I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

*Edited for better descriptions*
I judged teen film entrants for Digital Days tonight. I saw 20 films, mostly shorts. 3 were outstanding, many were good first efforts in film (especially for teens!) and some....well, they bothered me.

They were all by girls. Teen girls.

They were set to depressing music, and ranged from opportunities to play dress up with a camera on, or wanders into aimless self-portrait exploration, or poetry and diary readings against images of lone feminine despair. Here's one walking along the beach, while a voice reads this angst-ridden poem. There's one writing a sad diary on her battle with depression, and we see her sitting at cliff's edge, dangerously.

All featured dark themes of angst, even when they started out looking like they'd be bodice rippers.

And they were made by upper class girls residing in an uber nice neighborhood in Santa Barbara. Hardly a den of despair with pristine beaches, red-tiled roofs and sunshine.

What's going on, girls? I want to know.

Later edit:
I felt like watching these girls' films, especially against the boys, that girls' creative voices are muted somehow. The boys' films were all predictable action-adventure or reality-mockups. But the girls' felt more like abstract art - things being dismantled and picked apart, with themes of despair. Were they dressing up for the camera because that's what they do in life? Dress up to play their part? When I was a girl, and still even now, sometimes it feels like that, I am dressing up, playing the part, sometimes of the tart.

Where is the story girls can tell? Where is the story they can express and explore on film? Is it not done in life? Is that why it's mute on their film images?