In
Shakespeare's play, All's Well That Ends Well, Helena is the perfect example of the girl next door.
She has a good old fashioned crush on Bertram who quite frankly, does not give
her the time of day. The fact that Bertram basically refuses to be with her,
although he agrees to marry her seems somewhat fishy. Sure, he has his the
nobility, and why would he want to taint his bloodline, but the fact that he blatantly
hurts Helena’s feelings is the typical, high school story of today.
Nowadays,
there is the typical, average girl who wants the popular, good looking guy. The
boy who is probably the quarterback of the football team and is probably the
Prince Charming of the school. This example would be the prime example of Bertram,
the Count of Rousillon. However, this leaves Helena as the totally average, plain
boring, girl next door character in today’s world. It is a very typical story
played by plenty of actresses in plenty of teenage movies. For example, Hilary
Duff in ‘Cinderella Story,’ Selena Gomez in ‘Another Cinderella Story,’ Lindsey
Lohan in ‘Mean Girls’, Anne Hathaway in “The Princess Diaries”, and even
Vanessa Hudgens in ‘High School Musical.’ It is the same story over and over,
the average, boring, (maybe peasant) girl is dreaming and wishing she could be
with the prince charming, or the ‘Count of Rousillon.’
Helena
is basically the girl next door. She is the girl who wants the noble attractive
guy, aka Bertram. She wants him, and he does not want her, just another high
school love story. Naturally, all of these stories have something in common. The
Prince Charming always wants the pretty, beautiful girl and quite frankly, this
story line is reflected in Shakespeare’s play with ‘Diana.’
Essentially,
this play boils down to the modern day story of average girl likes hot boy who
likes hot girl and that’s that. However, have no fear, the movie always ends
the same way…
