Pretty In Pink Vs Shes All Tha

Essay, Research Paper

The Eighties Teen Movie Vs. The Nineties Teen Movie

In John Lewis s book, The Road to Romance and Ruin, he defines the teen movie as the principle mass mediated discourse of youth; a discourse that rather glibly and globally re-presents youth as a culture (p. 2). In using the term teen movie this does not refer to a movie geared towards teens, but instead to movies about teens. The 1980 s gave us many teen movies, such as Pretty in Pink, Better Off Dead, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, and Can t Buy Me Love, which have become classics to the twenty-somethings of today. These were movies usually involving two teens from different classes most likely, and the impossible love that they find not-so-impossible. Joseph Reed, in American Scenarios, believes that the ongoing popularity of these movies is that they call up something primal in all of us High school pictures tend to be about public high school, but they know this: even if I went to private school I can be every teen in this picture. I can be (because I have been) victim or failure or nerd (p133).

The late 1990 s gave birth to a new breed of high school movies. Freddie Prinze Jr. replaced John Cusack; Jodie Lynn O Keefe replaced Molly Ringwald. Though on the outside these new movies have all the makings of the old eighties high school movie, a close look will show you that not only are they very different, but they in fact enforce the opposite ideals and problems that high school teens face in real life. Though the plot lines are very similar and many of the characters have many of the same traits, when we examine them we see how different they really are.

Pretty in Pink, written by John Hughes, tells the story of Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald), an unpopular, lower middle class girl who dresses in thrift shop/homemade clothes. In the opening scene we learn that not only is the mother missing (we find out later that she left three years earlier), but Andie and her father have a slim budget and he is not a model father (she wakes him in the morning and his first words are “where am I. ) Her only true friend in the school is an eccentric boy named Duckie (John Cryer) who is completely in love with her. We like them both right away, and almost as quickly as we are introduced to them, we meet the richies. Lead by Steff (James Spader) a rich, bored, obnoxious yuppie-in-training – the richies represent all that Andie does not have. When a richie named Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) asks her out, though harboring a previous crush, she has her doubts. After their date, though there were many downs, they agree that nothing should stop them from being together. They enjoy a short time together until Blaine backs out of their prom plans without even a phone call. Andie, being the strong girl, goes to the prom alone, where she meets up with Duckie. Blaine, obviously a wreck about what he has done, professes his love and the movie ends with a beautiful kiss in a parking lot.

Though more obvious than real life may allow, this story tells the same story as so many of these eighties teen movies. The popular kids are cruel, heartless, and not as fun as the unpopular. Excluding Blaine, all of the richies are out spoken in their hatred of Andie The only visible reason being that her clothes are different and she has less money. We are shown that it is not better to be popular, having money is not necessarily the answer to life s problems. Andie comes from a loving home, her father though he makes mistakes obviously loves her very much. We never see Steff s parents because they have left him home alone, which we are to assume is not uncommon. Though Andie does end up with the rich popular boy, we are not inclined to believe that they have anything to do with his former life and friends. Before Blaine confronts Andie at the end of the movie, he even tells off Steff: You couldn t buy her. She thinks you re shit and deep down you know she s right. After that line, the issue of class becomes meaningless and it is now only about the two people in love (Lewis, 139). Blaine has traded in his place in the class system to be with Andie.

She s All That is a nineties high school movie with a similar premise. Laney Boggs (Rachel Leigh Cook) is an outcast from a middle class family who would rather bother with problems of third world countries than wear make up and socialize with just about anyone except her best friend who like in Pretty in Pink is an equally outcasted boy. Zack Siler (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is the most popular, most handsome guy in school with acceptance letters from Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard, and until just the beginning of the movie, a future prom queen girlfriend. All goes haywire for poor Zack when his girlfriend dumps him for Brock Hudson (Matthew Lillard), a self-obsessed jerk from the Real World. Zack claims that any girl could be prom queen with the right make up, walk, and boyfriend, and thus begins a bet between friends. Zack finds himself with only six weeks to transform geeky Laney Boggs into the prom queen. She falls for him, he starts to fall for her, and then it all hits the fan when she finds out about his bet. Of course he wins prom king and then realizes that he loves her and again, they kiss under the stars and we are left under the impression of happily ever after.

There are many similarities between these two movies. Both girls have only a father,