It’s 2019 and Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s viral phrase ‘Hot Girl Summer’ has become something much bigger than the name of a single. Instagram captions are rife with the three words, a refreshing care-free attitude has been adopted by all and last-minute flights to tropical destinations are justified with a smile and shrug: ‘It’s Hot Girl Summer!’ (blissful times really – we had no idea what was around the corner). Fast forward to 2023 – Stallion has rightfully trademarked ‘Hot Girl Summer’ and Beyoncé’s ‘RENAISSANCE’ has fans filling their wardrobes with metallic silver and running to the dance floor in cowboy boots (the Google search for ‘silver cowboy boots’ rose 300% worldwide after the album release). It’s reminiscent of 2014 when Taylor Swift’s 1989 spurred us towards side-partings, denim and mini-skirts alike – every year has its own pop culture It Girl whose style becomes a call to arms. In 2024, we set aside our disco balls and ceased our voguing – now the name on everyone’s lips is Charli XCX.
In its most basic form, ‘Brat’ is an LP of 15 songs, alongside a deluxe edition, entitled ‘Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not’. It’s a thumping, heady body of work full of dance bangers, unabashed sexuality, hypnotic lyrics and self-proclaimed narcissism. But, much like Beyoncé’s ‘RENAISSANCE’, or Megan Thee Stallion’s summertime refrain, ‘Brat’ has become much more than just the music.
The term has taken on a life of its own becoming part of the cultural vocabulary as the internet hailed the summer of 2024 as ‘brat summer.’ Proudly connoting a messy, ‘party girl’ attitude and capturing the hedonism and nihilism of the zeitgeist, ‘brat’ has evolved into a philosophy, an ethos – a movement. As XCX has explained herself when describing ‘brat summer’, ‘You’re just like that girl […] who feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile.’ Put plainly, and as XCX herself agrees, being a mixed-race female US presidential nominee and calling Donald Trump ‘weird’ is exceptionally ‘brat.’
Concerned with embracing the untamed, grotty, angry parts of yourself which Marjorie from the office would clutch her pearls at, ‘brat’ is all about sweaty, dark clubs with sticky floors. It deems Marlboro Reds the most desirable accessory for your black leather outfit and demands the music is loud enough the speakers shake. However, ‘brat’ is not simply about bad tattoos, cocaine and sunglasses – it is laced with existential dread, crippled by nostalgia and unable to see past the grotesque of the modern day.
Although German banks and Boris Johnson alike have been slowly killing the trend of ‘brat summer’ by waving the lime green flag like they’re in on the joke (they’re not), and XCX herself declared the end of ‘brat summer’, rest assured the spirit of ‘brat’ is alive and well. When it comes to cinema, the ethos of XCX’s album has been around since the beginning of film, and although the summer of ‘brat’ may be coming to an end as the leaves turn orange, the essence of the trend is certainly sticking around across our cinema screens.
It should be noted that Charli XCX is something of a cinephile herself, having created the documentary Alone Together, which chronicles her attempt to create an album in 40 days during the first lockdown of 2020, curated a season this summer at New York’s favourite cult hot spot the Roxy Cinema and contributing the electric ‘Speed Drive’ to the hot-pink soundtrack of last summer: Barbie The Album. She’s also co-written her first film, with Jeremy O. Harris, and will make her acting debut next year in in Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death remake. Between all this and her avowed love of David Cronenberg, it’s no great leap to think of the films that embody the same reckless spirit of XCX’s certified-platinum sixth album.
Wild, sweaty, impulsive flicks have been around since the early days of filmmaking (Bride of Frankenstein is arguably very ‘brat’), with directors Yorgos Lanthimos and Ti West picking up the lime green baton in their respective features Poor Things and Pearl. ‘Brat Cinema’ detests any sort of glossy Hollywood treatment. These films are sighs of relief for those who have genuinely considered torching the car of someone who has wronged them – a rebellion against normative femininity, full of Freudian Id and eyeliner and ask: why be a polite and kind young lady when you can scream and commit crimes?
The wildly fun, off-beat Heathers from 1988 starring Winona Ryder is wonderfully ‘brat’ in its overtly narcissistic characters and relentless violence in the name of quote-unquote feminism. Věra Chytilová’s 1966 film Daisies, which sees two ravenous teenage girls embark on a lethal plot in an attempt to simultaneously consume and destroy the materialistic world around them, is also spectacularly ‘brat’ in its gleeful anarchy and lack of self-consciousness.
Moving into the noughties, Jennifer’s Body, Spring Breakers, St Trinian’s and The Bling Ring spring to mind as key examples from within the Brat Cinematic Universe. Equal parts lipgloss and bloodstains, these fan favourites ask what would happen if ‘it girls’ used their beauty and influence for worse, the results often being delightfully gory or similarly criminal in scope.
The feeling of ‘brat’ is ever-present in contemporary cinema too, as sexually-charged and cynical characters continue to run wild across our screens. Think of the eye-rolling, bratty protagonists of Halina Reijn’s horror-comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies (to which Charli XCX contributed a song), the chaos and anxiety which radiates from every scene of Bottoms and the 2020 release Shiva Baby which explodes with hot-headed recklessness (you may notice a common thread here in Rachel Sennott, who featured in the 365 music video).
Let me put it this way: if a film celebrates anarchy and absurdity, if it explores the sides of ourselves deemed ‘unladylike’ with rage and delight, and/or if it stars a bored teenage girl desperate for independence and a good time – well, chances are you’ve come face-to-face with ‘brat cinema’.
These films ultimately not only offer something engaging and daring, but importantly resonate with queer communities much as Charli herself has been dubbed a ‘queer icon’. The shiny, heteronormative world of Hollywood hasn’t historically always resonated with marginalised communities, yet the outsider characters and lack of regard for tradition within ‘brat cinema’ have often provided queer communities with the opportunity to see something more akin to their own lived experiences on-screen, so whilst the term – and the film’s under its umbrella – perhaps don’t always receive a great level of prestige or appreciation, to a vast community of people, they are immeasurably important.
The most important aspect of ‘brat cinema’ however – cool slo-mos and gory body horror aside – is the fact the term can only be applied in retrospect. If media companies start consciously producing films with lime green in mind (and it would be no surprise to anyone if they did given the corporate impulse to commodify anything ‘the youth’ enjoy) ‘brat’ loses its authenticity, it becomes corporate jargon thrown around in boardrooms – and there is nothing less ‘brat’ than capitalist conglomerates.
It’s similar to the way one cannot sit down with the intention to write a cult classic – they spring from subcultures and a secret language of references between movie-goers. It is the audience – not the big-wigs – who bring a film to that status and it is the audience, adorned in their black leather and white vests, who made ‘brat’ the phenomenon it has become. The ethos of XCX’s album runs like a sharp electric current through the history of cinema, unleashing fun, daring sides to characters and never shaming them for their (many) wrongdoings. Amidst the glamour and frivolity of Hollywood, films which uphold the brat philosophy advocate for the trashy, the imperfect, the joyous and resonate with marginalised people across the globe. But what does the future look like for the trend?
If the influence of ‘brat’ continues in the autumn despite XCX’s declaration – which considering the half-life of so many of these trends would be astronomically impressive – the term could easily become part of the critical lexicon as a shorthand for describing films which uphold its philosophy. While the prominence of ‘brat summer’ will surely dwindle as the evenings grow darker and colder, regardless of whatever will next capture our cultural imagination (Sabrina Carpenter’s new album is already causing commotion across the metaverse) ‘brat cinema’, cigarette in hand and lips pursed, is here to stay. It’s not just a colour – it’s a way of life.
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