my take on the ending (it wasn't that bad!)

i only rewatched the ending of this movie, not in its entirety but i think i remember the main plot points.

when kimberly and troy had sex, she felt cheapened whether she showed it or not. and after brittany started dating troy, kimberly was jealous and heartbroken and wanted to ruin brittany so she, being the manipulative teenage girl that she is, orchestrated the entire diabolical sequence of events just to get back at brittany.

if you just read the little synopsis there, it sounds like your average teenage revenge flick. but if you've seen the movie you know that it's exaggerated to completely absurd and satirical porportions. this movie is satirical of high school life, yes, but there's a larger issue here. this movie on some levels i think, tries to show how the environment that kids grow up in affects them and how it turns them into potentially sadistic people capable of doing the awful things that kimberly joyce did.

the last few minutes of the movie are very telling of what the point is that siega's trying to get. when she's flipping T.V. channels she sees an interview with a school-shooter who describes the people he killed as "ducks on a carnival ride", then it shows the father of randa claiming "we came to find American dream, we only found nightmare." she flips again and we hear "you killed kenny, you bastard!" she flips again and it comes back to the television show she stars in. then she begins to cry.

i think the point of this sequence with the different television spots is illustrating the moral decay in american culture- essentially in less than a minute you see a school shooter, the parents of a teenage girl who committed suicide, a violent cartoon and then kimberly joyce acting on tv. i think when she sees herself on t.v. next to all this violence and despair, it's like she finally puts the last piece in the puzzle. she feels despondent and remorseful for brother, her amoralism, her useless apathetic parents and her entire generation. and she begins to cry.

maybe i'm reading way too much into it. yes, the ending sort of came out of nowhere, yes it wasn't very cut and dry but i don't think it was bad, it sort of leaves it up to the viewer to take away what they want from the movie.