To Do or Not To Do

           In The To Do List Brandy Clark (Aubrey Plaza) decides that before she goes to college she needs to become more sexually experienced. To accomplish this, she makes a “to-do list” of sexual actives to complete throughout the summer. The first aspect I find interesting about this clip is the character’s motivation to become more sexually experienced. After going to her first college party, Brandy finds a boy she is extremely attracted to. However, she believes that he won’t find her desirable unless she is sexually experienced. Brandy claims, “I’m engaging, smart, [and] once I add sexually experienced to the package he’ll totally want me.” Here, she expresses the belief that without being sexually skilled, she is not desirable to an older boy. In this attitude she fits into the stigma script of virginity where her virginity is seen as undesirable (Kelly, 480). This script is further employed by other characters, one of which screams out “get off the stage, virgin” when Brandy rises to make her speech at her high school graduation.

In order to become more desirable to Rusty, Brandy wants to become more sexually experienced. With this desire comes an assumption that this college boy is sexually advanced. However, as the audience sees later in the movie, this is far from the truth. Despite being in college and extremely good-looking, Rusty is unskilled in bed. Brandy falls into the same trap that many young adults do today, she falsely believed that her peers had more sexual experience than they actually did (Chia &Gunther, 302). What I especially enjoy about this movie is the way it explores some of the prevalent beliefs of young adults on sexuality. Through the eyes of Brandy, the audience can see that the complicated world of teenage sex is not always what meets the eye.