Which one were you?

There are very few people who understood the teenage condition better than John Hughes, the director of The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. A spokesman announced Hughes died today at the age of 59.

Hughes was, first and foremost, a writer, penning the story that would eventually become National Lampoon’s Vacation. But rather than tell the story from the father’s point of view, it’s told via a boy narrator. The story, “Vacation ‘58,” is written like a kid would speak, and that’s where Hughes’ talent lie. Reading faux-teen speak that is so obviously written by someone not of the generation is like nails on a chalkboard, but with Hughes it was fluid. There was no overuse of slang, no hyping of fast-fading fads.

As I type, I can hear these lines, hilarious yet natural, cycling through my brain. You’re stewed, buttwad! Hey Cameron, you realize if we played by the rules, we’d be in gym class right now? Blane! His name is Blane?! That’s a major appliance, that’s not a name!

You look good wearing my future.

He stopped directing after a disastrous time on Curly Sue, but he kept writing and script doctoring, often under the name Edmond Dantes — the wronged protagonist who seeks vengeance from Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo.

Even more so than the way his teens spoke was the way they felt and acted. Yeah, he dealt in broad, sometimes laughably so, characters — brains, athletes, basket cases, princesses and criminals, to paraphrase one of Hughes’ more famous passages. But they were all relatable. You got to see yourself as whoever you wanted to see yourself in — be it the priss who is deeper than her facade lets on, or the girl who acts crazy because she’s not going to get attention any other way. It was something for everyone. Even in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, with its impossibly cool main character, there was Cameron, who hated his parents and just wanted to spend in the day in bed. Even Ferris, the most outlandish of the Hughes characters — and that includes Kelly LeBrock’s fantastical Lisa from Weird Science, only because no teenager is that sure of himself — talks to directly to the audience. He’s about to play and he’s asking you to be on his team. You. Yes, you. No matter what Hughes movie you’re watching, you find your teenage self within those characters.

Take Sam Baker from Sixteen Candles. Her entire goal throughout the movie is to be noticed. She’s not different, she’s not special — she just wants recognition that she exists. Sam wants validation, not just from her classmates (but only if it’s the right kind of validation … sorry, Anthony Michael Hall) but from her parents, as well. Hughes movies are all built around these simple teenage tropes: subversion of authority, fantasy realization, that desire to be the coolest guy in the room.

At the end of Sixteen Candles, ultimate heartthrob Jake Ryan and Sam sit cross legged, facing each other over a lit birthday cake. He tells her to make a wish and she says, “It already came true.” That’s what really made Hughes great — the fairytale elements. They weren’t super outlandish, but they were the escapist flourishes that make movies worth watching. A group of kids from several different social cliques put together in a room will probably not end up best friends. No teenager can hijack a float at the Von Steuben Day Parade, lead the entire city of Chicago in choreographed dance routine and still get away with cutting school. And the most popular guy in school doesn’t fall in love with anonymous teen just because she bites her lip and looks at him doe-eyed. But it was fantasy grounded in a harsh high school reality.

Yeah, Jake Ryan would never have noticed Sam Baker in real life. But it’s not real life. It’s the movies. So Sam gets to celebrate her 16th birthday with him, while wearing a princess dress and a flower crown. And the Weird Science boys get to create the perfect woman and use her to defeat their enemies. And Ferris Bueller gets to spend a day, where he should be in gym class, just enjoying life. And that’s a fantasy everyone, teenager or not, can take part in.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 6:25 pm and is filed under In Memoriam, Movies. 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.