MonkeyPants

On John Hughes Movies, Society, and Aging.

You know you’re getting old when the movies you loved as a teenager don’t measure up to the society you live in on a daily basis.  I resent this on a certain level, but then again, I am no longer fourteen, and I’m pretty glad of that.

Cruising around today listening to “In Your Eyes”,  it occurred to me (not for the first time) that Lloyd Dobler is better in the imagination than in reality. I’m all for love, but a guy whose only ambition is to love you, who will follow you to college just to love you, who only thinks of being with you, is not really a good candidate for a healthy relationship.  He’s actually a stalker. But there was no stalking in the Eighties, was there?  No, there was just Lloyd and his ghetto blaster on the front lawn,  skewing the whole idea of romantic love for us girls, and being damn hard  for boys to live up to.

Then there’s Sixteen Candles. God, social norms have  moved beyond this movie! Apparently, I am not yet so ossified in my own little world that what I see stands any kind of test of time. The racism? I cringe when they say Bohunk and Chinaman. Also, the shower scene where Molly Ringwald and friend scrutinize the Hot Girl’s body? That’s an Eighties body. She has an acceptable percentage of body fat and her breasts are only a B, and unaugmented.  That body would never be considered hot today.  She’d be told to lose fifteen pounds and load up on silicone.  Also,  Molly Ringwald’s famously ‘bee stung’ lips  look lovely and natural compared to the lips on the socialite/starlets of today.

There’s a ton more analysis I could do, but that’s what I’ve got right now.