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Charnice Horne is a Gen Z writer who strives to make cultural criticism pieces at the intersection of politics and pop culture. This is often reflected through her writings on the website and her fun takes on films and television. She is a recent Political Science graduate from North Carolina looking to make even bigger waves at The Cinema Spot. 🙂
Coming-of-age is a genre that can be very complicated to stick the landing with so many of its infamous predecessors. One truly has to admire the genre with how these stories have such a broad range in the capabilities of what types of stories can be told. This is why Callie Carpinteri and Emma Parks’ Tribeca short film, Dirty Towel, is undoubtedly an epic coming-of-age story that people will likely reference in years to come when discussing the evolution of the genre. There is nothing better than a coming-of-age story about girlhood and the things that young women can potentially experience while growing up and gaining more from life experiences.
Tribeca’s Dirty Towel Synopsis
According to the Tribeca website, here is the logline for Dirty Towel.
A teenage girl grapples with feelings of shame and guilt after having sex for the first time, leading to a thoughtful exploration of generational shame, societal expectations, and self-worth.
Tribeca Film Festival
Discussion
The Tribeca short begins with establishing a dirty towel as a metaphor, as the mother, Elizabeth (Laura Coover), is trying to prevent her daughter, Charlie (Parks) from engaging in sexual intercourse before she’s ready and of age. She uses a towel to demonstrate why she should not be interested in intercourse as well as in trying to scare her daughter out of potentially making a “mistake”. She goes on to instill in our protagonist how “no one will want to touch a dirty towel”. This implies that once she experiences losing her girlhood she will no longer be clean or pure. Elizabeth is very strict and clearly wants the best for her daughter. Yet, in doing so, she instills unhealthy expectations and unrealistic expectations into the protagonist that she goes on to carry within her adolescent life.
Going further into the story of this short, we then see Charlie actually come of age, and she experiences intercourse for what is presumed to be the first time in her life. She enjoys it and is happy, but is quickly brought back to the reality of the situation that she is a young woman and that there are often consequences to come with having intercourse that she must deal with. It is when she sees that towel on the ground that we are immediately brought back to the original premise of the film. That is the idea that “no one will want to touch a dirty towel” or a “used towel”. Our protagonist cannot truly enjoy the aspect of coming of age and becoming a young woman because she has this notion in her mind that she has essentially done something wrong or has committed a crime. Charlie spends the rest of the film contemplating or believing that people are staring at her or even shaming her for engaging in intercourse. The idea of being a used and disposable towel repeatedly haunts our protagonist.
The final act in this Tribeca short is when the character goes back home to see her mom, and she still questions if she will be seen as enough. In the final act, Charlie and Elizabeth are at the laundry mat and they encounter a stained towel. The mom, of course, wants to throw away the towel because it is dirty and used. However, our protagonist delivers an exceptional monologue explaining that just because something has a stain or dirt on it does not mean it is no longer good or deserving of love. It just means that it, or in this case, a person, has had a true life experience that does not take away from who the individual is. Elizabeth agrees with Charlie and decides to keep the towel. The film ends with the mom asking her daughter, “Did you have sex?”, to which I hope there is another film that happens after this because I want to see what would follow, although this is obviously up to the viewer’s interpretation.
Final Thoughts on Dirty Towel
Dirty Towel is a phenomenal short story at Tribeca about how young women experience the transition from girlhood to womanhood and can often be extremely harsh on themselves because of certain societal expectations and beliefs. This short film was created in such a way that it will connect with many audiences, but more specifically young women, from all kinds of backgrounds. Emma Parks’ delivery of her final monologue is executed flawlessly and truly brings forward the deep emotion about being a young woman in this world and experiencing so much going on in your body and life all at once. One can only be excited for the future films that director Callie Carpinteri will be making in the future. Carpinteri has a clear knack for deep storytelling and emotional detail that can make anyone from a range of backgrounds feel seen and heard. The coming-of-age genre has a bright future with creatives like Carpinteri and Parks at the helm of it all.
Rating: 5/5
Callie Carpinteri and Emma Parks’ Dirty Towel is now screening at the Tribeca Film Festival!
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Charnice Horne is a Gen Z writer who strives to make cultural criticism pieces at the intersection of politics and pop culture. This is often reflected through her writings on the website and her fun takes on films and television. She is a recent Political Science graduate from North Carolina looking to make even bigger waves at The Cinema Spot. 🙂
This article was edited by John Tangalin.