Sunday, July 31, 2005

"Pretty in pink"

I heard this song this a.m. and of course, I flashed to my youth and all the Hughes films that were the epitome of our generation. And here's what I realized: I always hated Molly Ringwald. There will be a day when I can think of this with some sort of rationality, but the idea of her just drives me absolutely batty. She was supposed to be this geeky/freak girl (in 16 Candles & Pretty in Pink) who winds up with the hot boy after her because he recognizes that she's got depth as well as being kinda cute. But this never happened in real life (or at least not in my school), and I was left kind of bitter crushing after the hockey captain and the punk rocker who never recognized my depth or that I was kinda cute (really I was, I have the pictures to prove it).

One of the Hughes' movies that I absolutely loved was Some Kind of Wonderful mostly because Mary Stuart Masterson became my first girl-crush as the dykey drummer who is "in love" with her gay friend played by Eric Stoltz (okay supposedly he's straight in the movie, but do any of us really believe that either of those characters is straight?).

And I remember sneaking wine coolers into the theater inside my jean jacket when we went to see Breakfast Club. We used straws so as not to draw attention to ourselves. I so related to Ally Sheedy's character it was scary.

My DSL equipment should be delivered tomorrow, and I will be devoting my evening to getting it all set up.

7 comments:

P'tit-Loup said...

If you had met me in high school, I was Ally Sheedy in breakfast club, slightly freakish and reactionary to the core! Ha Ha! Maybe that is a part of me that is still in there too!

Flash said...

I just found Molly Ringwald to be irritating.
Great tune though.

Charby said...

I only saw the Breakfast club for the first time about 5 years ago and loved it.
But was she the ginger annoying one in that?
Le Moine perdu. I was born in '83 but I clearly remember incidents and tv shows (mainly cartoon shows, although the odd soap moment sticks) from that

Aravis said...

I loved all of those movies, and was told more than once I looked like Molly in "Pretty in Pink." Sorry! My personality was more like hers in that movie than like the character she played in "Breakfast Club." My similarity to Molly ended with my hair. It's strawberry blonde and was styled similarly to hers.

But as much as I enjoyed those flicks (and John Cusack's films, too!) I especially loved seeing them spoofed in "Not Another Teen Movie." Have you seen that one? Hilarious!

le moine perdu, I can't speak for spin or the others, but I was 18 in '89. Some of my friends had fake id for bars but mostly it was easy to get someone to buy alcohol for us for parties, etc. The crackdown on under-age drinking and drunk-driving hadn't really begun here yet. Some people I knew were drunk and/or stoned throughout their high school career.

Teresa Bowman said...

I only saw "Pretty in Pink" for the first time about a year ago (it was on TV) and the only thing about it that I can call to mind right now is that the dress that she wears at the end, which is supposed to be so very glamorous and gorgeous, is REALLY HORRIBLE.

LB said...

i don't think I have seen "Pretty In Pink". But I do vaguely recall always preferring Martha Plimpton to Molly Ringwald.

I don't think I ever went clubbing or drinking in the 1980's, but when you live in a one horse town with nowt but a cinema, you tend to see from the age of about 11 everything that came out (except "Pretty In Pink" in my case, clearly).

HistoryGeek said...

le moine - I was 15 when Breakfast Club came out (1985), and I think Sister got me the wine coolers as I couldn't legally drink here in the US until I was 21. (Sister was legal in Wisconsin, so was able to legally obtain it over the state line but it was illegal for her to have it in Minnesota, I think. The damn laws were changed at different times, so it's all so confusing.) But obviously legalities never stopped the drinking.

I have to admit that I'm much more fond of the later '90s and today, than I ever was of the '80s.