One of the best parts of the human experience is having one big crush – the ticking of your heartbeat, the rush of euphoria when you see the object of your affection, the desire to just scream with joy! However, at Polygon we are very flexible in how we interpret ‘in love’. Short but intense crushes doesn’t necessarily have to be on real people (or even people!), or even romantic. Since I have many (many) crushes, I decided to share the energy of writing their names over and over again with a sparkly gel pen in a journal.
This week’s crush: Beret Girl from An Extremely Goofy Movie!
The 2000 animated Disney direct-to-video comedy An extremely crazy movie is currently back in the zeitgeist. There has been a sudden wave of fans animations of Goofy’s son Max and his rivalthe skateboarding frat boy Bradley Uppercrust III, floods TikTok. Their relationship was even number 6 last week Tumblr Fandometric Rankings for Movieswith the tag full romantic fan art. Most of the revival focuses on the “Maxley” ship between Max and Bradley, and it’s clear what drives it: there’s an enduring attraction in a combination of enemies and lovers. And some of these edits also create a strange desire to really ramp up the drama.
But personally, when I think about it An extremely crazy moviethe first thing that comes to mind is Beret Girl.
Goofy’s son Max and his friends first meet the mysterious, never-named, beret-clad girl when she performs a slam poem at a hip cafe. But that’s not her greatest moment. After Bradley becomes aggressive towards Max during her show, she comes in to put Bradley in his place, causing the entire cafe to become aggressive towards him until he and his cronies leave. Striking and creative, she has a great fashion sense, with her dedication to the all-black look and that sultry purple eyeliner.
Because Beret Girl doesn’t get a real name, much Disney fans have decided that her name is Mocha Chino, as Bradley calls her “little Miss Mochaccino” to dismiss her. But that makes for a pretty sick name, so we’re reclaiming it from Bradley!
When I first watched this movie as a kid in the early 2000s, I was given completely unrealistic expectations about how cool college would be. Namely, that there would be artsy spoken-word poetry events in underground cafes, that librarians on campus would enjoy disco, and that everyone Real invested in skateboarding. (Maybe this was true in the year 2000, but not ten years later.) But Beret Girl gave me the most unrealistic expectation: that there would be beautiful, rhyming, black-clad girls to chew out all the stupid students.
Image: Disney
Watch again An extremely crazy movie today is a fun nostalgia trip, and the current wave of TikToks and Tumblr art has reminded me that there’s definitely a lot of homoerotic tension going on between Max and Bradley. I’m excited for people to rewatch or rediscover the film and find joy in bringing a flirty and romantic touch to the adversarial relationship between Bradley and Max.
But personally, I’m still here rehashing Beret Girl’s two minutes of screen time over and over again. Suddenly I’m back in third grade watching An extremely crazy movie in the classroom because we had a substitute teacher with no lesson plan. And this super cool, confident, artsy girl takes center stage and commands the room with her presence. She impresses! I held on to how cool she was at age 8, and I never really let go, even though that went from wanting to hang out with her to wanting to be her to wanting to hold her hand and let her defend me vs. Bradley Uppercrust III.
Once again, I’m doomed to love a background character this week. Maybe next time I’ll find a worthy crush in a main character. Hopefully you have it better than me. Let me know who you have a crush on!