Imagine If You Could Revive Your Teenage Dream

Did you have a different dream in your younger years?

It’s highly likely that you had a dream that is worlds apart from what you’re doing now. The aspiration printed on your grade school yearbook could be vastly different from your high school yearbook, from your college yearbook, and from your life now.
 
We want different things when we’re young. I remember wanting to be a newscaster for the daily news, because my mom told me their outfits were all free. I started memorizing whole paragraphs of text to practice saying it in a professional manner. It was years later when I found out they didn’t have the news memorized, but read it from an idiot board.

I also didn’t know why I wanted to be rich in clothes.

Life happens to all of us, and we will tend to put some of our major dreams on the backburner. There’s nothing wrong with that. What we want changes with age and experience. We can also get more practical when we get older, when we realize it’s just more important to be functional and survive the present.

But, if you had a chance to live your younger self’s dream, would you grab it?

Girls5Eva is about a one-hit wonder girl band who makes a comeback in 2021, 20 years after their first and only hit. The musical comedy premiered in Peacock and is now available on Netflix.

20 years later, Girls5Eva members Dawn (Sara Bareilles), Summer (Busy Philipps), Gloria (Paula Pell), and Wickie (Renee Elise Goldsberry), are thrust into the spotlight again after a popular rapper samples their song in his single. The once-famous teen pop stars had effectively disbanded several years back and were now in regular jobs, leading regular lives.

Among other things, it pokes fun at the pop genre, and its borderline inappropriate 90s lyrics; the disturbing side of fame; and ageism, especially for women. Its scenes and its comedy range from the kooky and absurd to the realistic and relatable, but you’ll enjoy the chemistry of the leads, and would sometimes find yourself in their shoes, too

Here are some a few of their memorable scenes / dialogue that showed us how relatable they are:

1) The Societal Pressure on Our Looks

Wickie: And I just I started a new online forum called Wickie-foot, inspired by my new openness. It’s a place where women can proudly share parts they’ve kept hidden due to societal pressure.

It’s a breakthrough for perfectionist Wickie to embrace her insecurities about her feet. Meanwhile, Summer shares that she'd had several plastic surgery procedures done.

Summer: …I mean, I’ve done everything botox filler cheek sculpting chin-shaving… that felt so good. A weight has been lifted.
Dawn: So you’re gonna stop doing it?
Summer: No! The growth is admitting it!... You know what, I’m sick of people like you judging me so I feel like I have to do these things in the shadows.

By the way, while we’re talking of women empowerment, either should be fine.

2) On Aging

Dawn is freaking out about having her next child in her 40s.

Dr: Ugh. A lot of that language was vestigial from when women over 35 were categorized as medically gross. Don’t worry. How old are you?
Dawn: I'm 40.
Dr. You’re a wittle baby. You are… Mrs. Solano, you are the youngest pregnant woman in our entire system.
Dawn: How is that possible?
Dr.: It’s New York City! The average 38-year-old only owns a laptop and 2 Amy’s frozen burritos. Everybody waits here.

3) On Viral Marketing

When they find out their promotion would come through a kind of malware…

Dawn: Won’t that make people mad?
Tate: That’s the point. Our brains are wired to store memories made during moments of extreme emotion, like anger or panic. And that’s how you create an earworm

4) On Social Media’s (Mostly Artificial) Influence

After working on a music video as extras, they are told that the artist was cancelled, and so was the music video.

Wickie: This is so unfair. We will never get this level of hair and makeup again!

All glammed up at a failed music video shoot, the band decided to make an entire year’s social media content in the next few hours. Wickie records posts sharing she’s in love, a moving in post, and finally an engagement post just by changing her outfit and background.

5) On Becoming a Better Version of You

When we realize that change is hard and sometimes it’s easier to go back to the way things were...

Summer: So you get to force me to grow and change and it’s really hard and I hate it and I don’t get backsies?

6) On Silver Linings

When Wickie realizes Dawn deserves the solo in the song Dawn wrote for her grandmother.

Wickie: If I’m gonna lose to anyone I want it to be you.
<Dawn and Wickie hug.>
Wickie: This adversity would make an excellent act break on my biopic.
Dawn: Whatever works for you, Wick.

7) On Destiny and Sliding Doors

After Gloria’s phone was taken by security, before being able to text her ex.

Security: “No devices on set.”
Gloria: “I didn’t get a chance to press send.”
Security: “Standard procedure. No spoilers.”
Gloria: “Sir, this is a Sliding Doors moment!”
Security: “Good. So it’ll work out either way.”

Do you have moments you want to have a do-over on? Time goes by linearly in the real world but not in some movies, but maybe you’ve noticed that like Sliding Doors, things could still work out.

8) On Not Giving Up on Your Dreams

Because they had to start anew, the girls perform in any venue that would allow them.

As they boarded a vehicle going to a gig, even a stranger heckles them.
Stranger: Are you Ted Lasso-ing? No one will root for you miss!
Dawn: Shut up and let me live my life!

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone would just let you live your life and pursue your dreams?
Unfortunately, more often than not, someone would have something to say to discourage you, whether they mean to or not.
But then again, the pursuit of your dreams, old or new, is still your choice.
And sometimes, your dreams could come true in a way you didn’t expect, or you didn’t even notice.  Dreams could die but rise again, or take another form better suited to the person you’ve become.

As we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, it reminds us that the loss of things we held on to could lead to even greater things beyond our imagination.  My hope for you this Easter is a reconnection to our Dream-Giver.

John 11:25 "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, l though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.  Do you believe this?'"

Happy Easter!