When I was growing up, all I wanted to be was Nancy Drew. Smart, spunky, and dedicated to solving mysteries, she was fearless in her pursuit of the truth. And I wasn’t the only one – Nancy Drew was so popular that she inspired a whole genre, known as the “girl detective” story, often following a teenage girl as an amateur sleuth. To me, there is something inherently feminist about this genre because teenage girls are so often underestimated. And this fact is often what makes them so effective at playing detective on-screen: asking invasive questions, breaking unspoken rules of etiquette without consequence, sneaking around, never having to worry about being thought of as a threat or seeker of justice.
In the past two decades, we’ve seen this trope make its way back to multiple film and TV projects including Veronica Mars and Wednesday. While the feminist take is embedded into how Veronica and Wednesday Addams are portrayed, there are projects like Netflix’s duology Enola Holmes that play up the “girl power” too much, using it more as a marketing tactic than something genuine. That’s why I loved Netflix’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which finally takes the girl detective story in a brand-new direction.
Based on the novel by Holly Jackson, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder follows Pip Fitz-Amobi, who becomes an amateur sleuth when she decides to investigate the local murder-suicide of Andie Bell and her boyfriend Sal Singh from five years prior for her school project. Besides her sweater vest outfits and cozy bedroom, there is so much I love about Pip as a protagonist. Admittedly, I initially thought she was the shy girl I’ve seen a million times before – the kind of teenage girl who doesn’t go to parties, scoffs at normal teenage behavior, never gets into trouble, and keeps her nose always in a book. But as the show and her investigation continued, that impression completely fell apart – there were moments when even Pip surprised herself with her own bravery. She was willing to openly disobey her parents, talk to drug dealers, run from cops, catfish a friend, and even break into the murdered girl’s house, all in the pursuit of truth and justice (though I have to say, as a journalist, the fact that she doesn’t get consent to record her conversations with interviewees does scare me).
At the same time, Pip is not a “strong female character” or a lone wolf who cuts everybody else off – and her ability to break type advances the genre with a positive example of girlhood. In A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Pip holds onto her supportive, open network of friends and family members, relying on them to help her find evidence or clues. She takes breaks from her investigation to go camping with her friends. She starts a romantic relationship with a respectful, worthy boy in her town. I feel as if I know her and could be friends with her, even while she makes questionable decisions because they’re getting her to the heart of the truth. In short, she acts and feels like a real person.
If this were a different timeline, maybe that wouldn’t be such a radical idea. But we live in a world where girls and women are constantly sexualized, objectified, underestimated, mistreated, and taken advantage of. To see a girl treated like a human being felt refreshing to me, especially in a genre where a girl being powerful is supposed to be a given.
It’s also genre-bending that Pip is facing a world where violence against women is not only normalized but hidden. The whole reason she investigates Andie’s death is that everyone in town has accepted the official narrative of her boyfriend Sal murdering her before killing himself. Pip is the only one who dares to think differently, who finds out the truth that others would rather stay secret. She’s the only one who realizes that Andie’s death could’ve been prevented if someone had protected her, if she’d not been the victim of multiple acts of violence from people she trusted and made out to be the villain. And in doing so, Pip frees them both.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for several more seasons of the show to coincide with the other three novels in the series. Pip is a girl who deserves to be seen on screen, especially when there are so many other mysteries left to be solved.
