Barnabas Monkeypants

The recent death of John Hughes, who (shudder) helped define my generation, got me thinking.

No, not about my own mortality, people. I’m morbid, but not that morbid. (Not yet at least.) I was thinking about how what we’ve all seen as something great, something earth shattering, something timeless, quickly becomes not-so-great, dull, and dated as the years go on.

Hughes’ films all went by a similar pattern: the underdog (or group of underdogs), with their kind souls and individuality, not only come out on top in the end, but they make their enemies love them, changing everyone in the process (except themselves, of course). Unfortunately for these underdog cum heroes, they become unbearable by the end, and you actually start rooting for their demise. At least that’s how I feel now as an adult. (And yet, when they were released, they were universally adored.)

Take “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off,” for example. Ferris Beuller is a terrible, self-centered person. He admits it throughout the movie. And yet, because he wears a silly leopard-patterned vest (really?) and is a little wacky, we are supposed to embrace him and love him and want to be his friends. In real life, I suspect, Ferris would be pummeled and nobody would really care either way. And as a 45-year-old, he’d be an unemployed used car salesman on his 4th wife.

In fact, the only people in Hughes’ films that are remotely likable are the sidekicks who (tellingly) get kicked to the side at the first chance. Ducky in “Pretty in Pink” was kind, quirky, had good taste in music, and a good soul, and yet he is dismissed for the pretty boy (the whimpering Andrew McCarthy) with a sweet heart who will likely dump Andy (the always annoying Molly Ringwald) as soon as he starts freshman orientation at Berkeley. (What happened to Jon Cryer, by the way? “Two-and-a-Half Men” could be not only the worst sitcom on television today, it could be the worst ever.)

Cameron Frye, from “Ferris Beuller” was depressed, his parents were loveless, and he lived in the coolest house ever. Yet he had thoughts and an understanding of life far greater than his years. (And his Red Wings jersey was pretty cool, too.) Yet he was the suicidal laughingstock instead of what he deserved: compassion.

And let’s not forget some of the worst things about Hughes: his blatant use of the stereotype. Sometimes it was part of the story (the pathetic “Breakfast Club”), and sometimes it was used for laughs (the ridiculously racist Long Duk Dong in “Sixteen Candles).

(An aside: Really, Hughes? Long Duk Dong? “No more yankie my wankie?” That’s just terrible.)

But enough skewering Hughes. And thankfully for you all I neglected to discuss his truly awful kid-friendly films, Home Alone (1, 2, and 3), Beethoven, and Curly Sue. I’ll try and give the guy a bit of a break on those.

These movies — especially his teencentric ones — were all classics of their day. They were oft-quoted. They were easily recognizable and discussed. And yet, looking back, they were horrible.

I mean, when Henry turns 12, I don’t really want him to watch these movies. Not because of their barely objectionable material (a semi-nude Kelly LeBrock in “Weird Science” could probably push him through puberty), but because they focus on kids that I don’t really want him to be. It’s not that they’re quirky or somewhat bad (every hero has to have some faults, or else every movie would be about Superman), but these movies are full of self-absorbed, self-obsessed brats. Maybe it was just the 80s (the Me Generation). Maybe it was just what everyone was feeling at the time.

I’ve always considered the 80s to be the bottom of the barrel for pop culture. Movies were much  better in the 70s and 90s; music, too. So perhaps Hughes was just the one guy who was able to pull all of this together, the quintessential best director of the worst movies.

It looks, I suppose, like we’ll be skipping that decade when we introduce Henry to movies of the non-animated types.

Of course, the greatest movie of all time (a short, 1-minute examination of man’s inhumanity to man) follows. This is everything Hughes wanted in a movie, but never could have. A walker. A baby. A hallway. The three parts of a film that are crucial to its success.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Barnabas, Off Topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.