Mean-spirited
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Sixteen Candles
lizzyben04 — 14 years ago(August 25, 2011 06:25 AM)
I watched this movie because I'm such a fan of Hughes' other films (Breakfast Club, etc.), but I was surprised by how mean-spirited & even offensive this movie was.
Racism - the "gong" whenever the Chinese guy is mentioned, endless jokes about his Chinese name, really over the top stereotyping, "a black guy??" etc.
Sexism - joking about rape, the 'hero' Jake giving his drunk girlfriend to a horny 14-year-old to drive safely home, w/the implication that he can score, Jake kicking the door closed on his girlfriend's hair & leaving her there, older sister turned into a fool at her wedding. There was a theme of humiliating/humbling the "blonde chick" throughout really.
General meanspiritedness - the periodic shots of a girl in a brace trying to drink, dance, etc, for laughs.
I don't know, this movie left a bad taste in my mouth. And this is from someone who likes Hughes movies, or even Farrelly movies. I'm used to un-PC stuff in comedies, but maybe the difference here was the general kind of meanness that seemed to run through the movie. Flame away, but I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way. -
gringa24450 — 14 years ago(September 05, 2011 03:36 PM)
No I don't! You're mean!! bursts out into hysterical tears.
Maybe what I'm seeing as cruelness is just lameness on the part of the screenwriter - going for the easy joke. And because it's a Hughes movie, I had expections that were too high. But, judging by the other threads on this board, it doesn't look like I was the only one disturbed by some of the themes of the movie. -
Emory_Kris_Aaron — 13 years ago(August 05, 2012 11:13 PM)
You can be "thin skinned" when it comes to how you yourself are treated, although in my experience it is usually bullies and jerks who like to make that point. Being disturbed by how someone else is depicted or treated is something different.
Martin Luther King Jr. was really "thin skinned" when it came to how blacks in the South were treated. See what I mean? -
ridgerunner72160-609-362419 — 10 years ago(August 05, 2015 04:55 PM)
I agree. That's why there are so few movies worth watching nowadays. These movie producers are all slaves to political correctness where certain groups can never be shown in a negative way. It's not at all like in real life.
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rdpepper — 14 years ago(November 29, 2011 11:27 AM)
First the girl in the brace had scoliosis and I knew someone with it, and she did have problems like the girl did in the movie. I never thought Jake asked Ted to drive Carolyn home so he could rape her,and Ted horny as he was was not the kind of kid that would do that anyway, he would be too scared. In the end it seems like anything that happened was not rape at all.
Where does is show that Jake knew he shut the door on her hair? He shut the door because he wanted to call Samantha and Carolyn was yelling drunkenly in the hallway.
The sister didn't turn into a fool, she had cramps and took 4 muscle relaxers instead of 1 and got loopy, which was funny because the sister was very prim and uptight in the other parts of the movie.
John Hughes tried to write how a bunch of upper middle class white kids in the midwest would talk and act during the 80's, maybe it wasn't PC but it rang true, he didn't make them heroes he just made them real teenagers which really hadn't been done before, and teenagers can be very mean and make fun of things and people they don't know. -
suzy8track — 14 years ago(December 01, 2011 01:27 PM)
@rdpepper: You said it perfectly! I don't recall any rape in this movie at all! Ted was trying to take Carolyn home, but she was too drunk to tell him where she lived so they ended up sleeping in the car, but it was apparent that NOTHING happened! I love this movie because at the time I was that age and could totally relate to these characters. It was one of the first times where I watched a movie about high school kids where the actors are actually of high school agenot in their 20s!
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meLazlo1953 — 11 years ago(August 22, 2014 06:09 AM)
Not so sure nothing happened - Ted says "did we ?" and Carolyn answers "yeah, I'm pretty sure". Hard to believe Ted would forget his first, but we aren't sure how much if anything he's had to drink - just kind of suggestive
It's all in the reflexes!
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minhal92 — 13 years ago(April 07, 2012 08:55 AM)
Obviously you didn't get the humor in this movie. I thought the Chinese guy was pretty funny, you gotta take the movie in a light way cause its fairly obvious they're making jokes!
And I agree, it was better than the cra* that hollywood is spitting out nowadays. -