I have to disagree about The Breakfast Club. I mean, yes, you’re right about the kids being myopic and self-involved, but if you focus on the complaints about their parents you’re looking at the hand and not where it points.

At the outset, the kids are just as blind to each other’s perspective as they are to their parents’, just as all of us are all-too-often blind to what’s happening all around us. It’s easy to get annoyed at the SUV speeding down the interstate and changing lanes with reckless abandon and see the driver as “SUV guy” (“jock”, “cheerleader”, “slacker”…). It’s harder to see him with his own pressures and motivations, like trying to get his wife to the hospital after her water broke unexpectedly (or whatever). And the parents aren’t in the picture because they’re standing in for the greater, impersonal world; to ask “what about the wrestler’s father’s perspective?” makes about as much sense as asking “what about the perspective of the tree that got blown down across my driveway?”

I also think you do kids a disservice by assuming they don’t see the kids in the movie as venal. I think they get that point just fine — first about the characters they don’t identify with, then about the ones they do, and finally about themselves.

But hey, you are (or have been) a parent of teenagers, so you’re coming to the story with your own baggage and you come away with your own experience. The point — as I see it — of The Breakfast Club is to see and accept your reaction as a valid alternative even as I disagree with it.

John, I think The Breakfast Club is a pretty accurate movie for teenagers and for many of the reasons you state. That’s why I wrote, “And actually, he gets a remarkable amount of it exactly right.” Don’t take my tongue-in-cheek curmudgeonlyness too seriously.

Parenthood is an amazing thing, though, truly. It makes you see things that you couldn’t see for years, even as people were telling you all about them. That’s a real gift I wouldn’t trade for anything and that’s what happens when you watch a movie like The Breakfast Club later: The perspective shifts. That’s really all I’m trying to get at here: Examining how the perspective shifts when even though not a frame of the movie has changed, suddenly, it feels like you’re watching a completely different film.

For instance, in the opening, when they briefly show the dad scolding Andy about not “blowing his ride.” That’s clearly intended to villainize the father, and I completely understand its necessity to the plot. Otherwise, Andy’s story would feel hollow. But as a parent working hard to make sure his kids have all the tools they need to succeed in life, I see that bit and think, “Well, yeah, don’t blow your ride. You may not realize it now, but you’re being given the keys to the kingdom. Don’t take that for granted.”

Spot on in your article here about Animal House,which I too, find hilarious, and The Breakfast Club, which I also find irritating. Good warning to Richard,too, as I am a parent of 3 teens, and they do exxagerate alot, especially the female teens!! Such drama at times!! I let our 17 year old daughter watch The Breakfast Club and when it was over, she told me she didn’t like the movie because all the kids did was whine throughout the whole film. She did like Pretty in Pink, but not Ferris Bueller, because in her opinion, Ferris is a jerk who should be caught and punished. Comparing FBDO to BC, I like FBDO better, due to the sad life of Ferris’s buddy, Cameron and how Hughes handled it. The rich lifestyle, the parents caught up in their own worlds, ignoring their son. It is a testament to human resiliancy at the end of the picture that Cameron resolves to stand up to his dad, and acknowledge that he let Ferris drive the cherished car, and that due to their trying to turn the speedometer back, the car crashed through the window and down the embankment. Back to Animal House, was this the first caper comedy starring SNL alums or current SNL stars that has led to myriads of comedies starring SNL actors and actresses? Sort of the grandaddy of them all SNL inspired films?

Anon – Chevy Chase did Foul Play in the same year as Animal House (he did The Groove Tube before SNL so not counting that one) so both movies kind of started the trend because both were big hits. The Blues Brothers was the first based on characters created on the show itself.

I love how your daughter thinks Ferris should be “caught and punished.” She’s a stern disciplinarian, that one! I never saw Pretty in Pink so I can’t pass any judgment there. Animal House is still the best of them all I think.

I have always preferred Sixteen Candles to The Breakfast Club because of the kids’ whining. Sixteen Candles is a much funnier movie anyway.

Duke – Sixteen Candles is probably closer in spirit to Animal House only in that most everyone is a comic caricature, which does make them funny as hell. I love the grandparents!

“Why, he’s three sheets to the wind!”

This reminds me of when we went to see the re-release of Star Wars. Oops! I mean “Episode 4: A New Hope”. (NOT!) So, my husband and I went to see it originally in the theatre at age nine. When we entered the theatre for the re-release we were in our thirties and looking around, so was the rest of the audience. When we got to Luke’s line, “But I wanted to go to the Academy!” someone in the back of the theatre shouted out “What a whiner!” and the rest of us cracked up. Same problem. Perspectives change. As a parent, the best you can hope for is that you can remember what it was like when you were their age, and adjust accordingly.

And I remember reading reviews when The Breakfast Club came out, and some reviewer saying “Real kids don’t talk like that”. Oh boy, did I have words for that reviewer!

Wendy – That’s hilarious because I’ve thought the same thing! But it’s because of Mark Hamill’s line reading there, which I think was an intentional (and good) choice on his part to sound like a whiny teenager, so you could see the full growth of his character through the rest of the movie. He says it with just the right amount of “waaaaa, waaa, woe is me” in his voice.

Greg, this is a terrific article, and not JUST because… well, you know! (And, damn, that screen grab! If you’d just waited a couple of seconds, Belushi would have tilted his head back and there I’d be, one down from Flounder. But you just couldn’t do that to Bluto, could you?? No-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!!)

I realize that some will try to write off your perspective with that old Will Smith bon mot—parents just don’t understand! But what about those of us who were in (or, as you and I were, slightly above) the targeted John Hughes demographic who were still able to recognize that not only are the arguments and the whining filtered through the largely unchallenged prism of teenage self-dramatization (and boy, did you nail that!), but also that in the Hughes oeuvre (or as we pronounced in back in the day, oover) there is barely a responsible, well-adjusted, rational adult represented anywhere. I’d even challenge the widely-accepted notion that Hughes “understood” kids all that well (and did, along with Kimberley Lindbergs, when examining his films after his death.) I think the more accurate word would be “pandering,” with the occasional well-observed moment thrown in for good measure. And this was also true of most of the teen comedies and dramas that followed in Hughes’ footsteps during that terrible time known as the ‘80s.

As for that other picture, I think that, as adults who loved ANIMAL HOUSE in 1978 and still do, we tend to give a pass to the Deltas and their bad behavior because we know that generationally, historically, their role was resistance to authority, but also because, despite the movie being quite obviously on their side, characters like Otter and Boone and even Bluto were recognizable types whose boorishness was only partially hidden in the movie. Yes, they were the “good guys” and we “like” them, but certain aspects of their personalities were evident in the film itself as potentially very unpleasant, and it was these aspects that I think we recognize as much as any of their memorable comic qualities when we think of people in the world we know who resemble them.

Finally, I have to say that I really appreciate the fact that your piece is perhaps the first time in recorded commentary on ANIMAL HOUSE that even a smidgen of respect and/or understanding has been pitched toward Dean Wormer. Clearly he is, in one respect, the representation of the paranoid, right-wing Nixonian conspirator who would plague the generation to follow this class of Deltas. (Delta Tau Chi ’62 was, however, according to the end credits, full of guys like Otter, Boone, Hoover, Flounder, Pinto and even Bluto who all managed to assimilate into the societal boundaries of “the establishment” by the advent of the Summer of Love. They still don’t know where Daniel Simpson Day is though.) But I love how you manage to make room for Wormer as the underpaid, put-upon administrator who, in trying to keep his job, to say nothing of doing his job well—which we are given no reason to believe that he cannot do—has to deal with the reality of all this wacky behavior which we, as grown-ups in 2011, still find hilarious but would have far less sympathy for were we in his shoes. Of course Wormer chooses to defend his position in a less-than-savory manner, but at least, as the only obvious parental figure in the movie, his dirty deeds have a professionally tinged malice about them. He doesn’t play fair for reasons that aren’t just about the fact that, hey, he’s over 30. (John Vernon was a hell of a nice guy too!)

Whoops. In mentioning Wormer as “the only obvious parental figure in the movie,” I clearly forgot about Mayor Carmine DePesto, whose methods are even more legally challenged than Dean Wormer’s. But again, if I found my daughter on my front porch, drunk and “defiled” in a grocery cart, I might favor having somebody’s legs broken too. Let’s hear it for those unsavory can-do parental figures, huh?!

Dennis – Animal House is so easy to take because, as we both mentioned, it’s more about taking on the man rather than being about teenagers or early twenty-somethings whining about their lot in life. Which is why my only point there is to say, “Yeah, if I were Wormer, I’d hate those guys, too.” And the thing about John Vernon, easily one of my favorite supporting actors of the seventies, is that he is so likeable in his Nixonian paranoia. To double this back around to John Hughes, he’s very much like Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in that, yes, he seems to be a paranoid prick but then, when you look at the assholes he has to deal with, you think, “But, how could he not be?”

As a parent of teens now, I think I can say I understand a movie like The Breakfast Club appealing to them but the perspective shifts so much as you age (see my first comment) and especially when you actually have teenaged children that it’s impossible for the movie to remain in good graces, so to speak, in regards to the lead characters. It’s impossible for me now to not sympathize with the principal and generally disbelieve the stories of the kids. Dennis, you’ll deal with it too and trust me, it happens. And it’s not because of bad parenting or anything, it just happens. Before life experience builds, misconceptions abound and the interpretations that teenagers give to adult actions are often completely turned around and you have to realize they haven’t had years of experience yet like you have and just be patient.

But again, if I found my daughter on my front porch, drunk and “defiled” in a grocery cart, I might favor having somebody’s legs broken too. Let’s hear it for those unsavory can-do parental figures, huh?!

Fortunately, I think it’s safe to say this will never happen to either of us but if anyone ever messes with our girls, I’m rounding up the Horror Dads posse and we’re going to do some damage. Cinephile-style!

Interesting post, and I did manage to see pretty much not only the films you mention but the entire John Hughes oeuvre, and with the exception of FERRIS BUELLER and the 1st and 3rd VACATION films I have always found his films a bit wanting. I appreciate the teen angst and that many of these suburban, middle class caucasian teenagers were social outcasts, but looking back on it, I just don’t care anymore. FERRIS and the VACATION films I mentioned were not trying to be deep or thought provoking, just funny and 90% of the time, they succeeded. Even parts of WEIRD SCIENCE were just plain funny even if the film ran off the rails eventually.

I always thought that many of Hughes’ films would have worked better as plays, especially THE BREAKFAST CLUB, which I am surprised no one has adapted for the stage. I have also always felt that HOME ALONE was one of the most overrated comedies ever made, mostly because it suffered from what I call the “ultra-Curly factor”-taking a physical gag past the point of where it is funny to where it is physically painful to watch. With rare exceptions (the climbing spike gag from THEY STOOGE TO CONGA is one that comes to mind), you dilute the pain from a physical gag to produce a laugh rather than a a wince. Other Hughes films also had this-when someone is to be physically hurt as part of a gag, you don’t show the actual physical connection such as a slap, poke, or something that actually communicates the pain of said connection. Example-in HOME ALONE, when Joe Pesci gets the top of his head burnt by that blow torch, what would have taken the wince factor out of the gag would have either been a cut away to a long-shot of the torching or seeing someone reacting to it as it happened. Seeing Pesci’s face and the top of his head while it was happening made the gag painful and unfunny (IMHO) and made what MacCauley Culkin was doing seem vengeful rather than payback. Somehow, hearing a slap or likewise is funny when it takes place offscreen, but when you actually see it, it hurts to watch. In a realistic comedy like the ones I mention, it does hurt; when you have something like the Stooges, Laurel & Hardy or the great slapstick comedians, who almost inhabit their own universe, it is funny, not painful.

As for ANIMAL HOUSE, when you have someone as larger-than-life like Belushi in the film, you can get away with really wacky stuff (the bit with the horse in the dean’s office is a great example) and it is still funny. I think what makes Dean Wormer somewhat sympathetic is John Vernon’s performance, which actually gives the film some weight, as opposed to the mayor’s character, who is so stereotypical in its portrayal of a shady Italian-American as to fit in with Don Corleone and his buddies with no trouble.

I think what makes Dean Wormer somewhat sympathetic is John Vernon’s performance, which actually gives the film some weight

It’s so true. You couldn’t ask for a better line reading of “I hate those guys” than Vernon delivers. His face is so full of sad, pitiable surrender that, even as you laugh, you kind of have to feel something for him in that moment.

I appreciate the teen angst and that many of these suburban, middle class caucasian teenagers were social outcasts, but looking back on it, I just don’t care anymore.

I think what some creative, ambitious middle-aged filmmaker (maybe… me?) should do is create a teen film, like The Breakfast Club in two parts, following the mold of Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. First make the one we all know, the 84 movie. Then make the second movie about the “enemy”, the principal. Show him in his workaday world, show him at home with his wife, show him trying to set up a happy retirement while dealing with frustrations and hardships like an 82 year old father in failing health that he has to relocate to a nursing home. Then he has to get power of attorney over his assets and start settling out the estate and figuring out what’s going to happen to his mother when dad dies, etc. All problems, by the way, that really do come upon you by middle age. And they are REAL problems. Now, send him into the school on Saturday and he has to deal with these kids, and their angst and complaining and disobedience, and see how he looks then. I think that would be a brilliant way to examine his character.

And Jeff, I’ve got to be honest: I tried twice and both times, I couldn’t make it any further into Home Alone than about twenty minutes. But I’ve heard your complaints from others many times before and have seen the clips. Any time I see physical comedy in which the character could die (or should be dead afterwards), I just don’t find it funny. Too many directors are incompetent at action, whether as in action adventure (see Emmett’s prior post) or physical comedy. Hughes was outright awful.

Now Animal House did it right. 1) You don’t see the car slam into the stands 2) They comically float up in the air after the hit 3)then we see them in a pile afterwards, pulling themselves from the rubble without ever seeing them violently crash into the ground. And then, of course, we get the icing on the cake:

“You can take your thumb out of my ass any time now, Carmine.”

There’s a really cutting Pauline Kael review of The Breakfast Club wherein she observes that a.) virtually every single adult in a John Hughes movie is a comical idiot and b.) the group is essentially written as a collection of stereotypes, then they spend most of the movie complaining that that people treat them as stereotypes.

Weirdly, I always found that as a teenager I hated most of the parents-just-don’t-understand kind of pro-teenager movies, because I disliked other teenagers much more than I disliked adults- it was the popular kids, the kids who actually liked and got along with other kids, who seemed to be able to relate to characters who were meant to be outcasts.

Now, as an adult, I have more sympathy for jackass-y kids and teenagers in movies, because I don’t have to deal with them in real life, and I have the distance to see how much of myself there is in them. I don’t think I liked Rushmore when I first saw it, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked Where the Wild Things Are or the 400 Blows- but now they’re all among my favorite movies.

the group is essentially written as a collection of stereotypes, then they spend most of the movie complaining that that people treat them as stereotypes.

One thing that is inescapable to me as a parent is that a part of the growing process is putting yourself into some kind of pigeonhole. Most people think, or want to think, that they have been pigeonholed by someone else but usually, we do it to ourselves and it usually starts in our teens. So, the thing about Kael’s critique is that it works as both a critique of the screenplay as written but also of teenagers in reality and, thus, perhaps the screenplay works, if you get my meaning.

I think Hughes had observations that worked despite himself and I think that was one of them. In other words, creating themselves as stereotypes and then basically daring you to see beyond that and if you don’t then they complain how people only see the stereotype is exactly what a lot of young people do to figure themselves out. But I don’t think Hughes got that. I think he just didn’t recognize that the characters never really emerged from their stereotypes.

Also, in my opinion, 400 Blows is an amazing film at any age.

“Weirdly, I always found that as a teenager I hated most of the parents-just-don’t-understand kind of pro-teenager movies, because I disliked other teenagers much more than I disliked adults- it was the popular kids, the kids who actually liked and got along with other kids, who seemed to be able to relate to characters who were meant to be outcasts.”

This is an observation, Tom, that jibes completely with my experience. I always thought it might have been just me, but maybe the feeling is more universal than that.

And thanks for reminding me of that Pauline Kael quote too, especially the second part. Cut to the quick.

Dennis, I think a lot of us who weren’t involved in High School felt that way. Except for acting, I participated in nothing in High School. I went to one party and hated it. When I was a teenager, I found most other teenagers woefully uneducated in history and the arts. As a result, they bored the hell out of me.

I think the 400 Blows (and Where the Wild Things Are, which is an amazing and badly underrated movie) is absolutely a film kids should watch, but thinking back to myself at the protagonist’s age- I wouldn’t have liked it, because I would have found Antoine and his weaknesses and his acting out too painfully familiar, even though my actual background is much pleasanter than his.

I think as a teenager, I didn’t see my peers organized into cliques or any kind of sophisticated social structure- it mostly just seemed to be a bunch of people who rarely had the foggiest idea of what was going on with themselves or anyone else, me included. Kids would often try to organize themselves into types, in the hope of achieving some kind of identity- and it’s true that doing so would always be followed immediately by rebellion against the strictures of that identity- but the fundamental issue always seemed to be the vagueness in one’s sense of self that I haven’t seen in a lot of movies. 400 Blows is absolutely one of them.

I would feel sorry for Dean Wormer if it weren’t for the fact that he stacks the deck against the Deltas every chance he get. He puts them on “Double Secret Probation”(“Whatever that is” as the Delta President puts it). Then, he recruits the frat next door to do spying for him(“Put Neidermeier on it, He’s a sneaky little shit just like you.”).

Wow-a lot of conversation about this post-it’s interesting that the movies stay the same while we ‘Dorian Grey’. Possibly that’s why National Lampoon’s “Vacation” works so well-even when we were Audrey and Rusty’s ages, we had someone to identify with. Now we can identify more with Clark and Ellen. And someday the kids will tie us to the roof.

Greg- I felt the same way in high school. I wasn’t involved with anything. I hated parties and felt everyone else was much less mature than I was and that what they cared about or knew anything about was unimportant. Adults and other kids told me they thought I was much more mature as well. That eventually changed. Everyone else has grown up and I don’t really care to.

Kids would often try to organize themselves into types, in the hope of achieving some kind of identity- and it’s true that doing so would always be followed immediately by rebellion against the strictures of that identity

Sometimes the human race is just so damn silly, isn’t it?

Oh, come on, Chris, you can sympathize with him a little, right?

“Put Neidermeier on it, He’s a sneaky little shit just like you.”

Just reading that line made me laugh.

And someday the kids will tie us to the roof.

Sad but true. And so, Vacation functions as a three-generational tale. Who knew?

Randy Quaid = Hilarious.

Duke, to me, it’s like the boring people of the world, the ones who did everything right in high school, have nowhere else to go in the world except to “grow up” and get down to business. That’s just as mundane as taking part in high school. Two sides of the same coin, really.

>When I was a teenager, I found most other teenagers woefully uneducated in history and the arts.

I spent those years mostly wanting to get laid (and failing rather badly in that ambition).

But eventually it happened and you kept your self respect. That’s the important thing.

Yeah, I never cared for my peers, even before high school. I still rarely do.

What can you do? Maybe that’s why it was so easy for me to become a curmudgeon.

I found this interesting. I think the most interesting thing to me is how a well set up movie can load the deck. Somehow – and it does little to your point directly – I thought of Walter Peck from Ghostbusters. Well, ok, showing the Ghostbusters actually seeing and capturing ghosts does a lot to stack the deck in itself, but really? The EPA agent who wants to shut down the guys who find ghosts because they’re running a nuclear reactor in the basement of a hundred year old building. In real life, he’d be my favorite guy in the world!

I’m actually debating in my mind right now the value of movies and the “screw the man” catharsis factor. My first instinct is to think it’s a good thing and makes us able to get that out of our system making it easier to get through our life of casual burdens. On the other hand, I wonder if it doesn’t inspire complacency, too.

I suppose that leap is a bit much for this thread. But the good news is, it clearly did get me thinking. Great post.

But Neil, “Everything was fine until dickless here shut off the power grid!” The massive ghost battle and the destruction by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at the end was Peck’s fault. The Man was wrong.

And Peck was the whiner in that movie.

Haha, yeah, but that’s the kind of thing Greg was talking about when he said Animal House was stacking the deck- it’s easy to have the apparently sane person be wrong when you’re controlling everything, but it doesn’t really make much of a point.

It’s one of the things I like about both Lolita (book and movie) and the Sopranos- both stack the deck somewhat to make you like Humbert and Tony, respectively, and then both push you until you realize what a deceptive device that can be in winning your favor, as you realize just how awful the people you sort of sided with are.

William Atherton is so good as a prick in both Ghostbusters and Die Hard that it’s stacking the deck just casting him. But yes, shutting down an unlicensed unregulated nuclear reactor in the middle of the city in a decrepit building – I would totally be in support of that in real life even if it was true that, yes your honor, this man has no dick.

Indeed Peck’s unpleasant personality is another way the deck is stacked against him. In his case that works almost as well as our having seen the ghosts, their capture and their containment, which says a lot about just how unpleasantly he’s played.

Overall, I understand Greg’s examples are better in that a movie from Dean Wormer’s point of view would only need to explain his shady dealings to make him potentially right. The principal in The Breakfast Club doesn’t even need that.

Of course, pro-authority comedy simply doesn’t work. It’s one of the key reasons why conservatives struggle with trying to create comedy. It’s just an unfunny perspective.

The only way pro-authority comedy works is if it’s gentle enough, like, say, The Andy Griffith Show. He’s clearly the authority figure but he’s not hurting anyone or holding people back. But it would be tougher to make a raucous or rowdy comedy because the people being duped/hurt/offended would be the helpless and that’s not very funny.

Super Troopers?

Super Troopers is hilarious, but I wouldn’t call it conservative by any means. Neil is right. A good, rowdy, raucous comedy is hard for people of my political persuasion to get right. I watched An American Carol and it was painful to sit through. Everything fell flat. It was too heavy handed in its message. Don’t waste your time watching it.

The Andy Griffith Show was kind of anti-authority, just not rowdy and raucous. Of course, it couldn’t be at that time. In fact, the most authoritarian character, Barney Fife, is shown to be a bumbler. The show went downhill after Barney left and Andy became an uptight stick-in-the-mud. Oddly enough, the ratings increased. Go figure.

FWIW, over 30 years later, ANIMAL HOUSE still goes over like gangbusters in film classes. (Last fall, I taught it to a group of freshman for a lecture on the American film comedy.)

Enjoyed your post, as always… :)

Thanks for a great post, Greg. I’ve always found ANIMAL HOUSE hilarious in spite of all the problems you mention and in spite of an aversion to John Belushi, who’s cast well in this film.

Since we drifted onto GHOSTBUSTERS: I consider this the ultimate Reagan Era comedy, precisely because the human villain is from the EPA. This is no coincidence. The culture had changed enough that the EPA is the enemy and anyone who works for them is, naturally, “dickless.” I hate the Bill Murray character in this film. GHOSTBUSTERS is mildly amusing, but no more than that.

I love the character of Peter Venckman and the movie. I think both are hilarious.

Kelli, I’m curious; having teenagers and thus knowing an even wider ring of teenagers who are all very, how shall I say, overly self-righteous about how sexist, racist, etc, etc, etc, everything was before they existed (you don’t know the level of smug a teenager can possess), I’m wondering if there were any complaints/comments about the sex/race jokes in the movie? Any negative reaction at all?

And thanks for the compliment. You’re the tops.

But Kingrat, nobody hates Bill Murray. Next time we’ll all watch it together. Duke, Neil, Tom and I will get you drunk and I bet you’ll like it a lot more.

Well, there weren’t necessarily “complaints” about the sexist/racist jokes in ANIMAL HOUSE (they’re used to it perhaps?), but we DID have a brief discussion about them. Ultimately, I asked the students to compare ANIMAL HOUSE’s jokes to those in more recent animal/grossout comedies like SUPERBAD, I LOVE YOU, MAN, etc. and then asked, “How far have we come from the late 1970s?” (Not far enough.) I think that kinda blew them away.

FWIW, Kingrat, I’m not a fan of Bill Murray either. I like him in GHOSTBUSTERS and GROUNDHOG DAY, but that’s about it. =)

“How far have we come from the late 1970s?” (Not far enough.) I think that kinda blew them away.

That’s really interesting. I come across plenty of teens who have a sense, like most young people I guess, that they’re more open-minded (hold for laughter) than others so I thought there might be some pushback. Thanks for the reply!

I think most of them ARE open-minded when it comes to gay and/or religious issues (as well as some race issues), but that’s not always the case re: representations of gender in pop culture.

See, for example, my post “Recognizing Gender Representations in Introduction to Film; or When ‘I Never Realized’ Becomes ‘Now I Will Notice It’”: http://www.kellimarshall.net/film/gender-introfilm/ Lots and lots of responses like this one: “I never really thought about the idea that most movies were made for the male demographic and that women were many times portrayed as being weaker characters, there for men’s sexual desire.” At least they’re learning. One step at a time…

I won’t make any comments on that topic. I will only get in trouble again.

Kelli, thanks for those links! I find that each generation is ever more open-minded and progressive in the general view of things but teenagers, in my personal exerience, are open-minded about the big stuff while being rather provincial and judgmental about the specifics. It’s understandable. They’re learning, growing, making their way. I’ve seen my own kids talk about people needing to be more accepting, loving and progressive towards all people, one second, right before doing something unimaginably cruel to their little sister or brother, the next. I think, essentially, our brains are in flux until, oh gosh, I’ll say 70. Okay, maybe early twenties.

Duke, I think you just did comment on the topic.

I hope my brain is still at least a little in flux- I always worry that at some point I will ossify and lose the ability to recognize that my opinions about some group are shitty and prejudiced. It’s an unpleasant feeling, but definitely worth it to be able to make a little more progress.

Kelli, your film class sounds like one I wish I had taken- I’ve had a lot of classes in feminist topics, but most of my professors had real difficulty in getting underlying theory across, particularly complex theory about representation. The “I don’t consider myself a feminist…” thing always kills me, though, as it’s hard for me to imagine anyone who wouldn’t want to consider themselves one (much less a woman.)

Depressingly, in a lot of ways, feminism and the degree to which most people understand it and its goals has been shoved _back_ since the 70s.

The “I don’t consider myself a feminist…” thing always kills me, though, as it’s hard for me to imagine anyone who wouldn’t want to consider themselves one (much less a woman.)

Hmm, I don’t know any profs–male or female–who’d say that, not today.

I generally do have to take a portion of a class period to explain EXACTLY what feminism means so that the students–who are, HELLO, sitting in a college classroom on an equal playing field trying to make something of themselves!–realize they are ALL feminists. It’s definitely a word that gets a bad rap.

Haven’t read every comment here, but let it be pointed out that Animal House may very well have been a turning point in bad behavior in real life. Binge drinking, underage rape, non-stop partying – all snickered at and applauded in Animal House. It was like it gave the green light to the students watching. Monkey see, monkey do. (Not unlike endless dreary car chases in movies, or bar fights. It looks fun in the movies! Everyone walks away with a little mark on their faces! IRL you are dead or maimed for life.)