In this running series on my favorite misunderstood little girls (of literary and film fame), a close second-place (after bad seed Rhoda Penmark) goes to:Name: Regan MacNeil (in "The Exorcist"1973)
Signature Line: "NOW KINDLY UNDO THESE STRAPS!"
Reason to Love Her: The gleeful, "I-just-did-something naughty" look on her face when she kills Father Merrin. Give the girl a cookie.
Reason She's Misunderstood: "Possession" is really just a metaphor for the onset of puberty in pre-teen girls. Regan, who is around 12 years old at the time of her "possession," is merely a symbol of male fear of female power.If She Were My Child: I would accept the pills offered by the Georgetown Hospital doctor, take them myself, and bring Regan to a "wild woman weekend" in Berkely, where we'd howl at the moon together and celebrate her womanhood. A few years later, she'd get early acceptance at Oberlin and write her senior thesis on something like : "Beyond Exorcism: A Happy Medium for Catholicism and Menses."
