The J Girls

A Reality Show

Rochelle Hurt

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780253060600
• eBook ISBN: 9780253060624
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Film Screenplays
• Index: Literature

Jocelyn, Jodie, Jennifer, Jacqui, Joelle. Ignoring the optimistic advice of elders, these five working-class teens in the Rust Belt band together in their embrace of bad behavior and poor taste as they navigate sexuality and identity with loud-mouthed joy and clear-eyed cynicism.
 
Winner of the 2021 Blue Light Books Prize, Rochelle Hurt's The J Girls: A Reality Show is a tribute to the grit and glitter of millennial girlhood and a testament to its dangers and traumas. Hurt's creative, genre-bending mix of poetry, fiction, and screenplay brings the girls to life with campy performances of monologues, soap opera clips, mock interviews, talk shows, commercials, and even burlesque. Vulgar, rhapsodic language serves as costume and shield, allowing the J Girls to script their own images and project glowing, outsized versions of themselves into the safe space of the TV screen. 

Playful and poignant, The J Girls is a flashy ode to performance and a nostalgic elegy for adolescent friendships.

EPISODE 1

The J Girls Get High

(1997)

Monologue: Jocelyn

INT. SCHOOL CAFETERIA – DAY. JOCELYN stands in an empty cafeteria wearing a red tube top and a silver miniskirt. Posters hang on the wall behind her: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”; the “Hang in There” kitten; a diagram of a cartoon girl that illustrates proper skirt length and notes, “All hair colors must come directly from God”; a flyer for Modesty Club, on which someone has drawn a vulva.

Less Is More

We fast through lunch & pocket pills at recess.

Gold letters on our gym-class asses crown us

each a Princess.

School nuns scold, so we dig

little graves in our minds & they fill them

with etiquette. Bet they’ll better us yet.

In church,

our voices rise, a sour choir of spit & pride. We stir

the nuns’ words in our mouths till they curdle:

less is more.

At home, our mean mothers pour

Suave into Avon bottles, stacking dimes as we lie

like strips of jerky on our roofs.

We tan. We turn.

We cure ourselves & wonder: How far down

our throats can these new woman hands go?

Together we trace rows of looping red Xs & Os

into our arms with paring knives. We carve our skin

to the bone,

becoming instruments of less—

but we make it up in excess: rhinestone eyelids,

two-inch acrylics, hair frosted in three tones.

Each hotbox ride with garage boys is a fantasy

of proving the nuns right:

we see the road stop

like a cartoon cliff & we’re driving on air till

someone looks down & we drop & that’s all

we’ve wanted.

To hell with other kids’ futures,

our parents’ tired rising above.

A new high:

the long whistle of wind like a lullaby

against the slicked reeds of these whittled bodies

as we fall glittering to the bottom.

Monologue: Jodie

EXT. CHURCH FESTIVAL – DAY. JODIE sits at a picnic table. JENNIFER sits next to her, eating cotton candy and nodding. Beside the table is a garbage can overflowing with paper plates, soda cans, cigarette packs, and half-eaten funnel cakes. Dried nacho cheese trails down the side of the can, and a few yellow jackets hover.

Wifebeaters

A shirtless rack makes a cozy hang for beatings

if a girl’s hard-pressed or steamed. Words get worn

this way: at festivals, we tuck our violence in

our bras with cash for cigarettes and pretzels.

Neon sparks in spacious skulls—girlness is a gas

to tap, so we trap its heat against our breasts

and vent little whines when the Zipper cage flips us.

Whipped fright froths our kid lips, and we run

our mouths at the carnie hand-humping his lever

below. He holds us catawampus to better glimpse

our tits while shouts burst bright on blacktop sky.

For future wives, there is only coming down

from here, so we best burn serotonin slow

and tamp fissures with new clothes. Fashion

schools us: a slut can wear her insides out,

but sleevelessness is also cloak. Walmart magic:

black straps like tongues ventriloquize sex

into cotton undershirts—but if a boy sees

his own skivvies, it may be triggered fists. Still,

we tempt a hit, prepared to temper it with sheer force

of this half-flash. Soap won’t wash the bull’s-eyes off

our backsides, so why not don the darts ourselves?

Mimicry’s a prizeless game, but anyway,

the board is always rigged—even girls know that.

Monologue: Jennifer

INT. CHURCH – DAY. JENNIFER stands in front of a marble altar and large wooden crucifix, holding a bag of communion hosts and drinking from a silver wine goblet.

Prayer for Effacement

O my fear-snuffer, my sensitive sigh-huffer,

my infernal grace-breather, my sin-sucker,

my most holy vampire, my tawdry tear-drinker,

my gory grief-strainer, my pulpy vice-eater,

my dull mind-cleaver, my gentle heart surgeon,

my acid bath, my quick-drying limewash,

my most patient primer, my tongue-scrape,

my meticulous airbrush, my aerial light box,

my traveling sunspot, my beautiful cataract,

my personal snow machine, my salt-n-plow,

my spongy ink-blotter, my stack of sorrys,

my emergency stain stick, my cup of bleach,

my benevolent eraser—make me an eternal

thumbprint, your most stubborn spot of grease.

Monologue: Jacqui

EXT. PLAYGROUND – DUSK. JACQUI sits on a lawn chair in the grass and holds a can of Natural Light, from which she never drinks, instead waving it around for emphasis.

Middling

At half past nine, this park is a palace

of teenage bombast & angst-gilded crime.

Too proud to be vandals, we hike & heel

half miles at a time. Into the woods we go,

packing spliffs & a beer & half a line

of this boy’s blow. He splits it all with me

because I’m chill, though I know it’s because

I live uptown, straddling the tracks. His hands

flit & shimmer like ghosts around his face

as he r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Cast List
• Opening Credits: Adoration of the J Girls
• Episode 1: The J Girls Get High
• Episode 2: The J Girls Chase Tail
• Episode 3: The J Girls Give Face
• Episode 4: The J Girls Get Caught (on Camera)
• Episode 5: The J Girls Reunion
• Episode 6: The J Girls Cash Out
• End Credits: Beatitudes for Meek Girls
• Acknowledgments
• Credits
• About the Author