Molly’s right, art is complicated. I’m really glad that you found comfort there that I didn’t.
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IIRC it’s closer to Hughes’ original ending for PiP, which the test audience didn’t like.
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Vodka sandwiches?
I know the kind you speak of, but that also triggered my memory of MST3K’s sendup of I Accuse My Parents
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When these films were released, I was much too young to have seen them in theatres. So while I can appreciate that nothing like them had been made before, I don’t feel any nostaligia or identification with them, though I can understand that other people do feel that way.
It’s tough for me to congratulate a film for being better than Porky’s. It’s true that the movies clearly appealed to a wider audiance, but those really creepy scenes I described were written by a man for boys, presumably.
I can appreciate the fims for what they are, and I can understand why they are cult favorites. I guess my age personal perspective makes it difficult for me to gloss over the problematic scenes.
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I don’t expect couples to be exactly like each other- opposites can and do attract.
But I think the coupling between Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson falls squarely into the “Girls like Bad Boys” trope, wherin an abusive, self-centered, unstable male character is an irresistable force to a prim proper girl.
Sure, people do enter into relationships like that, and interesting stories could be told about them- but hopefully with a lot more nuance and context than im this case.
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A few years ago my wife was cleaning out some donated DVDs at her work. She brought them home to see if I wanted them. Among the pile of disks was a DVD copy of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. I was torn as to what to do with it. so I put it out to my Face Book Community. While it is indisputably a piece of Nazi propaganda , it is also an historically significant film. Do I keep it or do I toss it onto the dust heap? Overwhelmingly the response was that we should not ignore or destroy theses sorts of things because at best they make us uncomfortable and at worst represent some of the more heinous acts we are capable. Do we edit out the N words from Tom Sawyer? Burn copies of the Boston Strangler because it portrays the gay community as pale simpering men who look like they were under a rock?
Sure there are lines but in the final analysis these works are snapshots of who we are and were.
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I think the obvious answer is that each person gets to choose for themselves on an individual level, and that other problematic pieces will either fade into obscurity or become footnotes and historical works on display or to be studied.
Your background in cinema informs your feelings about the films in different way than it might for a Jewish person whose family was impacted by actual Nazis.
I’ve not suggested that anything be burned or destroyed, but I think it’s just fine to ignore uncomfortable things individually and outside of an academic or historical context.
As society changes, the eyes and understanding with which we view media also change.
And that’s okay.
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How about you don’t judge the decisions other parents make?
It seems perfectly natural to me to look back at one’s life as you age. I don’t think it’s “navel gazing” as you dismiss it. No one in the world lives their lives exactly as they wish. We all have regrets, and as we age, we hopefully have new wisdom to look back at our past with. Given that Ringwald was a cultural phenomenon in the 80s, it makes sense that she’d look back at her career.
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It’s been a while since I’ve watched the movie, but your comment made me rethink my impression of the characters. Both of them displayed moments of emotional abuse, self-centered, and unstable/mercurial behavior. Claire’s interactions with Allison and Bryan were selfish or cruel, and nice when it suited her.
Just as in the movie, no one I’ve met are truly opposites. The dynamic is more pleaser/helper/fixer attracted to someone “troubled” who needs them. The fictional version that comes to mind is Kate Winslet and Rufus Sewell in “The Holiday.”
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Ringwald didn’t say anything about “censoring” these films. She noted how watching it again with her kid made her feel, where she feels the films lack, and what was positive about them.
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I remember hating some aspects of the Breakfast Club, while also enjoying other parts. As an angst ridden horny teenage boy I remember being uncomfortable with the guy under the table looking at her crotch - thinking ‘what an asshole thing to do’.
I’ve never seen Porky’s (my folks would not let me go, and by the time I was old enough to make that decision myself I had no interest). I did somehow see some of the crop of awful T&A teen oriented movies that came out in that period - summer camp movies, private school, Police Academy etc etc. As a whole they all had very little to recommend them.
And I have always hated the hollywood ‘transformation’ of interesting outsider into bombshell by application of clothing and makeup. Ally Sheedy was interesting until that happened. And the trope has continued in dozens of movies since, always awful - Pretty Woman, Miss Congeniality, etc. etc.
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Fair enough, We don’t have to agree on that point. I just wanted to clarify my position.
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I hated that movie, I wanted to smack that kid at about 100 points through it. All my friends seemed to love it though - some kind of fantasy realization thing.
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YES! That’s why I was rooting for her car, and not any of the characters - I thought they were ALL buttheads! And the trope of ‘poor girl tries to land rich boy’ was a trope when Jane Austen spun a career out of it, but in the film eighties - TEENS DON’T GET MARRIED! Gold-digging is kind of fruitless when you’re too young to be expected to marry your first boyfriend, so what would she get out of dating that douche?
…and that’s why I saved my affections for the ever-loyal Karmann-Ghia, who never displayed bad manners by failing to start, or leaving an oil puddle.
Difficulties with “problematic” art or artists is old, and can always use a refresher. Classic example is Picasso, but there are many more. Some cite Woody Allen as a very problematic artist whose work they regret not being able to like any more. But by this piece, the word “problematic” lets them enjoy the art, see the problems within it and within the artist, and take away a full experience.
When you get right down to it, I suppose most people are problematic one way or another, from Abraham through Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, and on and on down to Jefferson and up to the present day. If you require that an artist be a person of upstanding moral character and be blameless, well… they probably wouldn’t have become an artist.
Anyway, good article.
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There’s also the “Long Duk Dong” character in Sixteen Candles that will give Mickey Rooney’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s role a run for his money!
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Ok, that gave me flashbacks from that movie “For Keeps?” (not a John Hughes film, and I wish I had that 90 minutes of my life back).
Smart choice. I could’ve avoided so much heartbreak (and towing/mechanic fees), if I’d held out for a better first car relationship than years of drama with a Ford.
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Oh, no…much like a crush on a Hollywood star, I could only WISH for a relationship with a Karmann-Ghia. My first car was a Ford Pinto. That’s how I came to be a gearhead - I had no choice. If your first car is a Ford, after that, nothing else scares you.
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The very thought of it is absssssurd.
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Don’t make me throw up a link to a Karmann-Ghia chatboard…
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