"You catfished me, caused me to almost be killed during my football game, kissed me without my consent, and faked being deaf, but you know what? You are exactly my type."

Catfishing:

lure (someone) into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.

The new Netflix original film, "Sierra Burgess is a Loser" has spiked quite the controversy on social media. There was a bit of anticipation for this film, given that we were shown a trailer that showed a plus sized girl as the lead. Most movies and shows tend to show thin girls to be the leads, so this was a nice change, and I think many girls felt as though they could possibly connect to this film and the character.

Unfortunately, the movie was not all it was cracked up to be in the trailer. From the trailer, we see what the overall premises of the story is: unpopular plus sized girl catfishes cute jock, reveals herself eventually, and they live happily ever after. From the trailer alone, many would think that the plot was decent. Yes, catfishing people is wrong, but hey, it's a movie! Crazier and more messed up things have happened on film. Just this simple plot point was not enough to spark controversy. Many people feel insecure about themselves and will pretend to be someone else online. While it is wrong to do and harmful for both parties, it happens. I think this is the reason why people did not give the trailer a second thought; we are used to seeing catfishing happen! I mean, MTV has a whole show about it after all.

I watched the movie myself about a week ago. The first half of the movie is decent. Nothing too crazy happens, there is some mild humor, and characters are being introduced. This first half could not have prepared me for what would happen next.

Here is a quick rundown of the movie: Sierra Burgess, the main character, puts up a sign at school to offer tutoring services and adds her phone number. Mean popular girl, Veronica takes down the sign and takes it with her (for some strange reason). Cute jock from another school, Jamey sees Veronica and her friends at a diner and asks for her number. Veronica gives Jamey Sierra's number that she conveniently had in her bag. Jamey texts Sierra, thinking she is the cute cheerleader from the diner. Sierra continues texting him, never revealing who she is. For some strange reason, Jamey says, "I know who you are, Veronica!" Letting Sierra know who he thinks she is. The reason I found this strange was that Jamey asked for Veronica's number IN PERSON! Of course, he knew who she was! He literally met her! After this, things get complicated and this is where all this controversy stems from.

Sierra offers to tutor Veronica on anything and everything to impress her new college "boyfriend" who said she was not smart enough if she agrees to help her catfish Jamey. The two begin working together and they end up facetiming Jamey. Sierra talks, Veronica mouths the words. I thought this was as far as that little charade would get, but no! It gets worse. Jamey calls Sierra and asks her (well, Veronica) out on a date. She agrees to go and has Veronica go on the date, while she sits behind them in the theater.

After the date, Veronica and Jamey are talking in front of his car, and Sierra comes in and hides under the car to listen to the conversation. She tells Veronica what to say the entire time, then the unimaginable happens. Jamey wants to kiss his date, shocking! Veronica asks Jamey to close his eyes for the kiss, then Sierra pops in and kisses the kid for a couple seconds, still covering his eyes. He was extremely confused but went with it. Non Consensual kissing is okay I guess? He had no idea he was kissing a girl he had never met.

Later on, Sierra and her best friend, Dan are picking up trash around a park when they see Jamey and his little brother playing catch. Dan intervenes in the games, trying to make conversation with Jamey. Sierra runs up to them and begins to sign, and badly. She signs, pretending she is deaf. I found this to be beyond messed up. She had no idea how to sign and she was faking a disability just because she didn't want him to hear her voice that would expose her. We find out that Jamey's little brother is actually deaf in this scene, which makes what she did even worse, in my opinion.

Sierra goes to a party with Veronica, overhears that her college boo, Spence, only told her she was dumb to make her feel insecure and sleep with him, sees her go off with him, and only calls her once to warn her. After the poor girl slept with this jerk and was dumped the next day, she decides against telling her anything at all. What a great friend!

A few days later, Sierra and Jamey's schools have a football game. Jamey is the quarterback, Sierra is in the band, and Veronica is head cheerleader, a perfect group for a Taylor Swift song. Anyway, Jamey walks off the bus, sees Veronica, and kisses her, right as Sierra walks by a window and sees the two locking lips. She walks off angrily and Veronica pushes Jamey off, not knowing what to do in the moment. Sierra hacks into Veronica's Instagram, and posts a picture of Veronica and Spence mid-makeout, with the words, DUMPED OVER DM on it, and showing the direct message. The whole school sees this quickly and they even put it on the big screen. Jamey sees the screen, gets distracted, and is tackled, receiving injuries.

The most messed up thing about this whole film is that despite all that Sierra did to both Jamey and Veronica, and Dan, her best friend who she forgets about, they ALL forgive her after she writes a song about her being a sunflower, not a rose. Jamey takes her to homecoming and kisses her and Veronica sees her at the dance and hugs her like nothing had happened. She did not deserve this perfectly happy ending! She did not even directly apologize to either person or show any regret for doing what she did. Also, the movie focused on the fact that Jamey liked her despite her looks, not for her in her entirety, which is a whole other topic, but overall, this film had way too many messed up things in it for my taste.