“You know those Bettys, don’t you?”
“No, not really.”
This exchange, between Camille (Rachel Vinberg) and Bambi (Edmund Donovan), is a brief one in Betty’s second episode, but it speaks volumes in terms of setting the show’s scene. Bambi’s categorization of Janay (Dede Lovelace), Kirt (Nina Moran), Indigo (Ajani Russell), and Honeybear (Moonbear/Kabrina Adams), the young women skaters he’s referring to, as “those Bettys” signifies his dismissive attitude toward women skaters (and his lumping Camille in with them foreshadows the fuckboi-ness he’ll bring to their later interactions). Camille, who has a crush on Bambi and blew “those Bettys” off at the end of the previous episode, denies any tie to the other girl skaters, perhaps in a dual effort to erase the guilt she feels over ditching them and further tie her to the guys we’ve seen her hang with so far. Camille will soon come around to “those Bettys,” though. That’s what Betty is all about — these five young women and their search for community. Over six episodes, Janay, Kirt, Honeybear, Indigo, and Camille turn into each other’s chosen family, each coming into their own along the way. It’s the portrayal of friends-as-family, of these girl skaters carving out their own space in the male-dominated world of skateboarding, that elevated Betty to one of 2020’s best offerings.
HBO’s skate comedy, which premiered in May 2020 when much of the United States was living under peak COVID lockdown conditions, arrived as a taste of summer freedom and a treatise on a togetherness many viewers were (and are) sorely missing in our offscreen lives. Betty effectivelyquickly utilizes a combination of loose, realistic-feeling acting, camerawork that sometimes makes you feel like you’re on a skateboard yourself, and a smashing soundtrack to subtly overwhelm the senses and fully flesh its world out. It’s a world filled with hanging out, and you want to hang out, too. Plot happens — romantic drama, parental drama, sexual assault drama, and it’s a testament to Betty’s tight storytelling that it packs all this in and doesn’t feel overstuffed or rushed — but the foundation of the story is these five women and their growing bond.
The show starts off with best friends Janay and Kirt in search of some community — they attempt to host a girls’ skate session in the first episode, but it’s a flop. Honeybear shows up, but Camille brushes them off, only to find herself needing their help when she later loses her backpack. By the end of the first episode, Kirt, Janay, Honeybear, and Indigo are on their way to becoming fast friends, but Camille ditches the four girls when she’s the only one granted entrance to an indoor skate park called Winter Bowl. By Episode 2, Honeybear is comfortable enough with her new friends Kirt and Indigo to confess that she likes another skater (Ash) and to fall asleep with them at the skatepark. In later episodes, Camille, Janay, and Honeybear spend some time in lockup together, helping them patch up the Winter Bowl rift. Indigo sacrifices money she was going to use to cover a drug debt to bail those three out; Kirt offers the others a heartfelt apology after a “time out” to reckon with her temper and getting her friends arrested; and Honeybear and Indigo support Janay as she confronts the realization that her best friend Donald has an established pattern of digitally violating and then gaslighting women. There are also smaller, looser moments in which the girls just shoot the shit together in between all of the big stuff. That’s friendship: being there for each other during the hard things, but also just chilling and teasing each other about a crush or an at-home wax gone bad.
The bonding is about more than friendship, though. From the get-go, there are subtle indications that the girls need their own skate community; that they need to stick together in a world where they seem to be outnumbered as “Bettys.” Characters’ sStories about, and onscreen interactions with, guys getting in their personal space visually, verbally, and physically all make this clear. Indigo is at first resistant to skating at the skate park because, “I don’t feel like having a bunch of thirsty-ass skater dudes looking at me.” Janay tells Camille about a creepy bus driver, and Camille points out that stuff like that is why they have boards, so they don’t have to take the bus. A skater bro bugs out when newbie Indigo knocks into him, and Kirt not only leaps to Indigo’s defense, but also later tells her new friend, “[…]what happened at the skate park isn’t fair. When a girl runs into a boy it’s a big fucking deal, but when a boy runs into a boy, it doesn’t even matter. And I want you to keep skateboarding.” Other examples include Bambi’s sudden cold shoulderis a dick to Camille, telling when he tells Camille her that “chicks always start bugging over nothing,” and the scene in which.” A bunch of skater guys use up Indigo’s weed pens and give her attitude when she attempts to reclaim them. Also, nNo girls seem to have a key to Winter Bowl (Camille only gets in with Bambi’s blessing).
Amid all that, who can blame Kirt and Janay for wanting to host an all-girl skate sesh? By the season finale, they’re trying again, but this time, they’ve got numbers on their side. Honeybear, Camille, and Indigo are helping spread the word now, too, and the result is a beautiful sight to behold. (Kirt, unfortunately, misses it due to a run-in with a car door, but Janay FaceTimes her in.) The girl skaters turn up, presumably because they’re all looking for a little bit of community themselves, and they take the streets, then the park, to the somewhat impressed bewilderment of the skater guys already there. The girls have claimed their space, and because we’ve gotten to know them and their world so well, so quickly, their claim feels necessary and welcome.
In a mere three hours of programming, Kirt, Honeybear, Janay, Indigo, and Camille have not only dealt with some serious personal goings-onstuff, but they’ve also managed to pull together thea robust all-girl skate gatheringsesh and expand their chosen skate family to a core group of five. Honeybear seems to be more herself around her skate crew than her biological family, as illustrated by the glimpse of a buttoned-up Honeybear (or “Elizabeth”) we see with her dad and grandma. Indigo’s mom kicks her out, but it looks like she can stay at Camille’s (who lives with her dad, though he’s never seen). Janay and Kirt’s families aren’t mentioned. The show’s poster tagline is “find your people,” and by the end, it’s clear that these five have done so. They’re also paying it forward, if Camille leaving her board for the young girl whose father disapproved of Camille and Kirt teaching her to skate is any indication. Skateboarding isn’t a team sport, but the young women of Betty ultimately realize they’re stronger together in the male-dominated world of skating, and that life (and skating, which for them, is life) is better with one another in it — and so is the show itself.
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