Paul Wendkos\u2019 film starts with our titular heroine, Francie Lawrence, going on a \u201cman hunt\u201d with her friends. Compared to her more buxom and developed compatriots, Francie is lithe and underdeveloped, almost child-like. (Dee sadly suffered from anorexia her whole life and was always thin.) Her friends take a child-like activity like throwing a beach ball around and turn it into an advertisement for how desirable they are, but Francie actually wants to play and scamper or, when that fails, snorkel. <\/span><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t presented as demeaning to Francie as a character. She\u2019s highly educated and aware of her disinterest in attracting the opposite sex. In fact she\u2019s more perceptive than her friends, flat-out stating \u201cthose guys just aren\u2019t interested.\u201d Where Francie\u2019s friends see her as a buzzkill against their summer search for men, she is able to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the beach rats her friends are attempting to seduce. By not caring about whether she attracts male attention, and taking up a male sport, she comes off as more intuitive of the male psyche. <\/span><\/p>\n When Francie describes surfing, her words imply a deep-seated romantic relationship with shades of an emotional, orgasmic experience. \u201cYou can\u2019t imagine the thrill of shooting the curl. It positively surpasses every living emotion I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d she tells her parents. Even her mother coyly agrees that her daughter makes surfing \u201csound attractive.\u201d Upon buying her surfboard, Francie continues this line of intense, pleasurable discourse, describing surfing to Kahuna as \u201clike nothing I ever felt before. Whoop, we\u2019re on an elevator headed for the sky! And then, zoom, speeding across the ocean on top of the world. It was the ultimate!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n But Francie\u2019s attempts to achieve \u201cthe ultimate\u201d come with serious connotations that are difficult to separate from their sexual themes. She lies about her experience level to Kahuna and the other boys in an attempt to gain their respect, leaving her to almost drown and be saved by Moondoggie. After being plucked out of the drink, she\u2019s scared, but immediately demands to \u201cdo it again.\u201d As Francie takes on the mantle of Gidget (short for \u201cgirl midget\u201d), surfing takes on a more overt sexual connotation and becomes sex itself. <\/span><\/p>\n The boys\u2019 demeanor toward her changes, becoming more aggressive as she attempts to become part of their group. One of the boys takes her out for a private surf lesson. As Francie lies on her stomach on the board, the surfer starts pawing at her and eventually tries to climb on top of her. When Moondoggie breaks it up, the boy jokes, \u201cWe were just about to go in deeper,\u201d the double entendre grossly obvious. When Francie is finally accepted, it comes during a group \u201cinitiation.\u201d She is surrounded by all the boys in the water who force her to cut kelp. As Francie keeps popping up from the water with kelp, Moondoggie demands more, pushing her head down in a moment that feels like an assault and culminates with Gidget nearly drowning. After passing the initiation and becoming Gidget, the rest of the boys fail to see her as a sexual object; this is coupled by the arrival of the \u201cwill they or won\u2019t they\u201d romance that develops between Gidget, Moondoggie \u2026 and Kahuna.<\/span><\/p>\n Once Francie learns to surf and become one of the boys, the sexual symbolism in surfing starts to manifest literally, bleeding out of the board and into Gidget\u2019s real life. She starts asking her mother about funny feelings she has, that she\u2019s never felt with other boys in school. Though the object of her affection is obviously Moondoogie, the other boys\u2019 growing attraction to her increases her sexual potency, making her catnip to everyone. Things come to a head during the big luau, which one of the boys openly (albeit jokingly) calls \u201can orgy,\u201d which Gidget believes will give her the opportunity to make Moondoggie jealous.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/gidget9.png\")
<\/a>The boys and men who are entranced by surfing are as stereotypical as their names (one of which is Loverboy). Their leader, Kahuna (played by Cliff Robertson) is the majordomo of the surf bums who lives in a hut on the beach. In a pre-emptive nod at the burgeoning hippie movement, Kahuna would rather be homeless than engage in pleasing the government by getting a job and settling down. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the young Moondoggie (James Darren), a wealthy son of privilege who sees surfing as a means of sticking it to his father. In comparison to Francie, both men utilize surfing as a means of rebellion, their passion for it tempered by what they\u2019re using it to avoid. Francie is seduced by the concept of surfing itself, not the men she\u2019ll attract from it. She engages with something she\u2019s passionate about, and her confidence and ability (soon on par and surpassing that of the pros) makes her attractive to the other boys, particularly Moondoggie.<\/span><\/p>\n