractable. Even, or especially, a destructive one. Some seed pods need a bushfire to open up.
You know how in some public bathrooms there’s mirrors on each side, returning the scene into infinity? It’s infinite basins, infinite stall doors, and your infinite outline. Except that all the other infinite versions of “you” behind the surface reflection, evade you. No matter how much you flail your arms and widen your eyes, you can’t actually catch a glimpse of these other potential selves. It’s frustrating. They’re so close.
Enduring Brat
By Jerico Mandybur
—How bad do you want it?
Beyond this gate-safe garden, snug.
Look; there sits clemency
Back of hand soft like kittens ear.
There is countenance
Clean jaw and neat breakfast.
Rest in lillies gilded and temperance ordained.
Turn stones and beat bush no more.
Hail! And enter.
—How bad do you want it?
Name pill-hurt insides, classify ache.
Here is brazen lace and idle ribbon.
Here is tulpa, perfumed and plundering.
Here rushed thighs and slow hand.
Here a hunger awake and howling.
Oh bone-poked cataloguer.
Oh mad championess.
Hail! And enter.
—And Cartimandua’s rolled eyes spoke
With fury and appetite, still
Glimpsing land yet razed and boot trodden
Budding mischief and fixation fragrant:
Show me scrape and strife.
Show me freedom and ferment.
Show me profane dawns and thrown off names.
Show me witless and ripe hipped.
Show me hoggish and annoyed at you.
Show me space and stretched out silence.
Show me fruitless revolt and tongue-bitten risk.
Show me plotting and scheming.
Show me longing. Show me deluded.
Show me abiding. Show me tiring.
Show me TV dinners and bedtime armadas.
Show me prostrate and dirty.
Show me hagged and God hunting.
Show desire. Show despair.
Show mistake. Show bliss.
Show trouble. Show terror.
Show art. Show death.
Show me a whole world, womb-new and raw.
All I ever wanted was more and more.
Brat catharsis practices
Now it’s time to get to know and integrate your inner brat a little more, if that feels like something you’d benefit from. It’s your choice how this looks and it depends on your current relationship to this archetype.
Who is the brattiest figure in the tarot, to you? Is it the 4 of Cups, in the RWS deck? Is it the Queen of Cups? Is it even The Empress, spread-legged and confident as Courtney Love? Spend time with your whole deck and once you’ve chosen a card, journal all the affirming as well as frustrating aspects of this figure.
Carve out some time to do an automatic writing exercise where you let whatever subconscious brat shit you’re holding onto speak freely. If a prompt would be helpful, try this: imagine you’re a kid again (at whatever age and in whatever setting feels supportive to you). You’re screaming and crying. You come over, bend down, and tell this kid to let it all out. You don’t try to soothe them, you simply ask: “what’s wrong?” Now, you write! As messily and nonsensically as you like.
If you want to take that a step further, pick up the automatic writing you’ve done, and read it back out loud, letting your inner brat speak and scream. Do it front of the mirror even. Healing artist and guide Kwonyin provides amazing examples of this kind of catharsis work.
Make a playlist of the brattiest possible music you know and love. Then dedicate some time to listen to it with your full attention—and let it move your body. Thrash, sing, whatever.
A tip: once you do any of the above, put it out of your mind for a while. Spend a few minutes sitting, standing or laying down simply listening to the breath. Let everything else fall away with every new breath. Wrap your attention in the here and now. Then go about your day and note any shifts.
Merch *:・゚✧✷☆
I have merch! I shared this in my last newsletter but I forgot to add a photo. These magical and zodiac-themed baseball hats are made-on-demand by the fully WRAP-certified manufacturer Econscious, using 100% organic cotton. Available now in five colours from my site <3
Work with me
Something new and cool is coming!! I’ll save the details for next time, but watch this space if you’re looking for an affordable and self-paced way to learn to meditate and develop a regular journaling practice. <3
My tarot reading books are open! Get in now for February positions. March will open soon, but I’ll only be available for the first half the month.
Spots for complimentary calls with people interested in working 1:1 with me for three months inside of my creativity coaching journey, Come Alive, are also available over the next month and a bit, before closing for a little while as I work with the next round of clients. Learn more and book in.
Buy my books! I have four now and they’re all highly magical. Another way you can send some support my way is to review them on Amazon (even if you didn’t buy them there). It’s a powerful barometer for future sales and stockists :)
Xo Jerico
P.S. How are you finding these emails? I’d ~love to know what you’d like to see more or less of, in the realms of tarot and magic, creativity, neurodivergence, mental health, and pop culture.