I must have seen this movie twelve times, but it’s been at least ten years since I have seen if from start to finish. No longer a teenager or 30 something adult, my views of the movie have changed a bit.
Stock Up Characters:
Carl. The lowly janitor, a type I might have laughed at in high school has a real sense of humor, sense of self, and is pretty smart. Too bad they cut out one of best scenes when he and Vernon were predicting where the kids might be in the future. One thing I did not catch in the very end is Bender treating him with respect as they walk out to " See you next Saturday. " Carl’s view of the children as they exit is not one of my favorite parts of the film. I mean if some deadbeat mocked my livelihood, I’m not so sure I would forgive him that quickly.
John Bender. Judd Nelson’s performance stands the test of time. The movie would not work without him. He’s funny, authentic, and has the worst home life of the bunch. Sure he looks a little too old for high school, but beneath the front of his image, he’s really street smart, and a bit scared.
Stock Down Character:
Andrew Clark. As a young adult, I liked this character. Now I think he’s a bit miscast with Emilio Estevez. He’s short, hardly a powerhouse athlete type. Granted wrestling has weight classes for competition, but when he and John Bender face off, my money would have been on Bender as he much bigger and rather athletic.
The movie itself acknowledges that they’re cliches when Anthony Michael Hall’s character calls them the nerd, the princess, the jock, the basket case and the criminal*. I think the point was a character study on those stereotypes, and how they’d all interact if forced together for a day. Including the principal and janitor.
*In my school, we called them burnouts.
I’ve only seen it once and that was when it was released in the theatre. I was 21 at the time and high school was a fairly recent experience and I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Recently I’ve been toying with whether I should watch it again. To be honest, I was afraid seeing it again (as a cynical adult) might spoil my fond memory of it.
A user named u/tyzik came up with the perfect fit at Reddit:
*
A naked blonde walks into a bar, carrying a poodle under one arm and a 6 foot salami under the other.
The Bartender says, “So, I don’t suppose you’d be needing a drink?”
The blonde says “I definitely do, after what just happened to me.”
The bartender says “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
The blonde says, “Well, my boyfriend and I were just about to make love, when out of nowhere the crazy bastard says ‘I’m gonna pound my favorite bitch with my giant sausage’. So I grabbed them both and got the hell out of there!”*
I’ve always been curious how true-to-life this, and similar, movies are because my Finnish high-school experience was so much different. In movies, an American teenager’s life seems to totally revolve around high-school. It’s a lot looser over here. Most have friends outside school. There’s no jocks, or drama geeks, etc. like in the movies. A school might have theater productions and football but they’re not even close to importance for everyone like in America. One Tree Hill (the TV series) is baffling to me. Is sports really that important? If someone over here is seriously into sports he joins a local sports club (often a soccer or hockey club).
It varies from place to place. Many states, including Texas, are known for the heavy emphasis on high school football, but many school districts are much more relaxed and it’s just not a big deal.
I don’t know much about Finnish schools, but I’m going to guess that there’s less difference than you think. High school (usually grades 9 through 12) takes a lot of time each day, just as I’m sure it does in Finland. Many friendships and activities are naturally linked to the school. We typically have everything from sports to band to literary magazines to language clubs to whatever. There are also sports clubs outside of high school.
Where I went to high school (and played varsity football) the athletic teams were fairly important, but they weren’t fawned over and they certainly didn’t rake in huge amounts of money. It took a lot of dedication to play football (about 30 hours a week pre-season and 20 hours a week during the season), so the players had to be pretty dedicated. We were proud of doing it, but I was equally proud of being tapped for the National Honor Society or getting a good-looking yearbook put together.
I was in high school around that time (graduated 88’) in the midwest and while I liked the movie it never really resonated with me all that much. I went to school in the morning and left after last period. My and my friends social lives were much more centered around our part time jobs. Out of our class of 300 there were probably a dozen or so kids who were really into school, school activities, and it was probably a big part of their lives. The 180 of the rest of us had more going on outside of school.
You know, I didn’t like certain parts of the movie. The geek is the only guy not to get a girl, and he does the assignment for the five of them. And the principal is right-- Bender would be lucky to get a job working fast food after high school.
I guess I’ve always sympathized more with the adults than I did with the teenagers in this film. (Of course, I didn’t see it until I was an adult.)
Of course it’s a happy ending. He gets to converse and meet with people he never would in regular school. He writes a paper that he loves so much that he kisses it. He got out of 1 day of studying that he probably would have to do at home. “Getting a girl” is not the end-all be-all of happy endings.
