That is a good review.

Except the 6th from last paragraph, which sounds like the sort of comics-Libertarian stuff you'd expect out of Peter Bagge these days.

As much as I like this review, I do take issue with this part:

"Ghost World beautifully captures the adolescent moment when Enid (Thora Birch) realizes that she is forever doomed because she stayed her course while everyone else compromised."

There's "compromise" and then there's realizing that what seems important when you're in high school recedes into insignificance when you have to be an adult. To put it differently, the guys who obsessively write He-Man fanfiction well into their 40s are arguably "staying their course", but for fuck's sake grow up. Write your fanfiction about historical WWII figures instead.

But I nevertheless sympathize with Enid a lot, even though I wouldn't want to be her. Therefore, I am gay.

Yeah, good point. That ties in with the whole "90s-comics libertarianism" bootstrap mentality thing. It happens when punks turn 30, too (at least in New England).

But it also nails why I like the movie on its own terms, even though it's not necessarily the best adaptation of the comics (and a lot of people I know who were in to the comics before it came out were really mad about it, believe it or not).

First two paragraphs are almost too close to home, though.

It behooves you, if you feel this way about society, to engage in building a better alternative. It is certainly possible. That was my complaint about the slacker culture then and now. It's a bit like rebelling against the catholic church by becoming a satanist. You're still a catholic, just a backsliding one. Can you imagine and actualize something new?

"the one is plain and kind of homely, and the other is only somewhat pretty"

Hilarious. So often the Pulchritude: Warp 10 in film completely wrecks the meaning/tone of the original thing. It's a really obnoxious kind of inflation, or something, and it ruins a lot of movies for me. It barely seems to bother anyone else.

It seems like about the farthest you can go is "a weird-looking 6" to play an ugly girl. It's like everyone refuses to look at anyone worse off than that. Movies are inextractably 15% porn, at their very least.

One of my friends only went for gorgeous women with maximally blunted affects for years after this movie, thanks to Scarlett Johansson (and his own stupidity). Didn't work out real well.

"and it ruins a lot of movies for me. It barely seems to bother anyone else"

It bugs me too, but then I blame society and I don't get so mad at the movie.

That said, the movie doesn't have much trouble casting Steve Buscemi as Seymour, despite his lack of (figurative) movie star looks -- it fits in with how he's looked down upon as a sad loser (even by Enid at first). In real life, someone who looked anything like Thora Birch would have trouble filtering out the people who are interested in her only because of her looks. It really doesn't fit with Enid.

I think Enidness is often an inevitable consequence of being a teenager and lacking perspective. It's related to how teenagers perceive their parents as idiots, who somehow get vastly smarter over the following decade.

No, I've know fully-grown "Enids" from all walks of life. I know their biting cynicism and venomous sarcasm has roots in self-loathing, but lots of people are full of self-loathing and don't take it out on the rest of the world.

Socially awkward nerdy types like yours truly usually have an Enid or two buzzing around. They're not always female. They're social rejects not because they lack the skills to interact with others, they're rejected because they try to dominate others by constantly negging on them. Normal people don't put up with that shit. Real social rejects are so used to being treated horribly that being treated badly doesn't register with us and we tolerate their company longer.