Derry Girls’ Michelle Mallon is the quintessential alpha girl – but how real is that act? When we’ve seen alpha girl characters onscreen before, they’re often cast as mean girls – master manipulators, school bullies, or just kind of annoyingly assertive. Initially Michelle could come across that way, too. But Derry Girls goes deeper into the alpha girl’s psychology to ask why they’re so determined to be the leader of the pack. Michelle is genuinely brimming with confidence and loves leading the others on pleasure-seeking adventures. At the same time, her brash exterior is also a coping mechanism employed to deal with a broken family, splintering friendship group, and tumultuous society.
Transcript
Derry Girls’ Michelle Mallon is the quintessential Alpha Girl. While Erin, Orla, and Claire are all some shade of meek, nervous, or unusual; the leader of their pack, Michelle, acts like she’s got it all figured out, and can’t wait for adulthood to start. But how real is that act? When we’ve seen alpha girl characters onscreen before, they’re often cast as mean girls: master manipulators, school bullies, or just kind of annoyingly assertive. Initially, Michelle could across that way too.
But Derry Girls goes deeper into the Alpha Girl’s psychology, to ask why they’re so determined to be the leader of the pack. Michelle is generally brimming with confidence and loves leading the others on pleasure-seeking adventures. At the same time, her brash exterior is also a coping mechanism employed to deal with a broken family, a splintering friendship group, and a tumultuous society. Here’s our Take on Michelle Mallon, and the hidden depths of the Alpha Girl:
Who is The Alpha Girl?
More than her classic good looks, fashionable clothes, and popularity with boys, the Alpha Girl in film and tv is defined by her extreme confidence and an instinct for leadership. In the high school period, when most adolescents are deeply insecure, the Alpha Girl projects the security of knowing who she is. She seems adult beyond their years, and this self-assurance becomes valuable currency.
Still, a deeper look into the Alpha Girl reveals a level of illusion. As confident as she appears, she’s still growing and developing. Unsure in many of the same ways as her more submissive friends.
As psychologist Mitch Pristine writes, “Alpha Girls establish a false sense of status through aggression.” Heather Chandler and Kathryn Merteuil are cruel, Cher Horowitz is self-absorbed, and Regina George is cunning and manipulative. And most of these characters are suggested to be deeply unhappy, thanks to their superficial and status-obsessed lifestyles.
But Derry Girls goes further than many past shows or films to give us an Alpha Girl in Michelle who’s not the stereotypical rich, popular, mean girl. The show is more interested in examining the nature of confidence, impulsive behavior, and the instinct to pursue leadership and status in a young, developing woman. In many ways, bold, extraverted, and brash Michelle does seem more confident than her peers, especially in her sexuality. In general, whereas the others tend to be cautious, Michelle is not afraid to take risks and loves to seek out adventures.
But Michelle’s boldness can also evaporate at a moment’s notice. She’s more away than the others of hierarchy, asserting her power when she knows her status is dominant but losing her nerve in the face of threats to that power. Even her sexual confidence can be mostly bravado, when she’s talking to her girlfriends she seems fearless and precocious, reveling in the idea that she’s the most adult one of the group. However, we rarely see her interacting with boys at length, so it’s unclear how much of her stories are teenage exaggerations, again to portray herself as the Alpha.
When a tarot reading suggests that she’s about to meet the love of her life, she clumsily throws herself at the first man she sees, who happens to be an IRA fugitive trying to cross the border. Eventually, it’s through also glimpsing the more vulnerable, less Alpha side of Michelle, that we get a fuller look behind the curtain at who she really is.
Michelle’s Hidden Fears
Derry Girls’ genius is dovetailing the lives of ordinary 90s teenagers with the turbulent real-world situation of a traumatic decade-long conflict. Much of the humor comes from how the troubles are treated almost like an inconvenience.
But it’s through Michelle’s bravado that we feel a powerful sense of the true impact of the conflict. Her Alpha behavior is her way of surviving and often ignoring the more painful realities.
In the finale, Michelle’s fear is brought to her surface when we find out just how closely the conflict intersects with her family. Her brother is in jail for killing someone in the struggle. Before this point, we haven’t really known much about Michelle’s home-life, and we suddenly realize how fractious and sad it really is.
Experiencing trauma at a young age can impact how someone experiences relationships. Marnie Fuhrman writes that “people with insecure attachment styles can be aggressive or unpredictable towards their loved ones,” and Michelle exemplifies this in these moments of crisis, pushing her friends away instead of reaching out to them for help.
Similarly, an insecure attachment can create adults who seem self-sufficient and assured, having been raised to be tough and resilient in the face of trauma. But again, this resilience creates a kind of lone-wolf attitude, which can involve keeping a distance from people.
This context helps illuminate some of Michelle’s other fears, like when she gets angry that James is planning to leave Derry and go back to England with his mother. Despite the fact that she spends most of the show making fun of him, he fills an important surrogate brother role to her. And similarly, when Erin tries to express her concerns about the fact that prisoners, including Michelle’s brother, will be released as part of the Good Friday Agreement, Michelle lashes out, unable to properly process her feelings.
So, underlying Michelle’s Alpha Girl status is a deep insecurity around the bonds she has formed and the solidity of the life she’s now living. This insecurity is rarely explored with depth in portrayals of Alpha Girls. For that, we can look more easily to stories of wannabe Alpha Males, whose layers are pulled back to reveal pain beneath the surface. In The Office, Michael Scott’s crude Alpha Male shtick stems from his desperate desire to be liked.
And in The Inbetweeners, the arrogant bravado of Jay, who in some respects feels like a male counterpart for Michelle, masks the fact that his father constantly bullies and belittles him. Michelle’s confidence may be a mask, but it’s one born from necessity.
Michelle, Hometown Punk Hero
What really separates Michelle from the rest of the group is how much she embodies the spirit of her home city, Derry. Even in the show’s opening monologue, we hear Erin bristle at how small and parochial Derry can be, and throughout the show, she has a more wide-eyed vision of where she sees herself. But Michelle staunchly defends her city. She recognizes that it has an underdog spirit, and it’s that spirit she identifies with.
In season three’s flashback episode, when we see the parents in their younger days, it’s clear how much of Michelle’s attitude is inherited from her mother, who also embodied something about their hometown. In her youth, Michelle’s mom is a rebellious punk, clearly the Alpha Girl of her group, who the others look to for excitement and danger.
Timothy Heron writes how “[punk rock] played a significant role in the everyday lives of a section of the youth of Northern Ireland.” In that era, Punk was a means for young people to form a new identity that was separate from the conflict being fought around them, allowing them to live a life on their own terms.
Michelle is the keeper of that punk flame a generation later. We see this right from the start when her anti-authoritarian attitude pushes her to reclaim the lipstick that is confiscated from her by one of the school nuns. And this extends to her riskier teenage behavior too. While her mother was encouraging her friends to get DIY tattoos, Michelle is smuggling alcohol away to gigs and wants to experiment with drugs.
But hers is not an aimless rebellion, it’s about trying to show that they’re not defined by the political situation they’re living in, and won’t have their lives entirely shaped or controlled by it. That in amongst the turmoil and uncertainty, they still have agency and the ability to make their own choices.
We’re used to Alpha Girls being mean girls, but Michelle shows us that doesn’t have to be the case. She may act like the leader, but she’s a team player. If she wasn’t such a brash, cocky Alpha, maybe the sadder reality would take over. And not just for her, but for the rest of the group too, so maybe you need to perform that confidence to get through a difficult situation. While other Alpha Girls may be out for themselves, Michelle’s confidence is a tide that raises all boats, allowing everyone to feel bolder and become who they want to be.