it's sorta social - demented and sad, but social

[freckles_and_doubt]

I think I may have had a deprived childhood. In a good way, that is. As you know, Bob, we didn't have a TV or video player in the house for my entire schooldays, except for one year in Standard Four; we also lived variously on research stations and outside tiny half-horse farming towns, so it was only in my last four years of high school that we were anywhere near something like a local multiplex cinema. By that stage I had seriously failed to acquire the movie-watching habit to any useful extent (hence the maddened catching up in the last decade or so); I was also the class dweeb in high school, which means I didn't really get dragged off on cinema expeditions with classmates.

As a result of this, I can honestly say that I managed to be a Western teenager in the 80s and still didn't ever actually see a John Hughes film. Not one. My teen angsts went unreflected, unrecognised, unmelanged into the muddied, steaming pool of the adolescent collective unconscious. I've also managed not to see any of them since, with the result that I've had to acquire all the necessary Hughes quotes second-hand and out of context, in an essentially Baudrillardian fashion.

The recent death of John Hughes, mayherestinpeace, vaguely prodded me to actually do something about this tragic lack, revealing, in the process, a tragic lack. I lasted for precisely fifteen minutes of Weird Science, which is agonising enough that I couldn't even wait for RDJ to show up. Embarrassment humour makes me want to curl up and die. I'm further on with The Breakfast Club, which at least has some witty moments and interesting characters, although the desire to set about Bender with a horsewhip does occasionally surface. I have still to acquire Ferris Bueller, the ultimate classic, or Pretty In Pink, which are apparently better movies.

But tragically, I think these films have lost their chance to actually speak to me: I have to try and project myself back into my teenaged self, overcoming in the process the disparity between an American high school experience and my own, and there are too many layers here. The affectionate, nostalgic recognition with which so many people refer to these films is forever denied me. All I can summon is a distant, intellectual appreciation of the texts' iconic function, and tendency to wonder, wistfully, whether they would actually have meant as much to me if I'd seen them when I was sixteen. Possibly not. My fellow students were more or less aliens to me, I see no real reason why their celluloid versions should be any different.

Possibly it's a bit like Twilight - in order to actually get it you need to be sixteen, and ruled entirely by your hormones and teen myths about sex. And devoid of irony, in which latter class I was always more or less doomed.

Comments

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

I can see that they would not appeal. I think Breakfast Club and Dead Poets Society were my two. I don't think I have seen pretty in pink all the way through.
I do think Ferris is a different style and possibly is more achievable in the getting it stage.

[(Anonymous)]

Ferris Bueller is different enough that it almost doesn't count as a John Hughes film, because it's devoid of that you-have-to-be-16 factor.

I recently saw Sixteen Candles for the first time and heartily recommend it; it's vintage Hughes but also manages to be full of (very funny) surprises. Also has an unrecognisably young and very underused John Cusack, and Joan Cusack being very funny with I think not a single line. Pretty in Pink is actually quite annoying, but the (unintended) hideousness of her prom dress is I think one of those essential cultural touchstones.

scroob

[scrumisscrum.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I tend to drag Bueller out on my mental health days. Mental health days are the times you skive off work for no reason other than you couldn't be arsed to go to work.
While Ferris uses his day off for a good purpose, sometimes all I really need is a few hours in bed, trashy movies and chocolate.
Wait, I suspect this makes me sound feminine...

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

Pretty In Pink is terrible.

Get Some Kind of Wonderful instead. Much better soundtrack, the only jarring note is that dear Eric Stoltz could ever think Lea Thompson was better-looking than Mary Stuart Masterson.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

I remember enjoying Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink possibly slightly less. I have never watched Ferris Bueller.

L is planning to have another movie night soon, perhaps we should make it a John Hughes tribute?

[kadekraan.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall I watched Sixteen Candles when I was in my teens and had been invited to a sleepover at the house of one of the 'popular' girls. I have no idea why I was invited, and I was never invited back. I was quite relieved about that because we played some strange games. Like one where each girl in turn would stand up and the other girls would comment in writing (anonymously) on various aspects of their appearance. The comments were then read out. Who thinks up these things?

Pretty in Pink has a good soundtrack; I'm not sure I was that enamoured of the film. Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club are still quite enjoyable, although I don't think I'm nostalgic about them. I'm not sure I ever made it through an entire watching of Weird Science.

I was trying to think of a film I am nostalgic about and the only one that comes to mind is Scanners. I was allowed to watch it when I was a child and I found it quite disturbing. Still gives me the warm fuzzies.

Ferris (as other people have mentioned) is in a class of its own and has stood the test of time. It's the only one of these Hughes films I've bought on DVD.

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I remember him more for the Home Alone series. Different generation :P.

I love SKoW, it hits all the "best friend of the dude you're in love with but who only sees you as one of the guys" notes. Kinda depressing, really. Love Eric Stolz, though, even if he does remind me of pink_cthulu.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

tiny half-horse farming towns

One ostrich towns?

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

You didn't have to live in the countryside to miss out on films. I lived in a city, but had no money to go out and no friends (ditto class dweeb) to go with anyway.

I saw Ferris at a friend's house, on video and still remember it fondly. Rather oddly, I saw Sixteen Candles here in the Maths dept one evening when I was in my late twenties. Teen-ey, yes, but I still liked it. I saw The Breakfast Club similarly only when I was at university and, while I liked it, it never grabbed me like it has grabbed others. I always thought the fault was intrinsic to me, rather than a function of my age...