One of the best parts of the human experience is having a big ol’ crush — the pitter-patter of your heartbeat, the swell of euphoria when you see the object of your affections, the desire to just squeal with joy! At Polygon, though, we’re very flexible about how we interpret “crush.” Brief-yet-intense infatuations don’t necessarily have to be on real people (or even on people!), or even romantic. Since I have many many (many) crushes, I’ve decided to share the energy of writing their names over and over again in 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 Goofy Movie is back in the zeitgeist at the moment. There’s been a sudden wave of fan-created animatics of Goofy’s son Max and his rival, the skateboarding frat boy Bradley Uppercrust III, flooding TikTok. Their relationship even clocked in at No. 6 on last week’s Tumblr Fandometric ranking for movies, with the tag full of romantic fan art. Most of the resurgence is focused on the “Maxley” ship between Max and Bradley, and it’s clear what’s driving that: There’s an enduring appeal in an enemies-to-lovers pairing. And some of these edits also toss in some queer longing to really drive up the drama.
But personally, when I think of An Extremely Goofy Movie, the first thing that comes to mind is Beret Girl.
Goofy’s son Max and his pals first meet the mysterious, never named beret-clad gal when she performs a slam poem at some hip café. But that isn’t her most awesome moment. After Bradley gets aggressive with Max at her show, she swoops in to put Bradley in his place, getting the entire café to aggressively snap at him until he and his cronies leave. She’s striking and creative and has a killer sense of fashion, with her commitment to the all-black look and that sultry purple eyeliner.
Since Beret Girl isn’t credited with an actual name, many Disney fans have decided her name is Mocha Chino, since Bradley calls her “little Miss Mochaccino” to dismiss her. But that does make 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, it gave me completely unrealistic expectations for how cool college would be. Namely that there would be artsy spoken-word poetry events in underground cafés, campus librarians would be into disco, and everyone would be really invested in skateboarding. (Maybe this was true in the year 2000, but it wasn’t true a decade later.) But Beret Girl gave me the most unrealistic expectation: that there would be beautiful, rhyming black-clad girls around to chew out all the douchey frat boys.
Image: Disney
Rewatching An Extremely Goofy Movie today is a fun nostalgia trip, and the current wave of TikToks and Tumblr art has reminded me that there definitely is a lot of homoerotic tension going on with Max and Bradley. I love that people are rewatching or discovering the film, and finding joy in giving Bradley and Max’s antagonistic relationship a flirtatious and romantic edge.
But personally, I’m still out here replaying Beret Girl’s two minutes of screen time over and over and over again. Suddenly, I’m back in third grade, watching An Extremely Goofy Movie in class, because we had a substitute teacher without a lesson plan. And this super cool, confident, artsy girl takes center stage, commanding a room with her presence. She makes an impression! I latched on to how cool she was at age 8, and I never fully let go, even if that kinda evolved from wanting to hang out with her to wanting to be her to wanting to hold her hand and have her defend me from Bradley Uppercrust III.
Once again, I am doomed to love a background character this week. Maybe next time I’ll find a worthy crush in a main character. Hopefully you’re having a better time of it than I am. Let me know who you’re crushing on!