I grew up on those classics, sure; Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And I loved his 90s classics too, most notably Christmas Vacation which I can watch ad nauseau.
To be honest, I didn't really like Pretty in Pink, but I liked Steff's arrogance. I thought his character was actually fun to watch as opposed to the obnoxious Jon Cryer. I liked Blaine too. I couldn't stand Duckie; too loud and annoying.
Sixteen Candles though, the first time I saw it threw me off right from the beginning and it was because of a line that Hughes kept in the film. Now, he wrote this film, I checked. And I always wondered in my youth why this line was in the film. There's a sequence in the film where the protagonist, Samantha, played by Molly Ringwald, is talking to her friend about her ideal 16th birthday party:"You know, a big party and a band, with tons of people.Tons of people. And a big Trans Am in the driveway with a ribbon around it. And some incredibly gorgeous guy that you meet in France. And you do it on a cloud without getting pregnant or herpes. I don't need the cloud. Just a pink Trans Am and the guy, right? A black one. A black guy? A black Trans Am. A pink guy.[Laughing]"
Sure, you saw it too. It was probably something small for no reason. Kind of like the Disney cartoon I watched once when my siblings were younger, and for no reason, absolutely no reason, Mickey was rolling along having a good time, then out of nowhere, two objects became a pickaninny and a sambo and were dancing around, then just left before the next scene. Why?
Well, the quote in Sixteen Candles about a 'black guy' may have been seen as a small laugh and not to be taken seriously, but I was ten years old at the time and I was instantly turned off. Why did she have to recoil when the thought of being with an African American male came to mind? And then, it was smoothed over when speaking of color as though it was so interchangeable, and not that it was about race and culture. Please. Hughes, you don't fool me. I've watched enough of your films to realize the world that they are in, and to know that you believe that those other colors which are so interchangeable are merely set dressing. But there are those of us who were that 'set dressing' in those environments, academic and social and even residential, and we don't take kindly to slights like this one or the others you perpetrated in this film and others.
The character Long Duk Dong...please. His stereotypically broken English, inability to hold his liquor, over-sexed and spastic behavior point to the all too hackneyed portrayal of Asians that Hollywood has been so found of since its inception. Hughes plays to the lowest common denominator with the addition of this character. Why couldn't the exchange student been European? Just as fun to poke fun of, no? But no, he's Asian. Who cares, right? Who cares if this is another in a series of ways to run down a proud people, because it doesn't affect you, right? Well, where Hughes made a mistake was that the film endures, and for years to come, it will become less and less funny and acceptable to look at the baseless stereotypical ways that he tried to get a laugh in this film and others.Webster's defines racism as "the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."
His other characters don't act the way that Long Duk Dong does, so why does LDD?
Let's move on to 'The Breakfast Club'. Now, I love this movie. I love the dialogue (written again by Hughes). I love the banter and the simplicity of the film. I love the fact that it looked eerily like the same library that The Greenhill School had in my idyllic Addison, TX of my youth. In totality, this is a wonderful film. Why though does Hughes feel the need to once again poke fun at African Americans, none of which by the way, are in the cast.In a scene between the great and recently departed Paul Gleason as Mr. Vernon and Judd Nelson's Bender, there's some dialogue between them, whose tone was pointless. Let me set it up; Bender is trying to create a diversion while the other Breakfast Clubbers are running around the empty and expansive halls of the high school. He finds an errant basketball in a small P.E. gym and starts dunking the ball and being loud, to get Vernon off of the trail of the other Clubbers. The following lines are performed:
VERNON: Bender! Bender! Bender! What is this? What are you doing here, what is this?
BENDER: Oh, hi!
VERNON: Out! That's it Bender! Out, it's over!
BENDER: Don't you wanna hear my excuse?
VERNON: Out!
BENDER: I'm thinking of trying out for a scholarship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZjK6dnZcFk
Now, words on paper are on thing, and even words on this screen are something different. But, the way that Judd Nelson delivers the line, and the way that he walks and talks is stereotypical of a Black man, especially the way he says 'schol-uh-ship'. Why Hughes? Did Mr. Nelson come up with this on his own? And even if he did, why did you, as the director, allow this to go on? What was the purpose of poking fun at African American stereotypes? What purpose did it serve? Couldn't he have simply read the line as is, and still gotten the laugh? Or, was there some need to continually denigrate those whom you never even see or discuss in your films? There must have been, because in 'The Breakfast Club' it didn't stop there.
Later in the movie, the students are all smoking weed, and for no reason, the previously Anthony Michael Hall who was brilliant in his performance as Brian, states, "Chicks, cannot hold der smoke! That's what it is!" He says this because Molly Ringwald's character Claire, coughs after taking her first pull. If you've seen the film, you know that he does it not in the same slightly lispy way that he's been running through his brilliant lines before, but in an affected, backwoods Southern African American stereotypical way. Why? Because he's high now, does he have to speak this way? Because he's high now, does he have to make fun of African Americans, Southerners, and women by stating that they can't hold their smoke? He sounded like Jim in Huckleberry Finn. And for what, another cheap laugh. Why Mr. Hughes, why?You may read this and state that I'm looking at things far too critically, and you may be right, but that doesn't mean that these things didn't happen. It doesn't mean that for no apparent reason in films where African Americans were not characters at all, John Hughes chose to take shots at them. And instead of having a respectful portrayal of a young Asian man, Hughes chose to use every stereotype that Hollywood has used before with Long Duk Dong. There are politely racist scenes or instances in 'National Lampoon's Vacation' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' as well. Classic films, yes, but why do it Mr. Hughes, why? For a man whose work is so respected and so lauded, to not make note of this tendency in his films would mean that one is not looking at his work objectively. And during all of the retrospectives this weekend and throughout the rest of the year, if no one else brings it up, I did. Why Mr. Hughes, why?
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