Dealing With Sexuality at Heart of ‘Girls’

TV sitcoms may paint most teenagers as worldly-wise and knowing, but “Girls Like Us,” the latest in PBS’ “P.O.V.” series of independent films, offers compelling evidence that sexual naivete, emotional confusion and shaky identity are closer to adolescent reality.

This 1997 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, from filmmakers Jane C. Wagner and Tina DeFeliciantonio, covers the coming-of-age experiences of four girls, during a four-year span, in working-class South Philadelphia: Catholic schoolgirl Lisa, who never misses a class; De’Yona, with a gorgeous singing voice and a determination not to follow in her absentee mother’s drug-abusing footsteps; first-generation Vietnamese American Anna, chafing under her father’s unyielding discipline; and Raelene, an unwed mother at 15.

How the girls deal with their sexuality--and all its attendant pressures--and how they struggle or give up struggling in the face of generational patterns is central to the film. Their passivity, even fatalism, when it comes to sexual activity is the shocker, especially when it’s clear that they “know” about sexual responsibility and safety.

Yet even a caring adult at home to reinforce responsibility and goal-oriented thinking doesn’t prevent a diminished sense of possibilities and acquiescent, unprotected, unjoyful sexual relationships.

In the group observed--and it’s a tribute to the integrity of the filmmakers that they avoid allowing the camera to confer any artificial sense of celebrity--a few girls seem poised, at 18, to grow beyond their difficult, floundering teen years; others are lost, literally or figuratively.

If you find yourself thinking in terms of winners and losers, you may be surprised. What happens to this diverse quartet between the ages of 14 and 18--and to some of their friends--is disturbing viewing, not because the unexpected occurs, but because the everyday minefield of girls’ adolescence is observed with such compassionate clarity.

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“Girls Like Us” airs on “P.O.V.” at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.