Sixteen Candles, Redux

Happy Monday, y'all.


First off, after the Bert and Ernie Halloween debacle and the ensuing photos (hey, thanks for tagging them on Facebook, "friends"!), I thought I could right a wrong.  Current Husband and I went to a thing Friday night, and I was cleaned up a bit, and thought, "Now is the time to take a picture to burn the Bert from people's minds."  However, I forgot that I am totally, impossibly unphotogenic. 

This is not false modesty. 

I actually had a photographer, tasked with taking a business headshot about a decade ago, say, "Wow, you're really hard to photograph!" and I said, "Oh, you mean my raccoon eye rings and budding gobbler get in the way?" and he sort of chuckled and said, "No, I meant more that you get shadows around your face easily" and I said, "Yeah, because of the coon eyes and chin gobbler." and he just shook his head, but his silence was his confirmation, and this was back when I still had my youth and my teeth.  (I still have my teeth, but hey, those days are just around the corner.)

Oh look!  It's CH, me, and my grandma's right arm! 

Thanks Halloween candy!

Anyhoo...

A while ago, I had a bad experience when my older two kids and I were singing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody in the car, and I said, "You guys should see Wayne's World!" and we rented it and they stared at the TV for about 30 minutes and then said, "Wow, you guys really had bad movies when you were kids."  Today, we came across the movie Sixteen Candles, and I thought, "Okay, THIS is my redeption!"  We got into the movie pretty late - it was after Anthony Michael Hall showed Molly Ringwald's underwear for $1 each at the school, and Jake Ryan's party was in full swing at his parent's house.  My kids were entranced.

And that's when I realized,

Oh My God, I'm Old.

How did I come to this earth-shattering realization?  When the party is going on at Jake's house, and Long Duk Dong is up in the third floor gym with Sexy American Girlfriend, and she lifts up some weights and they slide off of the bar and go through the floor, through the kitchen, and down into the wine cellar.  I very loudly gasped, and my kids said, "What's wrong?!" and I said, "Do you realize how much wine they just ruined?" And really, it was a crying shame.  I cried a little bit inside.

Of course, I spent a lot of time telling my kids about how bad it was of Jake Ryan to have the party.  Then I started totaling some damage.  Then the scene comes up when Carolyn, Jake's prom queen girlfriend, is drunk and gets her hair stuck in the door.  Oldest daughter is beside herself that Carolyn's friends cut her hair of the door - "Why!  Why are they cutting her hair!? Why don't they just OPEN THE DOOR!!" - and I take this as a chance to say that underage drinking causes people to chop your hair off at the first opportunity.  It became an Educational Moment, learned in my recent workshop "Effective Parenting Through Fear".

Then, something terrible happens.  Jake Ryan is talking to The Geek, played by Anthony Michael Hall, and he expresses not only his interest in Sam, but says he is over Carolyn.  He then says THIS:  "Carolyn is up in my room right now, inebriated.  I could violate her 10 different ways, but I'm just not interested."

WHOOSH.  The air was sucked out of the room.  Did Jake Ryan - MY Jake Ryan, who in a hundred dreams took me away from my high school in a red porsche to get me a birthday cake and ask to make a wish on top of a glass table and I say, "It just came true" - just become a DATE RAPIST?  Noooooooooooo........!!

Don't pass out, Molly! 

You don't want to find out about the 10th way!

I'm looking at my kids, and they are looking at me.  They know this is bad.  They watched "Are We There Yet?" with me and they finally pushed the STOP button on the DVD because I was in a spiraling rant about what was wrong with those kids.  Oldest Daughter and The Son knew Old Faithful was about to blow.  And then Jake took it to the next level.

When The Geek said Jake was lucky to have Carolyn, Jake told The Geek to TAKE HER and have fun!  The Geek said, "But I'm just a freshman" and Jake said, "It's okay, she's so drunk she'll never know."  WHA?!?!  In the next scene, Jake is loading up his DRUNK GIRLFRIEND in his dad's car and telling Michael Anthony Hall to not wreck the car.  "Have fun date raping my girlfriend, but DO NOT wreck my dad's Rolls Royce." 

I turn to the kids.  Oldest Daughter says, "That is wrong on so many levels." and The Son says, "He should be taking care of his girlfriend."  There is silence.  I am still staring at them.  "Um...and he should be more respectful of his parent's property?...And, the geeky kid shouldn't have taken the offer of the girlfriend?"  YES.  All of those things.  Rant avoided, let's get back to the life lesson.  The Donger gets kicked in the balls by Sam's grandma.  The sister gets all doped up on muscle relaxants because of her period.  Jake is leaning up against his car in front of the church waiting for Sam, and she looks behind her and points to herself and mouths "me?" and Jake smiles that winning date rapist smile and says, "Yeah, you!" and then she skips her sister's wedding reception to hop up on the glass table with him.

Meanwhile, Anthony Michael Hall takes pictures with the drunk Carolyn, and they wake up together in the Rolls.  He asks if they did it, she says, "I think so" and he asks her if she enjoyed it.  Carolyn thinks for a second and then says, "You know, I think I did."  Oh Holy Mother, are you KIDDING me?  I loved this movie in 1984!!! 

Thanks for taking advantage of me! 

Let's go catch Luke & Laura's wedding

on General Hospital, and dream our

sexual violation ends up the same way!

While I still think it's a great movie in so many ways, I realize that age and rational thinking have ruined the John Hughes movies for me.  Goodbye, youth.  My kids thought it was a good movie, but they realized I couldn't handle it.  It was full of LESSONS for them, so they will probably pass when Pretty in Pink is on TLC.

Which is too bad, because Molly Ringwald taking care of her unemployed alcoholic father and getting insulted by James Spader and stalked by Jon Cryer and pursued by Andrew McCarthy while sewing her own rather hideous prom dress would be a good Sunday afternoon with the kids.

Have any movies been ruined for you on the second viewing decades later?  Because I'm going to be grieving for Jake Ryan all week.