Let’s set the scene: you’re sitting in bed, wrapped up in your cozy blankets with a candle lit. From the open window the sound of drunk partygoers laughing raucously in the streets echoes throughout the four corners of your room. But you feel no inner desire to join the crowds or to get dolled up for a couple free drinks from sleazy middle-aged men at a bar in WeHo. Rather, you feel unnervingly lethargic and gloomy––you canceled your therapist appointment this week, skipped all your lectures, and ordered takeout everyday because you just didn’t feel like it. You are a sad girl.
You doomscroll on TikTok and stumble upon an edit clipping together scenes of women crying from different films, playing over “Pretty When You Cry” by Lana Del Rey. Though there are only two words on the TikTok, it already has 14,000 likes. “broken girls.” Just like you.
Though you relate to the TikTok and the sadness of the female characters in it, you can’t help but notice: They are overwhelmingly white. Megan Fox, Margot Robbie, Angelina Jolie, Sydney Sweeney, Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts, Nina Dobrev, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Adams. There are two women of color in the whole minute-long video, and it is almost like you are holding your breath until they come on screen.
Who Can Be a Sad Girl?
The “sad girl” phenomenon being restricted to straight white women is not unique to this singular TikTok. In fact, queer women and women of color are socially conditioned to present a facade of stoic calmness at the expense of their white counterparts. For queer women and WOC, sadness is intertwined with racialized, gendered, and cultural concepts of womanhood; they must be thinking about their trauma all the time in order for their sadness to be accepted by society. Thus, the “sad girl” act for these populations carries vastly different implications than it would for white women. Others are permitted the intrusive space to wonder: Is their sadness a reflection of another facet of their identity other than womanhood?
The sociological concept of a master status epitomizes the intersectional struggle by BIPOC and queer women to be considered “sad girls.” An individual’s master status refers to the societally prescribed role that shapes their interactions in any given social situation. Men’s master statuses in any situation are rarely defined by their gender: Men are simply labeled as engineer, neuroscientist, professor. Conversely, women’s master statuses are often accompanied with the label of “female” ahead of it. This occurrence is compounded for WOC and queer women: In almost any given situation, their master status is governed by their race, ethnicity, or queerness. Thus, for these marginalized women, their sadness is accredited to this master status.
Similarly, for queer women, sadness is often associated with the master status of queerness: Gender dysphoria, gender panic or any other type of gender-related internal conflict is the center of portrayals of their sadness.
Thus, hetero white women’s positionality permits them to embody the “sad girl” or “broken girl” label to a T. Their master status blatantly lacks the intersection of race and gender––so their sadness may be attributed solely to their experiences as a woman. Not as a sad Black woman, a sad bisexual Chinese woman, or sad trans Hispanic woman. Just a sad woman.
When white girls are sad, it becomes an entire aesthetic: They are seen as mysterious, brooding, and enigmatic (i.e. protagonist of almost any Sofia Coppola movie, “Fleabag,” “Gone Girl,” “Girl Interrupted”). There are layers to their sadness; it must be unwrapped and carefully peeled apart for fear of breaking, like a beloved gift. White girl sadness is a beautiful, eerie phenomenon in which their isolation and distress transforms into a siren symbol of femininity. In film, music, or novels, their entire identities are defined solely by this sadness, re: the painfully overused phrase “I’m just a girl.”
In Ottessa Moshfegh’s book My Year of Rest and Relaxation, the unnamed protagonist uses prescription drugs to fall into a yearlong slumber in order to escape the depression and discomfort governing her life. Selin in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot is unquestionably dissatisfied with her life despite being a successful Harvard undergraduate, and spends the novel navigating her general discontent, loneliness, and apathy. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar mirrors Plath’s eventual descent into depression and suicide, with narrator Esther going through the motions of a seemingly glamorous New York magazine editor life yet utterly unable to find meaning in anything.
Sadness vibrates off the pages of these books, as the three women’s respective decisions are controlled by an inexplicable illogic. The sad girl is at her peak here, and that’s what makes these books so relatable and loveable. In fact, each of the above books is critically acclaimed, whether it be a NYT bestseller, Pulitzer Prize finalist or enshrined historical classic. But we must also note that each of the above books is centered on a white girl.
The actual symbolism of sadness in these straight white women versus minority women is part of what pushed the three novels’ rise to success. The stark dichotomy in what sadness means for white women versus WOC or queer women acts as an invisible hand that pushes public opinion and interpretation of the “sad girl” in one way or another.
Sadness as Femininity
For straight white women, the sadness they exude constructs a sense of allure, as they are suddenly a fragile, wounded bird in need of saving. And being delicate and being feminine have been two traits that have been historically linked together. Under pre-modern patriarchal structures of society, femininity, sexuality, and womanhood are repressed in order to properly serve men and uphold the nuclear family. Though these frameworks are not as prevalent today, we can very clearly see this harmful association of delicacy and femininity in social media.
The utilization of traits like submissiveness and delicacy to define femininity define modern TikTok trends like having a “coquette” aesthetic or “girl dinner.” Being coquette means to have bows on everything and most importantly, be sweet, docile, and romantic in all interactions. The ‘girliness’ of this particular trend comes from not just loving pink, but is also based in heteronormative gender roles. The concept of a “girl dinner,” a meal consisting of small snacks, side dishes, and other randomly assembled foods, has an extremely insufferable air of “Oh, I’m so quirky and don’t eat regular meals because they’re too much for me.” Slapping on the word ‘girl’ in front of dinner immediately delegitimizes the entire meal, inherently implying that ‘girl’ anything is worth less than the original thing. This sends the message that women do not require full meals, upholding patriarchal ideals simply within our eating habits. Same goes for the “girl math” trend. The covert suggestion that girls are so incompetent that they simply must create their own form of math reinforces the idea that women are so fragile they must be protected by the dangers of regular society. Rather, they must form their own warped versions of reality to shelter within.
In analyzing the underlying notion of delicacy, white women’s sadness ends up simply portraying them as more feminine, further strengthening the role of reductive social binaries such as femininity and masculinity. In fact, see Emma Chamberlain, the prime example of the “sad white girl.” In her rise to fame in 2016, she was lauded for being extremely relatable to teenage girls for one particular reason. Sure, she went to school and hung out with her friends like everyone else, but she also was THE sad girl. In Emma’s videos, she would often mention how she hadn’t showered and brushed her teeth in a week, or just didn’t feel like getting out of bed for days at a time. Though these depressive habits and unhealthy coping mechanisms to her sadness are completely normal for anyone, the fact that she derives fame, admiration and wealth from promoting these traits is thanks to Emma’s whiteness.
Standards for POC & Queerness vs. Standards for Whiteness
People of color, who have been thought of as unclean and unhealthy throughout history, are not afforded this same privilege to just film themselves lounging around in bed all day in 3-day old underwear. The concept of POC, specifically Black people, as being dirty has been employed as a racist stereotype to promote eugenic ideologies of race purity, and consequently a wider sociopolitical logic to prevent interracial marriage. For a Black woman, being a “sad girl” like Emma carries a wholly different connotation––it loses its cool, trendy aesthetic and instead racializes sadness, the body and femininity.
Furthermore, the symbolism behind minority women’s sadness is inextricably intertwined with their master status of race, ethnicity, culture, or gender. They are not afforded the privilege to be sad just to be sad. For women of color, their depression must reflect some broader societal phenomenon. Their emotions are thrust out of the realm of vulnerable individuality and into one open to public speculation and appropriation. They have to mean something, anything, but the unique individual experience of sadness because that sadness is only reserved for white women.
Though it is extremely important to discuss racial and gender trauma (i.e. see Etaf Rum’s poignant exploration of intergenerational abuse in an immigrant family in A Woman is No Man), it is unfair to center minority women’s identities on their master statuses. This mirrors the extremely overused minority sidekick character in which the representation of a minority group is only employed for diversity points, thus barely scratching the surface and lacking relatability for the actual minority communities it is meant to represent.
In addition to romanticizing WOC and queer women’s identity-based trauma, the dividing nature of the “sad girl” aesthetic is largely fueled by the routine weaponization of sadness by white women. This is known as “white women tears,” and has been cited by minority women as a means to deflect accountability and become the victim. In an article by the Guardian, Nigerian-American author Luvvie Ajayi says, “White women’s tears are especially potent … because they are attached to the symbol of femininity. These tears are pouring out from the eyes of the one chosen to be the prototype of womanhood; the woman who has been painted as helpless against the whims of the world.”
Numerous Black employees in office settings have reported being accused of bullying and aggression after earnestly pointing out a white woman co-worker’s discriminatory or rude behavior. They then feel gaslit and as though it is their job to comfort the white woman, “No, you’re not racist, no you’re not a bad person.” These tearful outbursts by white women emanate an aura of doe-like helplessness, undermining any accusation or critique with their sudden appeal to vulnerability. By strategically wielding tears as a sign of victimhood and femininity, white women are able to maintain the upper hand in a given situation and further oppress other minority women.
While white women’s tears are entitled to a space representative of delicate fragility, this same space is not extended to minority women. For Black women specifically, they have been portrayed as constantly angry, aggressive and undeserving of protection due to racial stereotypes from global systems of slavery and involuntary servitude. In Ruby Hamad’s essay collection White Tears/Brown Scars, she evocatively writes, “When white women cry, it makes them able to leave the conversation and choose not to listen, whereas women of color do not have the ability to choose to leave.”
Sad Girl Hall of Fame
Musical artists Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift respectively have amassed cult-like followings in their many years of popularity. Though both women sing about extremely different topics (Lana focuses on tragic romances, sugar daddies, abuse, Hollywood glamour, and melancholia; Taylor covers breakups, dealing with fame, and falling in love), both are prime examples of sad white women who rely on white women tears to maintain their fame.
Lana, recently wed to a crocodile boat tour guide from Louisiana, romanticizes the “damsel in distress” trope in a plethora of songs like Born to Die, Sad Girl, and Carmen. Her entire public persona plays into being a fragile girl who is a hopeless romantic with daddy issues, with a large emphasis on indie sleaze, cigarettes, convertibles and heart-shaped sunglasses. “He hit me and it felt like a kiss”: this lyric from Ultraviolence says it all. She’s just a damaged, sad white girl.
On the other hand, Taylor Swift is often referred to as America’s sweetheart. In fact, she is America’s perpetual victim. To this white woman, any critic of her music is a misogynist out to get her, wanting to tear down ALL women for wanting to write about love and relationships. She has an eerily impressive ability to delineate a striking chasm between herself, the virtuous protagonist who gleefully perseveres in the face of hate (re. “Shake It Off”), and her sexist villain haters, who hate all women and can’t handle one being famous. In no song does Swift ever take accountability for a single wrongdoing. Her rabid fans are unleashed on her enemies, whether it’s an ex, Katy Perry, or Kim Kardashian and Kanye; and Swift happily sits in her private jet as her sad girl aesthetic rakes in big bucks. She is always the one left crying in the bathroom (re. “All Too Well”).
Taylor’s accomplishments are certainly deserving of widespread acclaim, but her tactics are also rife with contradictions and manipulations. She harnesses the narrative of the victim, strategically positioning herself against “enemies” and drawing on societal biases that favor and protect white women. Her career has thrived on storytelling, but the stories she chooses to tell—ones that consistently place her as the wounded, innocent feminist—are tone-deaf, especially in an industry where WOC and queer artists face far more significant barriers and receive much less sympathy when they advocate for themselves.
Perhaps most importantly, the oversaturation of whiteness and straightness in general often deafens the women of color and queer women who want to genuinely share their experiences with depression or sadness. There are few ‘big’ artists and writers who are minority women; yet these are the voices which should be most uplifted (i.e. Mitski, Luna Li, Japanese Breakfast, Banana Yoshimoto, Min Jin Lee). They touch on relatable topics across all groups, such as intergenerational trauma, insecurity, grief, and ennui. In listening to these women can we break free from a one-dimensional narrative of sadness and create space for the diverse realities that deserve to be seen and heard.
Beyond the relationships between whiteness, femininity, and fragility, the mere physical act of crying by white women therefore varies drastically from that of minority women. Though sadness in either context may be due to the same reason, each tear shed by these respective groups carries vastly polarizing implications. White women are uniquely able to toggle between their master statuses as white and female. In calling upon sadness to shield against a difficult situation, the tears of white women strategically uphold the racial status quo and reinforce their privilege.
But sadness or any other emotion should not ever be reserved for one sect of society. Women of color and queer women deserve to share in these common experiences––we all make mistakes, act toxic at times, feel lonely, and fall into depressive states. So why is it that they are made to feel guilty, dirty, and excluded for wanting their opinions to be heard?
Not only must we expand our understanding of the “sad girl,” we must also challenge the larger structures that privilege certain narratives over others. Make space for stories that reflect the nuanced realities of all women.
Visual Credit: Michel PETIT
