Molly Ringwald on the gross sexual behavior in Sixteen Candles

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This’ll sound like hair splitting, but “incels” didn’t exist back then. Incels are a toxic subculture–not literally any heterosexual man who cannot attract a woman due to their insecure habits and attitudes towards women. Besides, an incel would not behave as Duckie did.

Actually, I’m sort of desperate that we not use incel so casually. The last thing I want to see is the movement grow because people get confused into joining it by their (extremely common, often temporary) awkwardness and personal foibles. Incels are incels by choice, in more ways than one. They have their own slang and very specific belief system. All other problematic behaviors fall under their own umbrellas, and are built on ideals and values that are far older than incels.

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I can actually hear her saying this. What an actor, and awesome character.

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I think this got posted once before.

I’ll say what I said then again: I’m not sure I like venerating someone who did a problematic movie, pocketed the cash, then comes out 20 years later to wring their hands.

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As opposed to someone who never grows as a person and just keeps saying and doing the same things again and again?

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Apparently the kind of person the GOP wants to see on the Supreme Court bench.

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God I love this film.

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This is such a great answer to the blowhards who come out of the gate (not really) asking why we aren’t allowed to have ANY nuance anymore because feminism. They loudly complain that NO ONE is allowed anything positive to say about anything that can be criticized from a feminist perapective. Well, here you have it guys. A nuanced perspective. They’re had and written about by intelligent, sensistive people all the time. What we meant was we didn’t want to hear from you (but you knew that)

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You’re taking Molly Ringwald to task because she’s a 50-year-old woman who has enough capacity for growth and self-awareness to reflect on the problematic aspects of films she starred in as a teenager??

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No Small Affair? (Speaking of Jon Cryer…) Although the older brother does sneak a prostitute into the sleeping/unaware main character’s room.

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Not a teen movie, exactly.

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It’s for children…

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I always thought it was pretty clear he was the ghost of the marshal returning to exact revenge on everyone except the little person p much.

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But not officially. I think Clint’s always been coy about this point and in the original script it was supposed to be his brother.

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Just tell your children times change? Children can understand that just fine.

Hell, emancipation/feminism is not ‘finished’ (by far) even now, so it’s quite understandable it was worse then.

The idea that a man must take the initiative and a women must play hard to get is deeply ingrained in western (among others) culture, so it’s a useful subject to talk about with your children anyway.

I tend to think of the classic Hollywood movies as good starting points for these conversations.

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Urg.

Times change. The movies were not seen as problematic then, at least not by the majority of people.

This kind of holier-than-thou witchhunts is detrimental to the discussion imho. More Desmond Tutu please, and less Clint Eastwood.

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I certainly don’t dispute that, but WS was about two teen boys who wanted to make a sexbotwoman, of sorts. Seems like low-hanging fruit to me.

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It’s fun for the whole family… that has to count right.

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There’s nothing wrong with being depressed because you can’t seem to find a girl. But these are guys that get ANGRY at women for not sleeping with them…for not getting as much sex as they think that they are entitled to.

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By the standards of '80’s teen movies, Weird Science is rather surprisingly feminist.

Sure, there’s still plenty to critique, but:

  1. Gary and Wyatt don’t actually have sex with Lisa
  2. Lisa is very obviously in charge of every scene she appears in
  3. The basic plot could be summarised as “two immature idiots learn that women are people you should talk to, not objects to be won”.

They thought they were creating a sexbot; what they actually got was an educational djinn.

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I suspect angry is a coping strategy and depressed is the underlying thing they try to cope with.

Doesn’t make it right, but I think I think it’s more useful to see them as ‘having a problem’ than as ‘being a problem’. The second view is not going to solve the problem at hand (even though it is still also true).

edit: That something like r/incels and the likes exists is a problem in itself of course. I more and more get the feeling this is a problem with the internetz itselves. I used to think global communication would solve a lot of problems, but it seems to create quite a few as well…