I had a better title to this, I swear, but I forgot it. I should write more things down. People who like what I write have, on a few occassions, given me moleskin or other small books to write things down on. I forget to bring those out.
Now a couple of you already have your fingers poised to write some (that word Jeff used the other day) missive based on 1: well, it is me, so there is likely to be something in here to offend someone and 2: the title. I mean who can fuck you John Hughes? There's no fuck you John Hughes. There is never fuck you John Hughes.
I didn't think so either. Yesterday when I heard he died I happily (happily?) wrote to Svet asking if anyone's on the John Hughes thing. What John Hughes thing? He's dead, kerput, kicked the bucket. Nope, you're it! And I liked being it. I mean I grew up on John Hughes movies. Who wouldn't like to write about him (kind of in better circumstances, but whatever).
And then a friend of mine left a comment that kind of struck me. I forget it, too, but I know the gist:
If you're (poor, a nerd, outcast) and conform then the popular kids will like you.
Then I started thinking and wondering if he was right. Was he? Is it that Hughes' movies (the teen ones) preached conformity and fitting in with the cool, rich, popular crowd? Or was Hughes just writing what he knew? Do outcasts ever have a chance in Hughes' world?
I was going to expand on that at length but then I decided not to. I mean you can't really pigeonhole a guy whose movies run the gambut from National Lampoon's Vacation to Curly Sue (if you've read this far and you've seen Curly Sue kindly put in the comments what it's about. I mean, if you want). I mean I get what my friend was saying: Sam gets Jake, and Andie gets Blane (not Duckie). I forget what happens with Watts and Amanda Jones though and, as I said, I really didn't want to go in this direction at all so I'm dropping it.
What I can say is Hughes was a funny motherfucker (fill the comments with your favorite quotes!):
"No more yanky my wanky"
"She only speaks French, Roy, she doesn't speak imbecile"
"Any fool can get into college. Only a select few can say the same about Amanda Jones."
He was the Apatow of the 1980s. Yeah some of his humor is dated but then again many of the teens now are jaded. I am kind of super glad I was a teen in the late 1980s and not now. Boy do you guys live in a pretty fucked world. I mean at least then a few of us had one parent at home. And we had swingsets and our playgrounds were dirt and rocks and you could have bb gun wars. And we had Atari and Nintendo.
What Hughes did do is start making the first real movies for teens about teens. In the 50s you had fluffish beach blanket bingo. In the 60s I don't know what you had, maybe more surfer movies? The 70s? Who other than Burns cares about the 70s? But the 80s saw the rise of teen movies about teen problems and that's where I think my friend's criticism of Hughes went off the mark. So dude wrote what he knew. Maybe he wasn't all about conformity at all, maybe he was just about you can't help who you love and someone's always going to get hurt.
Except when he was all about rats chewing moles:
"I don't think I want to know a six-year-old who isn't a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don't want to know one who takes their student career seriously. I don't have a college degree. I don't even have a job. But I know a good kid when I see one. Because they're ALL good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they're no good. You so much as scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, and I'm coming looking for you!
Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam."
Hughes was a suburbanite and he wrote mainly about suburbanite things at a time when hardly anyone was writing about suburbanite things and there were a shit ton of suburbs. Nothing wrong with that at all.
But I do have a bone to pick with Mr. Hughes: Mr. Hughes set some nerds up for failure.
See, I was a nerd (and so are you and you're confused and you don't know what is going on at all but the difference is I can look back and admit it while you're still trying to be cool). Ok maybe not a nerd but definitely pretty fucking shy when I was learning what my boner was for and trying to figure out who I was: in other words right at the time Hughes' films were coming out and everyone my age was seeing them. And, when you're an idiotic impressionable kid learning about boners and boobies and trying to fit in somewhere you sure as hell don't need movies where you're told if you persist then you get the girl/guy. I mean what pimply faced hormonal skinny dork fitting into the pecking order isn't going to take that message and run with it?
And then the non-dork already-in-the-pecking order jocks/promqueens are going to put you right back in your dork spot.
So now I'm thinking maybe John Hughes didn't know what in the fuck he was talking about at all. I know he never showed you what happened in the long term, after the honeymoon phase when you get the girl/guy and it's all great and good. All his movies just end there. WITH THE HAPPY. I guess most movies do because people really don't want to think about that shit, do they? Trust me, the "I'm not in love with you anymore" part sucks and no amount of cute or awkward or romantic or silly or persistent turns that back. I think all of Hughes' teen-angst movies should have ended with a black screen with the following words from Vonnegut:
"Everything is going to become unimaginably worse and never get better again."
or we could just stay with Hughes:
"When you grow up, your heart dies."
That way right after the collective sigh and euphoria and longing from watching the cute girl kiss the cute guy you get a nice dose of reality immediately after, and it can confuse you all over again because, hey, you're a teen and that's your job: to be confused.
Guess what? It really doesn't get better again. You will stay confused. You'll be a confused 20-something drunk getting your certificate of I Paid a Lot of Money to a Business (aka your degree) because everyone has to have one of those, and you'll be a confused 29 year old and then 30 and on and on and on. And you'll love and you'll lose it and when you do you will never ever know why. It just happens. And then you can go crazy trying to figure out why.
Or become a really good drunk.
Or join a book club.
So fuck you John Hughes for making millions of 80s teens believe in your lovely tripe. I should send your estate my bar tabs.
This shit's all over the place isn't it? Here's another funny scene:
"I've done just about everything there is except a few things that are illegal. I'm a nymphomaniac."
"Lie."
"Are your parents aware of this?"
"The only person I told was my shrink."
"And what did he do when you told him?"
"He nailed me. "
Or maybe I don't know what in the fuck I'm talking about. I rarely do you know.
God loves a cheerful giver.
trains, planes, and automobiles!!!
While I see your point about each resolution leading a saccharine conclusion, almost in a Disney-like fashion, there's no reason to discount the man with an F U.
Take the films "The Breakfast Club" or "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
We all know that teenagers are generally ignorant and naive. For instance, the desire to categorize social groups and attach stereotypes stigmas to them, the basis for TBC. Hughes knows this his audience is aware of this habit. So in a way he's going at length to negate our broad-brushed labeling so that we may appreciate individual personality, becoming surprised in the things that we have in common with others.
Or FBDO. One of the major narratives is Cameron taking a gamble with his dad's car, and then having to live with the consequences of impulse and immaturity. If anything, Hughes is telling the audience,"You will make mistakes. Learn to live with them."
I also appreciate his handling of the friends and family in his movies (Vacation, Great Outdoors, Home Alone, P,T,&A). Throughout each of these the characters find something repugnant in one another. And the lesson in each seems to be the cliche 'be thankful for what you've got, otherwise you'll likely end up alone.'
But, again, I can agree that everything gets bundled up too nicely by the end of things, but the man as just operating under Hollywood's standards. At the core of many of his films is a struggle to find order in life amidst chaos, and to seek sympathy and understanding from others. AND THAT'S PRETTY FUCKING COOL
Logan - hence the ? in the title.
ah
well, still, it spurned me to type a mini essay response, whilst skullfuckingly bored at work. so cheers for the inspiration.
WTF, Svet?
"‘be thankful for what you’ve got, otherwise you’ll likely end up alone.’
I just said this to someone in fact. Kind of.
That does it, Svet.
High school movies sucked cuz high school sucked. People need to stop thinking that high school was the greatest time of their lives. Anything's better than being 17 and living w/your parents and not being able to do shit and having no $. I can fuck w/having scrila in the bank and beer in the fridge. Wa na na.
I will admit, the soundtracks to his movies were always dope.
I guess you grow up and turn into the Uncle Buck's and the Clark Griswold's. But sometimes you just throw a huge party in your parents' mansion and end up with pizza on the turntable and a weird Chinaman in your tree...
Nice post, Michael - confused or not...
didn't mean the shite punctuation, btw... got caught up in the moment... oy...
Can we please not forget Home Alone?
Wet Bandits 4 lyfe
well played sir. time to hit the bar.
you pay for liquor when you go out?
This sucks, SVETLANA, I wish I could get on the John Hughes thing and maybe I will write something about it for Monday or Tuesday because I think there is a lot of misunderstanding within this post.
(He has made some of my favorite movies of all time which I hopefully understand.)
I never gathered that a John Hughes movie was telling me to conform. IN FACT, in Pretty in Pink (for example), Andie (aka Molly Ringwald) does not conform - she sticks to her own beliefs about self-respect and in the end she gets the guy to apologize to her and is happy. She doesn't GET THE GUY by lowering herself to his level...she is herself and eventually he comes around.
Sure, the movies ended up happy and a little sappy, but this is what teenagers want to see.
But STILL, John Hughes wasn't glorifying teendom, but rather making movies FOR REAL TEENAGERS that real teenagers could relate to and feel good with. He wanted to make films that helped people cope and helped people understand who they were and that there were others like them out there; if the characters in Hughes' movies could eventually make it through and have a happy ending then maybe we, too, could make it through high school and have a happy ending.
I hated high school. And I found Hughes' movies when I was in the 14-15-16 age range and felt great watching his movies and relating to every second of them. Even though the movies aren't real, the characters are SO real, and they go through so many things similar to what every teenager goes through that we want to sympathize with them and we want to feel that happy ending with them. That little element of escapism surrounded by a whole lot of a truth in his films was just enough for people to feel optimistic about their shitty high school experiences.
I think Hughes truly cared about America's youth, and truly hoped to console teenagers and make them feel a little more optimistic about their situations. Anyone who can do what he did as eloquently deserves monstrous kudos.
Alyssa: you need to read it again, possibly carefully, possibly when not drunk.
while also incorporating Drillbit Taylor into your post.
no way, i was 100% sober when i wrote that (just tired).
i didn't think your post sucked i just don't think it really does the john hughes we all know and love the justice he deserves. but the interspersed quotes are fantastic.
DUCKIE WAS CHEATED.
The only criticism I have for J.H. was allowing a focus group to change the ending of Pretty In Pink.
Read the book.