So, I have this theory. Protagonists Christine “Lady Bird” 
McPherson of the 2017 film, “Lady Bird” and Frances Halladay 
of the 2012 film “Frances Ha” are the same character. If you’ve 
seen both of their eponymous movies, maybe you’ve instinctively 
understood their superficial connections to one another; Both 
are from Sacramento, attend school in New York and explore the 
concept of youth with unmistakably bright verve.
Yet, to pretend that their connective tissue is coincidence would 
be silly. They are both pieces of Greta Gerwig’s own experiences 
(she wrote and directed “Lady Bird” on top of penning “Frances 
Ha”). For me, it’s impossible to totally separate the characters, 
because, despite their myriad differences, they speak together 
in a pricklingly honest way about what it means to become an 
adult amid the brilliance, failures and compromises of one’s own 
dreams.
“Sophie and I are the same person with different hair.”
Let’s be clear about something. Where Frances and Lady 
Bird are similar — in their confident insistence on their own 
goals, the economic constraints on their passions and a clarity 
in communication that leaps out of them even when they aren’t 
speaking — they are vastly different too. Lady Bird is frequently 
stoic, incessant and self-certain about her desires, while Frances 
often holds back with immeasurable wisdom. 
But these divergent character inflections are what make their 
connection so fascinating. If “Lady Bird” explores the idealism 
and the beckoning promise of growing up, then “Frances Ha” 
admits the necessary, all-consuming strife that comes with that 
pursuit. Lady Bird’s dreams are soaring, luminous promises more 
than they are tangible things. She wants to move out of what 
she dubs “the Midwest of California” and expand her cultural 
horizons. She wants the world to know who she is. 
Frances, while never explicitly shying away from any of 
these hopes, finds herself constrained by her (literally) gray 
surroundings. For her, the steps in achieving what she wants are 
often sacrifices. Staying on a lease with her roommate means 
damaging her relationship with her boyfriend. Flying to France 
for two days to see a colleague is an utter and lonely waste. 
Moreover, while Lady Bird’s friends possess a similarly 
unbridled optimism towards their dreams, Frances’s become 
stilted and hideously practical with adulthood. Nearly every word 
out of Lady Bird’s mouth is a declaration, a fact or an idea she 
means to make fact, whether it be her own stern insistence of her 
nickname or a heated blow towards her mother: “You give me a 
number for how much it cost to raise me, and I’m going to get 
older and make a lot of money and write you a check for what I 
owe you so that I NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN.” 
Perhaps Frances’s only comparably open moment is her 
monologue about love: “sort of like how they say other dimensions 
exist all around us but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. 
That’s ... that’s what I want out of a relationship.” Yet, upon this 
profound offering, her adult friends (mostly couples) merely nod 
and stare in silence. For them, the reality of love is likely a shade 
of Frances’ moving characterization. And regardless of whether 
her words are a futile wish or a demonstration of her mystical 
patience, it doesn’t matter. Lady Bird’s proud and electrifying 
defiance strikes eager, convivial peers. Frances’s words bounce 
off of deaf ears.
“I just got a tax rebate. You wanna go to dinner?”

Gerwig has demonstrated an uncanny ability to weave in 
threads of economic anxiety into her characters in a way that 
feels simultaneously real, essential and somehow optimistic. 
This is integral to both films; despite the differences in how Lady 
Bird and Frances articulate their wishes, they both encounter 
formidable financial obstacles in realizing them.

For Lady Bird, this economic anxiety manifests in the struggle 
of paying student loans. For her, the higher cost of attending 
school in New York is about so much more than the monetary 
value; she sees the city as a vibrant expression of the eccentric, 
marrow-deep creativity she has harbored inside of her for her 
whole life. For Frances, New York holds all of the same promise 
— it’s a stage where Frances can pursue her dreams of dancing. At 
the same time, the everyday economic struggles she faces come 
at direct cost to her — both socially and professionally. Moving in 
with her new friends means risking their frustration when she’s 
fired from a Christmas show at her dance company. In the midst 
of achieving her true aspirations, the limits of paying her bills 
have bitingly real consequences. On the other hand, Lady Bird’s 
ignorance about her own family’s financial burdens lasts until 
those burdens implicate her directly — refinancing a mortgage to 

pay student loans, shame at the comparative appeal of her house 
compared to her classmates.
The sacrifices Frances and Lady Bird must make due to their 
socioeconomic statuses may differ, and so do their ultimate 
outcomes. For Frances, adulthood salvation comes in the form 
of compromise, keeping an artistically meaningless office job at 
her old job in order to also hone her choreography skills. Lady 
Bird’s reckoning in the last few moments we see her — or perhaps, 
Christine’s, since here she reverts to her given name — are less 
overtly economic, but imply a transaction too. At a greater cost to 
her own family, she has moved far away from Sacramento. That 
distance should be freeing, but Christine’s ambiguous, unsure 
expression suggests otherwise. 
Gerwig, Master of the Self-Portrait
One pleasant surprise from the ending of Gerwig’s “Little 
Women” was the juxtaposition of the character Jo March onto 
the life of source text author Louisa May Alcott. The writer-
director turns Jo into the narrator of the story we’re watching, 
which demonstrates Gerwig’s understanding of the relationship 
between art and the artist. 
For Gerwig and those that love her work, that journey is surely 
worth the price. Beginning as a New York actress, in circumstances 
not dissimilar to Halladay’s, she has become without a doubt one 
of the most exciting directors today. 
To create films centered around their author is a bold and 
impressive feat if executed with the indelible care that Gerwig 
has. And between Lady Bird, Frances Halladay and Jo March, 
Gerwig shows genuinely impressive vulnerability in articulating 
the kinds of obstacles that the creators of art face. But in the 
search for an optimistic ending, perhaps one has to look no further 
than Gerwig herself, who has championed her own experiences in 
service of a parable that her whole career has been building to: the 
harrowing, surging, all-consuming process of making art can be 
artful in itself.

Sometimes an album’s lyrical content alludes to themes that explicitly 
or tangentially reflect the experiences and mentalities of younger 
people. Sometimes an album features a sound that evokes a youthful 
energy, like through springy chords or energetically chaotic melodies. 
Often the mere happenstance of an album’s release date aligning with 
the listener’s childhood can grant it a youthful quality in and of itself. 
MGMT managed to fulfill this trifecta as they unearthed the anthology 
of adolescent anthems better known as Oracular Spectacular. Though 
this quality of the album is obvious enough in isolation, it is impossible 
to ignore when the album is held alongside MGMT’s most recent full-
length creation, Little Dark Age. 
The differences in age begin to reveal themselves long before the first 
second of audio is played. Oracular Spectacular’s tracklist alone sets the 
tempo for the type of energy the record conveys as tracks like “Kids” 
and “The Youth” catch the listener’s attention as they hover above the 

play button. Conversely, “When You Die” and “Days That Got Away” 
indicate that Little Dark Age lacks the upbeat, carefree emotions of its 
predecessor of 11 years. But the forwardness of these indications does 
not undermine the substance of the actual songs, which further their 
titles’ indications of distinct points of maturity while contributing to 
equally distinct and high-quality albums.
In the very first verse of Oracular Spectacular, MGMT wastes no 
time caricaturing themselves as reckless young adults; they do so in a 
manner so hyperbolic that one would expect their words to come from 
a sitcom elder before telling the neighborhood delinquents to vacate the 
lawn. In the opening seconds of “Time to Pretend,” after asserting that 
they’re in the prime of their lives, MGMT have laid out their goals — 
getting rich quick, driving luxury cars, doing a medley drugs, marrying 
models, the works. As fluttery synths continue to remind the reader not 
to worry, MGMT defend their shortsightedness, pointing out that a short 
but eventful life beats out a monotonous job anyday. The song then goes 
from adolescent to altogether childlike, with the lyrics now reminiscing 
of playground days and an ultimate carelessness that couldn’t even be 

touched by later aspirations of living carelessly. Those were the days.
MGMT’s discussion of what they wanted to do takes on a sharply 
different meaning when it appears in the Little Dark Age song “One 
Thing Left to Try.” The more distorted and solemn synths that permeate 
through this album help the group convey their maturity and mortality 
on this track and others. MGMT profess their fear of dying knowing 
they had something left on their bucket list and imply that there will 
inevitably be something left on this list. Yes, this is the same MGMT 
that wants nothing more than to die young after a bout of euphoria and 
could not be less interested in the nuances of adulthood. But dying young 
and experiencing highs still remain on their mind, as though MGMT 
are unsure if they are fully ready to abandon their prior thrill-seeking, 
indifferent-to-death mentality. The bridge of the song finds itself in a 
tug-of-war as “Do you want to keep us alive?” and “Do you want to feel 
alive” are repeated over and over, as though the two are paradoxically 
mutually exclusive. This segment may hint that MGMT are scantly more 
mature than they were 11 years ago, but really, it parallels the nostalgia 
they expressed in “Time to Pretend.” Just as they once fantasized about 
the comfort of a childhood lacking responsibilities, they now remember 
the excitement of being a reckless, adrenaline-seeking adolescent. 
There is always something in the future left to do, and there is always 
something to reflect on from the past.
And there truly are concepts worth reflecting on from MGMT’s 
past. There are insightful moments throughout Oracular Spectacular, 
but they can be overshadowed by the more pervasive and less overtly 
thought-provoking dialogue. Perhaps this is reflective of adolescents 
— we are capable of birthing great ideas when we put our minds to it, 
but we’re not always putting our minds to it. There’s no denying that 
the notions of living in the moment established in “Time to Pretend” 
play a key role in the duration of the album; their interlockings with 
upbeat chords and psychedelic, dream-like sounds and imagery give the 
album its recognizably youthful sound. But the progressive warnings 
and beliefs sprinkled throughout the record are equally representative 

of the un-aged vigor that the album exudes. Throughout “Kids,” MGMT 
repeatedly urge the listener to be sustainable and wary of their usage of 
the Earth’s resources. “Control yourself, take only what you need from 
it.” Their proposed wariness extends to monetary resources as well. In 
“The Handshake,” MGMT stresses that people’s losses in the acquisition 
of great wealth can outweigh the wealth itself. “Black credit cards and 
shoes / You can call all the people you want / But it’s you who’s being 
used.” Maybe they’re more than just adolescent heathens.
The problems tackled in Little Dark Age tend to be more 
individualized, but they are also the ones that younger people — 
especially those described in MGMT’s debut album — are content 
not to concern themselves with just yet. The younger MGMT seem 
more than content with lustful, passionate exchanges like the one in 
“Electric Feel,” but Little Dark Age is punctuated by the mixed results 
of sought relationships. “She Works Out Too Much” and “When You 
Die” highlight the frustrations of someone who is at the age to settle 
down but can’t find success. Fortunately, the cycle might be broken in 
the `80s sounding piece “Me and Michael,” as the title pair are “solid as 
they come” and may end up having the enduring long-term relationship 
that many in their thirties yearn for.
There is another recently-developed, close attachment analyzed 
in Little Dark Age. “TSLAMP” stands for “Time Spent Looking At 
My Phone,” and it is time that MGMT resents. Often disregarded as 
a boomer-centric ideology projected upon younger generations, the 
condemnation of phone usage in the song is actually self-critical for 
MGMT. The group expresses personal disgust — over an inability to 
look away from the phone, over a terror at the prospect of its battery 
dying, over a love for the inanimate object. This exemplifies the 
album’s overarching nostalgia. MGMT recognize that their struggles 
with mortality, relationships and phones were much less prevalent in 
Oracular Spectacular’s 2007. But they accept that they’re at a little dark 
age, and they’re working and willing to get past it.

Youth, nostalgia and growth in MGMT’s albums

B-SIDE: MUSIC NOTEBOOK

Youth as a process in ‘Lady Bird’ and ‘Frances Ha’

B-SIDE: FILM NOTEBOOK

ANDREW PLUTA
Daily Book Review Editor

ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Film Editor

The song then goes from adolescent 
to altogether childlike, with the lyrics 
now reminiscing of playground days 
and an ultimate carelessness that 
couldn’t even by touched by later 
aspirations of living carelessly. Those 
were the days

For me, it is impossible to totally 
seperate the characters because, despite 
their myriad differences, they speak 
together in a pricklingly honest way 
about what it means to become an 
adult amid the brilliance, failures and 
compromises of one’s own dreams

A24

4B —Thursday, January 30, 2020
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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