People who were teens in 80's... what did you think of 16 candles at the time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the time I thought is was creepy that Jake was interested in Samantha. Samantha looked like a little kid. He Came off as a pedophile.

+1000 Could you image Jake showing up to take your 13-14 year old daughter on a date?

Times were different, as many have noted here.
The most popular girl in my 7th grade class in 1984 was dating a senior in high school. We were all insanely jealous that she was going to the prom.

Creepy

[Anonymous]

How has a 37YO never seen this movie until now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just watched the movie with Millennials and Gen Z (ages from 37-22). We were all absolutely horrified by the blatant racism against Asians and sexism of the film. We could not believe how the movie glorified date rape culture (the main guy giving the nerdy guy his passed out girlfriend to do whatever he wanted with her...) and how alot of the men were just plain predators...

Don't get me started on a non-consenting woman being forced down the aisle to get married.

We were all wondering if this was actually funny in the 80s. Did anyone see anything wrong with this or was this just the way it was back then?

All right your millennialism is showing with this one. She was not a non consenting woman being forced down the aisle. She had every intention of marrying him. she was just supposed to be loopy from taking too much Midol.

[Anonymous]

Interesting question OP, It was and still is one of my favorite movies, but I've tried to recall if I was bothered/offended by all the stuff you mentioned at the time. It's possible I was, but I don't remember being so, and I don't remember the parts with Long Duck Dong and the passed out girlfriend being handed over to the geek causing any controversy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I remember thinking Long Duck Dong was offensive. But the rest seemed completely normal.

I don't want to make this political, but when the Kavanaugh stuff was happening I had a hard time explaining to my younger friends that date rape wasn't something we had words for. Girls were blamed for making poor choices and we all took that at face value--it would have been unthinkable for many of us to call the police or tell your parents. Thank goodness times have changed.

Not totally true. What was depicted in 16 candles would not have been considered rape at the time. What KAvanaugh was accused of, actually forcibly holding a girl down and having sex with her (if she hadn't run away) would most definitely have been considered rape, even if they were on a date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I liked Molly Ringwald's boyfriend/crush in the movie. He was soooo handsome and clean. Mainly clean. And omg no butt-crack or underwear showing for the men...GOLD.

I saw it in India and a teen.I was horrified by the American family who did not remember the birthday, the pregnant bride, the inappropriate grandparents, the underwear episode, the nude shower scene, the date rapey thing, the sexual escapades of the teens. I was also more horrified by the Asian parents who had sent their son to live in this place (more than the racism which was mainly ignorance rather than hatred).

I still liked the movie.

The bride was not pregnant! In fact the joke was she had bad menstrual cramps and had taken too many painkillers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I loved the central love story and Molly Ringwald's take on a generally angsty teen.

Every other storyline was problematic: the date rape, the racist tropes on Gedde Watanabe's character - with the bonus of treating Joan Cusack as a loser because of scoliosis - and the mafia jokes about the sister's fiance and her being drugged at the wedding (and presumably for the wedding night too).

God people, rewatch the movie! No one drugged the bride. She took too much medicine for her menstrual cramps. And she did this on her own, no one tricked her into it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was a fairly accurate representation of what we were dealing with at the time and how many people behaved. I was a teenager in the 80s and loved the movies then, now I look back and it's definitely the past.

Agree fairly accurate representation. Didn’t love them though. Lots of discomfort watching then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember thinking Long Duck Dong was offensive. But the rest seemed completely normal.

I don't want to make this political, but when the Kavanaugh stuff was happening I had a hard time explaining to my younger friends that date rape wasn't something we had words for. Girls were blamed for making poor choices and we all took that at face value--it would have been unthinkable for many of us to call the police or tell your parents. Thank goodness times have changed.

This. My college roommate was messing around with a guy and he didn’t stop when she asked him. We didn’t have words for it. It wasn’t considered rape, nor consent. There was nothing to do but try to forget about it. If she hadn’t been a virgin that might have been easier. He probably was one too.

To my eternal regret I didn’t have the emotional maturity or the words to support her at the time...going to the police (or more likely campus security) would not have helped. We just didn’t talk about it after that weekend. I couldn’t handle it and didn’t know how to help.

How old are you people? I'm 51, about to mark my 30th college reunion, and we certainly knew what date rape was when I was in college. We absolutely "had words for" it. I realize that awareness has expanded and some norms have in fact changed, but unless you're elderly, date rape was already well understood decades ago.

Totally and I'm your age as well. It's true that actual term "date rape" didn't come into use until the late 80's, but forcibly having sex with someone you were on a date with would absolutely have been considered rape.

[Anonymous]

Wait, what’s wrong with Ghostbusters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sad everyone is denigrating 80s movies. Because if you do that, your throwing our (sexist) music under the bus too. And if you so that, then you lose our spirit.

What I loved about the 80s is that we were scrappy and fun and a little wild. We did outrageous things and it was OKAY.

It was acceptable back then. It is not today, and I'm glad. Having sex with someone who is passed out is considered rape now. It wasn't back then.

I’m glad about that too, but I still love the 80s movies.

I haven't watched 16 Candles in a long time but I remember liking it when I did see it - typical 80's flick. I don't really remember the movie very well tbh so I can't speak about the controversial scenes being discussed here. But I want to point out that even back in the 80's it was NOT o.k. to have sex with or otherwise take advantage of a passed out person.

It's a movie. We knew that back then.

It should also be pointed out that Caroline wasn't actually passed out, she was just so drunk that she didn't know what she was doing. At the time having sex, with an extremely drunk person wouldn't have been considered rape. If the person was actually passed out, I'm pretty sure it would have been, at an absolute minimum it would have been considered very assholish behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I remember thinking Long Duck Dong was offensive. But the rest seemed completely normal.

I don't want to make this political, but when the Kavanaugh stuff was happening I had a hard time explaining to my younger friends that date rape wasn't something we had words for. Girls were blamed for making poor choices and we all took that at face value--it would have been unthinkable for many of us to call the police or tell your parents. Thank goodness times have changed.

This. My college roommate was messing around with a guy and he didn’t stop when she asked him. We didn’t have words for it. It wasn’t considered rape, nor consent. There was nothing to do but try to forget about it. If she hadn’t been a virgin that might have been easier. He probably was one too.

To my eternal regret I didn’t have the emotional maturity or the words to support her at the time...going to the police (or more likely campus security) would not have helped. We just didn’t talk about it after that weekend. I couldn’t handle it and didn’t know how to help.

How old are you people? I'm 51, about to mark my 30th college reunion, and we certainly knew what date rape was when I was in college. We absolutely "had words for" it. I realize that awareness has expanded and some norms have in fact changed, but unless you're elderly, date rape was already well understood decades ago.

I’m 51 and the only time I heard of “days rape” was on “one life to live” ... I forget the blond characters name but she was date raped. It’s the only time I heard the word and it was a fantasy to think that police would care if you reported it.

I don't recall things being like that at all. It would have been difficult to prove it, if the girl were on a date with the guy and there was no sign of force. But yes, if there was a sign of forced sex on a date of course it was treated as rape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sad everyone is denigrating 80s movies. Because if you do that, your throwing our (sexist) music under the bus too. And if you so that, then you lose our spirit.

What I loved about the 80s is that we were scrappy and fun and a little wild. We did outrageous things and it was OKAY.

It was acceptable back then. It is not today, and I'm glad. Having sex with someone who is passed out is considered rape now. It wasn't back then.

I’m glad about that too, but I still love the 80s movies.

I haven't watched 16 Candles in a long time but I remember liking it when I did see it - typical 80's flick. I don't really remember the movie very well tbh so I can't speak about the controversial scenes being discussed here. But I want to point out that even back in the 80's it was NOT o.k. to have sex with or otherwise take advantage of a passed out person.

It's a movie. We knew that back then.

We knew it was bad but it was legal.

It seriously was not something that I heard of happening to anyone and I went to A LOT of parties. Yes, drunken hookups happened but nobody was having sex with anyone passed out cold - that would have been rape even back then.

This is exactly my experience and sentiments as well.

[Anonymous]

I was a teenager in the 80s; girls considered it "date rape" guys usually did not and drunk or high girls were considered free game. If the guy was poor enough, they might be charged with rape but mostly they weren't. I knew girls who either had the resulting date rape baby, or had an abortion.

It's one of the reasons I avoided frat parties in college. Couldn't risk getting pregnant and having my parents pull me out of college and not paying for me to go back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I loved the central love story and Molly Ringwald's take on a generally angsty teen.

Every other storyline was problematic: the date rape, the racist tropes on Gedde Watanabe's character - with the bonus of treating Joan Cusack as a loser because of scoliosis - and the mafia jokes about the sister's fiance and her being drugged at the wedding (and presumably for the wedding night too).

God people, rewatch the movie! No one drugged the bride. She took too much medicine for her menstrual cramps. And she did this on her own, no one tricked her into it!

Right- but it wasn’t simple Midol. She was on hard core muscle relaxers, which were much more commonly prescribed for menstrual cramps back then. Midol wouldn’t make a person act like that, even if she had overdosed.

It’s a movie that took all of the craziness of high school in the 80s and oversimplified and over exaggerated it all at the same time. Most of Joh Hughes’s movies did that. That’s why all of us normal kids ran to see his films. Granted, there was a lot of sex and booze in high school but nothing was quite as beautiful as they were in the movies.

PS- everyone talks about the rapey and racist behavior but what about poor Joan Cusack who had to struggle with her scoliosis brace and couldn’t even get a drink of water? Anti-ADA!!