Introduction to My Project: What is "Flyover Girls"?

I have always been fascinated with the idea of girlhood and transitions from adolescence to womanhood. As a young woman currently experiencing this transition myself, my confusion and curiosity are rampant, especially in regards to my relationship with the world around me – both in my community and in the grander scheme of things. Though girlhood is a fairly universal phenomenon in many aspects, I have never felt as though the experience of it has ever accurately been captured in the media, which is why I set out to do this project in the first place. Though the media is often pushed aside as trivial, I view it as an incredibly impactful part of human culture, and something with the power to transform experiences and opinions. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary for more media to exist that accurately reflects girlhood and womanhood; I figure if I can't already find it, why not make it myself?

With these values in mind, my initial goal for my project was to film a documentary called "Girlhood" focusing on the lives of girls growing up in different parts of the world who are often left out of the Westernized American media narrative. However, given my inexperience with film and the relatively short period of time over which this project would take place, I decided to take a simpler (but just as interesting and important) route with my documentary. When discussing my project with my parents, they brought to my attention the fact that, to the general population, Idaho is a mystery. To the mass media and the mass populace, Idaho is a mere “flyover state.” Even my personal experience of people’s unbelieving and confused reactions when I tell them that I am from Idaho is further proof of this phenomenon. This brought to me a grand realization: if America is just as in the dark about girls in Idaho as it is about girls in foreign countries, then instead of traveling great distances to foreign places, why not focus on the foreign places around me?

Through filming this documentary, I hope to bring light to the relative lack of knowledge not only about the lives of teenage girls, but also specifically the lives of those who live in “flyover states.” I’m doing this project because I want people to understand how much diversity can exist in such a lowly-populated state, and how different and expansive these levels of diversity are. I also want people to see honest, unsexualized, and uncommercialized portrayals of girlhood that are so often left in the dark by mass media. Additionally, on some level I’m doing this project for myself. Though I have grown up in Idaho, I have always been protected and shadowed by Sun Valley, which to me is almost like an island in the middle of this red state. I really think I can’t truly call myself an Idahoan until I understand the perspectives of those outside of the Blaine County bubble and even the Community School bubble, and in doing this project I hope to reverse the stereotypes that have been ingrained into my own head by my surroundings and the media. I am so excited to pursue this!