I have always been surprised at the fond memories people have of Hughes’ films. I never rewatched them (other than the fact that they were on loop on 90’s cable tv and inescapable), so my memory isn’t as sharp as some, but they always seemed to promote the worst ideals of their decade; popularity is paramount and conforming is the way to achieve it. For a misfit like me they always seemed like a slap in the face.
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With the first one tracking perfectly with Steff. But what do I know, since I wasn’t exactly your age in the 80s…
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Try re-watching Ferris Beuller and thinking of it as a prequel to American Psycho.
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Well, there’s the conceit of the movie of “21 Jump Street” where the joke is the detectives think jocks and nerds are still enemies but find that 1980s trope is obsolete, but perhaps to the degree it is true it is a bit later than the early 1990s.
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Maybe it was different down south, but the Miami Vice/Armani look of matching jacket and slacks was not considered preppy where I was from.
You’re right. I’m wrong. Happy?
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Yeah, at least in the north and Midwest, “Preppy” was wearing L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, and Izod clothing.
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It’s not a question of right or wrong. Steff is a preppy jerk in outlook if not in outward expression. I suspect that fashion choice was made by the costumer to highlight that he identifies more with Boomer Reagan-voting Yuppies than with his own (supposed) Gen X peers. They could have dressed him in LL Bean and J Crew, but they wanted to separate him from the other wealthy jerks as a particularly egregious case.
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Sorry I brought it up…
Okay, you’re right. I know nothing about this era, despite also living through it.
In my case, I don’t imagine that would help. I tried watching it a couple of years ago for the first time, and only got half an hour through it. Ferris is such an asshole, and the rest of the movie seemed just, stagey and tedious.
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Recently I’ve been thinking back to those '80s movies, in particular teen movies (what few of them I saw at the time, anyways), including those of Hughes, and the completely and utterly shit way they dealt with the issue of consent, and the thick, nauseating miasma of misogyny that chokes them. Today’s children definitely shouldn’t be exposed to most of those films; they need to wait until they’re adults to see them (if they must) and can be properly horrified by them. I can only hope that today’s youth movies are less horrific.
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That’s (partially) my critique of The Breakfast Club, too many of the characters are two-dimensional (at best) assholish, and the plot seems too schematic. But, I still enjoy that one, quite possibly because I first saw it during my misspent youth.
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Hughes has a huge influence on teen films into the 90s and 2000s, I think. Pretty much everyone wants to emulate what he did, because it worked so well. This is what makes Heathers such a great movie, because it’s in part lampooning the Hughes mode of teen films.
Then again, there plenty of films that took from Heathers itself (Mean Girls and Jawbreaker come to mind).
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That goes back to the main essay’s and Cory’s discussion of the problematic nature of the films. Amazingly to us now, in the context of the times they were considered to be progressive films about young people (you want to see problematic back then, look at Porky’s or Animal House or their countless imitators). I agree that the Hughes movies should be viewed as artifacts more than anything else, which was the approach Ringwald took when she watched it with her daughter.
I can only hope that today’s youth movies are seen as less horrific 30 years from now than the ones from the 1980s. The way things are regressing in American society hope is all I have.
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Apparently it’s problematic enough to critisize to build her brand, but not problematic enough to turn down the role?
I don’t have a ton of respect for people who get rich immorally then turn around and talk about how thing they participated in were bad.
She was in high school when she took the role. I’m assuming her outlook on life has evolved since then, just as I assume that social norms have changed in the intervening decades.
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I don’t know if you read the essay, but these are Molly Ringwald’s words:
“He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.”
I think a better question to ask is why would she even consider dating him?
Social classes and reputations entirely aside, he was abusive and never apologized- yet she makes out with him and gives him her earring at the end.
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It’s not the art that is problematic… It made a shit-ton of money, after all, and in its time, it seemed perfectly acceptable. So was Amos and Andy.
The problematic part is in appreciating art that no longer speaks to this moment. And that’s been a thing since Victorians were trying to wrap their minds around the art of Pompeii.
But whatever it takes to de-rail accusations of hypocrisy- I’m on board. We live in too complicated a time, for anyone to try to be %100 “perfect” in all the things we appreciate.
I see a lot of space nerds get hung up on appreciating the performance art that was the Apollo program, or the television art that was Original Series Star Trek. That stuff was all produced to serve the needs of a particular historical moment, and that moment has passed. You still get to appreciate all the good stuff around that, but you don’t get to pretend it’s still relevant to this historical moment we are in now. (yeah, I’m going to leave that, even though I disagree with myself here. It’s… Problematic.)
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