The movie Sierra Burgess is a Loser, reviewed by Hannah Gillam, sparked a lot of mixed emotions. The way Gillam (and I) both saw it, it was a distasteful film that had existing potential. Hannah Gillam starts by summarizing the plot of the movie, then explaining her stance and everything she found wrong in the film, from catfishing to nonconsensual kisses. She then concludes her argument with a reiteration. As a viewer of the same demographic and age range as her, I could not agree more.

You took the words right out of my mouth - never will I ever cancel my Netflix membership, but I would be lying if I didn’t say most cheesy dramas like this are totally atrociously made. Movies like such don’t have any underlying meanings or takeaways - if anything, only negativity can be stimulated. With all the themes aforementioned in Gillam’s text, it can only leave a sensible person wondering: Did they really think this was a good idea? Did adults seriously make this? For example, Gillam states “Throughout the movie, you see Sierra catfishing Jamey… catfishing is not illegal in most places, but it can really hurt the person being catfished.” This is simply a theme that should not be lightheartedly imitated in a movie shown to a young, impressionable audience. While the intentions of making the film obviously weren’t malicious, it’s hard to believe that no one who had any say in producing a movie on a platform as famous and with as large an audience as Netflix saw anything inappropriate about having teens catfish and bully each other into a laughably unrealistic circumstance.