Odd Girl Out

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Odd Girl Out is a 2005 made-for-TV teen drama film starring Alexa Vega, Leah Pipes and Lisa Vidal. Vega plays Vanessa, a 14-year-old student who is ostracized by her friends and relentlessly bullied to extreme measures. Her mother is fully aware of the bullying and struggles to fight against it, despite the faculty's indifference to many of the attacks.

Tropes used in Odd Girl Out include:
  • Adults Are Useless: Apart from Vanessa's mother, all other adults allow the bullying to continue. The teachers ignore it, Stacy's mother insists Vanessa is overreacting and the principal doesn't take action until Vanessa's suicide attempt.
  • Alpha Bitch: Nikki, though Stacy is the leader of the group.
  • Backstabbing the Alpha Bitch: While Vanessa's original status as Alpha Bitch is debatable, Tiffany is outside the clique at the start and immediately moves herself in to take part in the bullying once Vanessa has been kicked out.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Stacy.
  • Black Best Friend: Emily becomes this for Vanessa.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Played with. Blond Tony is a nice guy, though blond Ezra is a dickhead.
  • Blondes Are Evil: Also played with. Blond Tiffany is just a desperate wannabe so her participation in the bullying is likely just survival.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: The school's lighting is unbelievably dark, obviously to symbolise the type of environment it is.
  • Complete Monster: Nikki. While Stacy shows at least some remorse in places, Nikki clearly loves the bullying even when Vanessa attempts suicide.
  • Cool Loser: Emily.
  • Despair Event Horizon: After being stood up for a party by her former friends, Vanessa deliberately overdoses on sleeping pills.
  • The Dragon: Nikki to Stacy.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Stacy is pretty shocked at Vanessa's suicide attempt. Nikki not so much.
  • Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Vanessa and Stacy have been best friends since childhood, though Stacy inexplicably turns on her through Nikki's influence.
  • The Ghost: Vanessa's father, who is only "seen" through phone calls.
  • Girl Posse
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Invoked by the girls, who deliberately make fun of Vanessa's weight, despite her looking very healthy for her age.
  • Jerk Jock: Nikki is actually a female example, playing on the soccer team.
  • Karma Houdini: Nikki gets away scot free. Stacy gets a verbal smackdown laid on her by Vanessa, but Nikki is not punished at all when she's arguably more evil than Stacy. By all rights she could realistically get a jail sentence for all she does in the film.
  • Kids Are Cruel: And how.
  • Loveable Jock: Tony, the boy Vanessa and Stacy like. Vanessa and Emily also count, being soccer players.
  • School Bullying Is Harmless: Averted and how!
  • Shut UP, Hannibal: Emily does this to Stacy after Vanessa's suicide attempt.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: The film is very Anvilicious but if the cases of Phoebe Prince and other bullied students are anything to go by then something has to be done about bullying. Vanessa was lucky that her suicide attempt didn't work and that she had people that wanted to help her.
  • Teens Are Monsters
  • There Are No Therapists: Vanessa's insecurities are all solved by a long talk with her mother and confronting the bullies.
  • Traumatic Haircut: After Vanessa overhears the girls making fun of her hair, she chops a lot of her hair off. When she shows up to school with her new hairstyle, the other girls post various cruel taunts about her hair on the Web site.
    • In a weird way it doubles as an Important Haircut because it's Vanessa chopping off her hair that makes her mother take note of what her daughter might be going through.
  • Woman Scorned: Stacy and Nikki start to turn against Vanessa when Tony shows interest in her instead of in Stacy.