YMMV / The Girls Series

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Ellie really overweight, or is her body image so distorted that she just thinks she is?
• Squick: Ellie's dad is around his 50s whereas his wife Anna is only 27. Their son is Eggs is mentioned to be 6 years old, meaning he was born when Anna was 21 years old. It's also mentioned that Ellie's dad met Anna at the art college where he teaches. It's not explicitly clarified what age his students are, but "colleges" in the UK usually cater to students 16-18 years old, most commonly taking A-levels before entering university - meaning he may have first met Anna when she was still in her teens. May be a case of Values Dissonance as the average age of first marriage has been steadily rising - in the 90s, it would have been less unusual for someone in their early twenties to get married.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The technology (landline phones, CDs, computers that don't have email) and cultural references (Xena: Warrior Princess, The X-Files) place the series firmly in the late 90s.
  • In ''Girls Under Pressure, the TV aerial goes down at the family's cottage in Wales so Mr Allard buys a portable TV. These have become obsolete thanks to internet streaming services being available on smartphones and laptops, negating the need for an actual television set. TVs have also become much smaller and lighter compared to the huge, bulky CRT TVs that would've been around when the book was written.
  • Also in Girls Under Pressure, Ellie goes to a public phone box to call her friends.
  • Magda finds Mr Windsor's address by looking in the phone book in Girls Out Late.
• Values Dissonance:
  • When Anna tells Ellie's dad about Ellie's disordered eating habits, his reaction is to deny it, then to get angry and yell at Ellie. In the 2020s, there is much more awareness around mental health and eating disorders in teenagers. Could also be seen as Truth in Television as many parents even today react this way when discovering their child has a mental health issue.
  • Ellie also feels tense when she goes to visit Zoe in the psychiatric ward and worries about the people she might see in there. There is now much less of a taboo around psychiatric illnesses.
  • 18-year-old Liam hanging around a school trying to pick up 13- and 14-year-old girls would likely be taken much more seriously nowadays.

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