I gotta say, this movie doesn’t age well. There’s ambiguity about whether or not that had sex, but it’s enough of a possibility to be a little cringe-y. Also, maybe I missed something in high school or hung out with a totally square crowd, but there were never parties like that where the whole school was invited. Plenty of drinking, drugs, and sex, yes, but usually kept among one’s own clique.
John Hughes had this vision of high school that has not matched the experiences of anyone I’ve ever met. Maybe the 'burbs are really that different from the city, I dunno.
That said: I still like this movie. It’s silly and stupid but it amused me. And I never thought that Farmer Ted and Caroline actually had sex – but in retrospect, her original boyfriend was a jerk to put her in that situation.
All, er… “semantics” (???) issues aside (for the record, my recollection of the Caroline/Farmer Ted scenario is pretty much the same as monster’s), I second the notion that the movie “doesn’t age well”.
Aside from Long Duck Dong and the whole Possible Date Rape thing, hell, there’s grandparents feeling up their grandkids, disparaging images of Ukranians…
…and let’s not forget the little conversation between Samantha and her best friend, where Samantha is talking about how she always envisioned her 16th birthday (something about a TransAm and a hot boyfriend). There is an entanglement with syntax, and the friend mistakenly believes that Sam is expressing the desire for–gasp!–a Black boyfriend!
(Note: quotes are not exact.)
*Friend: A BLACK GUY?!!?!??!?
Sam (rolling eyes): NO-oooooo, silly, a Black CAR–a pink guy.*
Ohhhh… Whew Ha Ha! Imagine the absurdity of dating a Black guy! :rolleyes:
Also, even as a KID I never understood what was so great and desirable about Jake (besides his cute little face and that CAR). I mean, he dumps his girlfriend off on Farmer Ted, he’s obscenely rude to Samantha’s grandparents for no reason, and he shows up uninvited to her sister’s wedding! That’s not romantic! That’s bad manners!
(And wasn’t his interest in Sam fueled mainly by the note he found, whereby he learned that she wanted to have sex with him??? And the best thing he has to say about her, to justify his interest in her to his jock friend, is “She’s not UGLY…”)
Good God, I’ve gotten old. :eek: 
At any rate, although the movie does not age well, I’m still fond of it, as a relic of my youth (sort of like how you keep that one teddy bear or stuffed dog, even though he has no eyes and smells like cat pee). And it reminds me how far I’ve (thank GOD) come! 
auntie em, I had forgotten about the “pink guy” scene, but you’re totally right. Last time I saw it a couple of years ago, I remember thinking “what the hell?” but it passed under my pre-pubescent radar when I saw it the first time.
But when was he rude to Samantha’s grandparents? I thought they were the ones who got freaked out when he was trying really hard to be polite.
Yeah, eventually he tried to be polite… but remember at first how he kept calling (despite the fact that it was late, and everyone in the house–except for Long Duck Dong, who was out with his Manly Girlfriend–was in bed) and hanging up on them, and then he said “Eat Me!” into the phone?
That’s why they were freaking out when he finally DID attempt to be polite!
Good heavens. Sympathy for the grandparents is the first step to being Over The Hill… 
Wow, thanks for all the replies.
Mmmm. So the general consensus is basically that Farmer Ted is a dolt who can’t remember when he had sex, the girl is a bitch goddess who can’t remember when she had sex, the boyfriend is a rude and presumptuous wedding crasher, and the best friend is a bigot. I think Molly is the only one who comes out of this one unscathed!
In any case, I think I prefer “Pretty in Pink.” You never had to worry about Ducky accidentally committing rape…
I actually remember the blond girl, and the others being really jealous of her and all. Somehow I can’t muster up a lot of sympathy for her. I mean, she seemed so much more normal after the night with Ted. Anyway, yeah, not necessarily a movie that ages well, but I still love John Hughes.
BTW, why was Ted called “Farmer”? It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.
And don’t forget, Sam gives her panties to Ted so he can show the guys what a stud he was.
(I agree, the movie ages horribly. That said, I still find it hysterical).
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The Blonde remembers more than Farmer Ted. Farmer Ted has to even ask if they had sex. It seems highly unlikely that he was in a mental state to force himself if he can’t remember it.
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The Blonde says it was nice. “Nice”, not “rape.” This is probably a point deliberately put in by the writer to avoid suggesting date rape.
I can understand how some people think that date rape might have occurred. I don’t see how people can think it was Farmer Ted doing the raping. It is clear that if there was a victim, it was Farmer Ted. Males can and have been raped folks. Didn’t Cece do a column on this?
A lot of people are misremembering the movie. The head in lap thing was not the initiation of actual sex. She was clearly aware that Farmer Ted was not her boyfriend once they got onto the road.
She was incoherent and mostly unconscious, and he was awake, coherent, driving around, and showing her off to his friends, yet she is the obvious aggressor and he the obvious victim? I think not. At least not if this incident had taken place in real life. As it is, it’s yet another fictional example of the centuries old “woman is raped and ends up liking it” story. But it isn’t right just because the character enjoys it; personally I think that makes it far sicker than a more realistic depiction of such a situation, where the girl would certainly feel violated by both her boyfriend and the nerd.
That reminds me of a scene in another film.
How about in Revenge of the Nerds where the nerd puts on a mask and has sex in the moon bounce with the football player’s girlfriend? She loves it, then freaks when she sees she had sex with a nerd, then decided she loved it because the nerd was so good.
Would that be considered outright rape or date rape? Or yet another “woman is raped but loved it” scenario, making it OK?
Sheri
Let’s not add another cheezy teen movie to the mix… At least not that one, as the high point in that flick was Booger’s winning burp. And the music at the end.
Back to ST-- Doesn’t she say something along the lines of “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” when Ted (somehow able to remember to put on his orthodontic appliance before he passes out that night) asks if they did the nasty?
She looked unhappy when she said this, IIRC. Or maybe she was upset about her new haircut…
Too close to call, but folks will see what they want to see…
SC, even.
eep!
Actually, it was a legitimate question about date rape scenes in old movies. No need to dismiss it, just because the movie itself was cheesy (in your opinion at least). And although it may be a slight hijack, it’s not a complete one, because the subject is the same, although I mentioned a different movie.
I remember Luke and Laura from General Hospital had one of the most famous “rape but she liked it in the end” scenes of all time. The “staircase” scene in Gone with the Wind could also be considered one.
Are there more recent movies that feature this? Or in these PC times, do movie makers shy away from it?
Sheri
Okay, I thought that bringing up scenes from ROTN (a film I feel could never get made in the here and now) was drawing attention away from the OP, where a specific question was asked about a particular film.
Let’s stay focused here.
I do think that if that movie had been made now, there would be a slightly different take on things. The new version would NOT show the drunken woman thinking for a bit as she sobered up, wondering if she’d had sex with the guy next to her when she woke up. In the new version, it would have to be made CLEAR that she was a slut, and that she fully deserved what she got. Twice.
The new movie goes on to pull a few tens of millions from the box-office, and everyone is okay with that. Yah, this is MUCH better.
Go rent “Strange Days”, or maybe “The Accused”, not all cinematic rape buys into that mindset.
(and I just wanted to mention Booger’s burp!)
Jake had the coolest sideburns.
My sister and I were discussing this last night. Our consensus? Yeah, it was date rape.
And the Jake whom we thought so cool and studly when we were younger is actually a real ass, y’know? He’s walking around his house moaning because of how they trashed it. Then he loads his drunken girlfriend and Farmer Ted in his Dad’s rolls-royce and sends them out on the town.
Also, someone mentioned earlier that John Hughes had a view of the world that never really existed. We look at it more as it’s the day in the life of . . . a self-centered 16 year-old girl. For example, one can imagine that her grandparents’ reaction to her developing figure, for example, would embarrass her to the point that she felt like they’d invaded her privacy so throughly they might as well have felt her up. Or when her parents realized they’d forgotten her birthday and her father went down to grovel–her magnanimous forgiveness is something that she would see herself as doing.
So I don’t think it’s an objective look at what happened that day, but it’s Sam’s perspective on what happened that day. The real events, although truly heinous, may be been slightly less offensive.
All that being said, I can’t believe I used to like this movie. It’s just vile!
I don’t think Jake was an ass. He put her in the car with the nerd, and specifically told the nerd that he had to make sure that she got home, not leave her in a parking lot somewhere.
Yes, he is angry that his house was trashed, but that’s because the girlfriend was the one who invited everyone over. He didn’t want to have the party.
The only part I find offensive in the movie, and I did even when it came out, was the “pink guy/black Trans Am” line.
Sorry- I just don’t buy the date rape argument. They were both tipsy, granted, she more than he, but she was the aggressor, and besides, they’re both fully clothed in the a.m. I really think that nothing much happened.
I agree that the movie doesn’t age well, but it was depicting high school students, and they make silly decisions and do stupid, funny things, then and now.
Not really. She calls Farmer Ted a “fag” on the bus.
They never said, but this board has put forth the theory that his last name is Farmer, which provoked snickers when the list of incoming freshmen was read. “Farmer, Ted?” “Snnnnx…Farmer Ted! Pzx!”
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See, that I really don’t like. And her reaction, when her friend tells her what was done with them is not funny. And he said “for ten minutes”, but he still has them to show to Jake! She didn’t want them back, or what?
[ul]
[li]Why is it so tragic that Samantha had to sleep on the couch? I volunteered to sleep on the couch when we had company, and even slept there sometimes when we didn’t. Closed-captioning was just coming in, so I could watch Letterman with my walkman on, and the fridge was a few steps away. [/li]
[li]I’m not inclined to feel sorry for someone who has no apparent household responsibilities beyond “turning off the stove in twenty minutes”. I did more than half the housework while my parents worked, and I still got dissed. That’s a reason to be resentful. [/li]
[li]“Grandparents forgetting a birthday? They live for that shit!” Step this way, young lady. This is called a globe. It’s a scale model of the world. What does it revolve around, you ask? Well, the model revolves around this metal stick, while the real world revolves on its axis. In other words, not you.[/li]
[li]To be fair, I got the impression that Jake did not “violate Caroline ten different ways” because he no longer wanted to do that to anyone, not just that he no longer wanted her, or sex with her. Also, “She’s not ugly,” was in response to the guy who said, “Depends on how much you paid me,” when Jake asked if he’d ever go out with Samantha. Guys say a lot of callous things about girls when they’re talking among themselves. “She’s not ugly” is about as close as you’ll get to an endorsement of someone that the guy has not yet scored with.[/li]
[li]How did Jake’s house get put back together so fast? Or did it? If it did, he probably called a cleaning service. If it didn’t, maybe that’s what he’s got planned after they have their cake; Samantha will “help” him clean it up.[/li]
Billie Bird is funny.[/ul]