no apparent reason

answers to rhetorical questions from 80s pop/rock

Q: As you walk on by, will you call my name?
A: No.

I just finished watching The Breakfast Club. I put it on netflix in some kind of crazy fit of nostalgia a while back, and it gradually crept up the queue until one day it arrived in our mailbox, as a result of my having neglected to reorder the queue in time. It's the only one of that bunch of movies that I liked, and although I still do, I have to say it doesn't pack quite the punch as it used to, for the following reasons:

Reason the First: This movie is inexplicably rated R. PG-13 appeared the year before Breakfast Club came out, so I'm at a loss to understand this. Because of the marijuana, I suppose. I guess back then they still thought it was possible/desirable to prevent teenagers from smoking marijuana--I believe now they hand it out free at high school guidance offices.

Reason the Second: The movie opens with a quotation from David Bowie's Changes:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

As a member of the generation which this movie intends to represent, I can tell you sincerely that this quotation is in no way an appropriate crie de coeur for said generation. On the wall of my 10th grade English class was a poster with the soul-stirring words of Archimedes: "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world." If I were to try to sum up the heart and soul of my generation, it would go something like this: "Give me a place to stand, and I will find something about it to complain about."

Reason the Third: I'm just too old. There, I said it. My ego forces me to state that I turned twelve the year Breakfast Club came out, so I'm not that old. But I'm much too old to buy this stuff about adolescents being blithe spirits, pure in heart and soul, and continually squashed and screwed up by the adults in their lives. I liked to believe something like that when I was an adolescent, but I now realize that the teachers etc. in my life were doing their best to keep us from flying right off the cliff we were running headlong towards as a result of our belief in our own rightness. And they were successful, by and large, I must say. Most kids I knew at that age have turned into responsible adults, ready to squash and screw up the various adolescents in our lives, once we get to that stage. (Again, I must again emphasize that I am not that old.)

What will be my next nostalgic teen movie? Ferris Bueller, I think. Not only is it another great teen rebellion movie from the 80s, but one year in my early youth, The Man as represented by my junior high principal reneged on a promise that a viewing of Ferris Bueller would be the reward for going an entire semester without getting a Blue Slip...with good reason, no doubt.

Ah, Blue Slips...how little do I miss those days of youth and high spirits. I much prefer being a "dead-hearted" old adult.

[Song lyrics corrected. What kind of a Gen Xer am I that i don't even know the correct words to that song?]

Posted by michele at March 25, 2006 12:13 AM