I loved this so much!! This film came out the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, just when I was making friends and forming groups with the outcasts and carving my own “alternative” identity. This brought so much back to me. It’s been so many years since I’ve seen it, so I will have to give it a rewatch.
I love your rewrite ideas. Seriously, having lived during this time and dated so many boys that were just like Duckie (very purposefully) - they ALL ended up coming out of the closet after high school. There is no way Duckie was ever straight. But, during that time, you just didn’t come out. Such a different time.
This film is so beyond white - as I agree all of Huges’ films are. I have never looked or thought about any of them critically because they were such the anthem of my youth! After the mention of anti-Asian themes, I thought of the humor relief Long Duck Dong’s “stereotypical” character was in Sixteen Candles.
It's great to hear how much it resonates. And definitely worth a rewatch! I'll always love it for sentimental reasons, but it was really interesting to take another look at it through this lens.
The movie is so queer! I actually think, though, that Duckie isn't gay--that he's more fluid. It never added up to me that he was gay, partly because of my own experiences in relationships that might have looked straight from the outside but definitely weren't. I appreciate that there's more visibility for non-binary/genderqueer life, and sexual fluidity, these days.
Long Duck Dong is definitely the first thing that comes to mind for me too. Thanks for reading!
I can definitely see Duckie being more fluid. I still see things primarily in a binary - mostly because of age and experience, though I’m trying hard to get with the times!
I feel that! Being bi / queer contributes to me seeing things this way--but also what I’ve learned since then--things are So. Different. when it comes to sex & gender now and I really value the freedom younger folks are bringing to the table.
this is such a wonderful, delightful, and insightful essay! i really love the way you point out the way that class plays out in the movie through body language and styles of conflict.
also it's truly impossible for me to see the movie without reading duckie as queer-- the moping around to the smiths, mooning over someone unattainable!
This was so great! I remember loving the soundtrack and Andie's DIY aesthetic. I appreciated Susannah's nuanced analysis and personal connection to the movie. It seems that like Pretty in Pink, so many movies and TV shows from that time were a lot of "both/and" regarding breaking and reifying white norms. As a white girl growing up in white surburbia, I felt terribly alienated and was drawn to the punk and new wave scenes of the early 1980s. I didn't understand how much of my alienation had to do with whiteness, so I really appreciate Susannah illuminating this. And, this essay illuminated how the characters' names: Andie, Duckie, Blane, Steff, Iona tell us almost nothing about their possible genders. Thanks for your sharing thoughtful piece with us Susannah!
Thank you so much! 100% agree about Andie's DIY aesthetic. And I fully fully feel how important it was to have those scenes to be part of when you feel alienated--that was my experience too. It was partly reading perspectives from people in riot grrl (like Mimi Thi Nguyen) that created a lightbulb moment for me about how my whiteness was in play at the same time.
VERY good point about their names! There's a whole other essay here about a queer counter-reading of the movie.
I haven't seen the film! I still thought this was a great essay - thanks so much for sharing. Lots to reflect on. Maybe I'll look out for the film as well.
My copy of the University Press of Kentucky bio of Harry Dean Stanton arrived last week and it was somewhat surprising to see the real estate granted to Pretty in Pink was a scant two pages. (Repo Man fared better, but Paris, Texas was the winner by far.) This portion of the text seems like it might be worth copying here:
"Harry Dean plays Andie's loving but hapless father Jack, underemployed and still pining away for Andie's mother, who dumped him and their daughter thee years before. It's the role many moviegoers remember when they think of Harry Dean, the lifelong bachelor cast as a loyal single parent. "His most iconic mainstream performance," Zach Vasquez wrote in Crooked Marquee. "As Molly Ringwald's depressed but unfailingly supportive father, Stanton manages to elevate John Hughes' thinly sketched material, crafting a truly heartbreaking performance that in a better world would have earned him an Oscar.
"Even with its unlikely ending that has Andie finally connecting with Blane at the senior prom and not Duckie, the film has become something of a classic with a wildly popular soundtrack that featured the title song by the Psychedelic Furs. The 2019 Harry Dean Stanton Fest in Lexington, Kentucky, included an "80s Prom" after a screening of the film and a costume contest for the person wearing the best Pretty in Pink-style clothes."
This was THE movie for me for a very long time. I had my own trifecta as well - Pretty in Pink, Can’t Buy Me Love, & Some Kind of Wonderful. The last one, over time, becoming the one that mattered because I realized at some point that the reason I loved it was Watts ... my own first inklings of being queer. 😉
I also now see all three movies as a kind of continuation of the Disney Fairlytales I grew up on - with similar themes of “love conquering all” and having to work for the things that really matter and the idea of a forever love...Even the key “conflict” w A die’s dad has to do with love that lasts forever. All themes that permeated my own dating life for far too long.
It’s interesting that one could almost sub either of those movies into your essay as the “point” and characters were all some versions of each other.
I also grew up deeply connected to a church (tho sadly not one that would ever have a womxn pastor and not one w a pastor that would have EVER performed gay marriages or discussed abortion - but, as you say, that’s a different essay. Lol.) Reflecting on them now through your story, I think they reassured our middle class status. We weren’t so rich that we were assholes... you know?
I suspect Pretty in Pink stayed “on top” for me for so long because of the relationship between Andie & her dad. In the first essay I wrote after my dad passed, I discussed this move, Dirty Dancing, Steel Magnolias, and even Rumor Has It - the fathers portrayed and their relationship w their daughters and the families at large.
That, and some amazing lines from Duckie that still get quoted in my family to this day!
I loved this so much!! This film came out the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, just when I was making friends and forming groups with the outcasts and carving my own “alternative” identity. This brought so much back to me. It’s been so many years since I’ve seen it, so I will have to give it a rewatch.
I love your rewrite ideas. Seriously, having lived during this time and dated so many boys that were just like Duckie (very purposefully) - they ALL ended up coming out of the closet after high school. There is no way Duckie was ever straight. But, during that time, you just didn’t come out. Such a different time.
This film is so beyond white - as I agree all of Huges’ films are. I have never looked or thought about any of them critically because they were such the anthem of my youth! After the mention of anti-Asian themes, I thought of the humor relief Long Duck Dong’s “stereotypical” character was in Sixteen Candles.
Thank you so much for this!
It's great to hear how much it resonates. And definitely worth a rewatch! I'll always love it for sentimental reasons, but it was really interesting to take another look at it through this lens.
The movie is so queer! I actually think, though, that Duckie isn't gay--that he's more fluid. It never added up to me that he was gay, partly because of my own experiences in relationships that might have looked straight from the outside but definitely weren't. I appreciate that there's more visibility for non-binary/genderqueer life, and sexual fluidity, these days.
Long Duck Dong is definitely the first thing that comes to mind for me too. Thanks for reading!
I can definitely see Duckie being more fluid. I still see things primarily in a binary - mostly because of age and experience, though I’m trying hard to get with the times!
I feel that! Being bi / queer contributes to me seeing things this way--but also what I’ve learned since then--things are So. Different. when it comes to sex & gender now and I really value the freedom younger folks are bringing to the table.
this is such a wonderful, delightful, and insightful essay! i really love the way you point out the way that class plays out in the movie through body language and styles of conflict.
also it's truly impossible for me to see the movie without reading duckie as queer-- the moping around to the smiths, mooning over someone unattainable!
Thank you! The somatics of the movie are very interesting.
I think everyone in the movie is queer! Especially Benny. 😅
This was so great! I remember loving the soundtrack and Andie's DIY aesthetic. I appreciated Susannah's nuanced analysis and personal connection to the movie. It seems that like Pretty in Pink, so many movies and TV shows from that time were a lot of "both/and" regarding breaking and reifying white norms. As a white girl growing up in white surburbia, I felt terribly alienated and was drawn to the punk and new wave scenes of the early 1980s. I didn't understand how much of my alienation had to do with whiteness, so I really appreciate Susannah illuminating this. And, this essay illuminated how the characters' names: Andie, Duckie, Blane, Steff, Iona tell us almost nothing about their possible genders. Thanks for your sharing thoughtful piece with us Susannah!
Thank you so much! 100% agree about Andie's DIY aesthetic. And I fully fully feel how important it was to have those scenes to be part of when you feel alienated--that was my experience too. It was partly reading perspectives from people in riot grrl (like Mimi Thi Nguyen) that created a lightbulb moment for me about how my whiteness was in play at the same time.
VERY good point about their names! There's a whole other essay here about a queer counter-reading of the movie.
Thanks for reading!
Thank you for putting the time and effort into the essay!
Haven’t seen the movie but boy oh boy do I remember those drawstring plastic bags from The Gap
Right? I even remember what the drawstrings *felt* like.
I haven't seen the film! I still thought this was a great essay - thanks so much for sharing. Lots to reflect on. Maybe I'll look out for the film as well.
Thank you! It's definitely worth a watch if you like (or lived through) the 80s and early 90s.
Lived though :) I'll look out for it
My copy of the University Press of Kentucky bio of Harry Dean Stanton arrived last week and it was somewhat surprising to see the real estate granted to Pretty in Pink was a scant two pages. (Repo Man fared better, but Paris, Texas was the winner by far.) This portion of the text seems like it might be worth copying here:
"Harry Dean plays Andie's loving but hapless father Jack, underemployed and still pining away for Andie's mother, who dumped him and their daughter thee years before. It's the role many moviegoers remember when they think of Harry Dean, the lifelong bachelor cast as a loyal single parent. "His most iconic mainstream performance," Zach Vasquez wrote in Crooked Marquee. "As Molly Ringwald's depressed but unfailingly supportive father, Stanton manages to elevate John Hughes' thinly sketched material, crafting a truly heartbreaking performance that in a better world would have earned him an Oscar.
"Even with its unlikely ending that has Andie finally connecting with Blane at the senior prom and not Duckie, the film has become something of a classic with a wildly popular soundtrack that featured the title song by the Psychedelic Furs. The 2019 Harry Dean Stanton Fest in Lexington, Kentucky, included an "80s Prom" after a screening of the film and a costume contest for the person wearing the best Pretty in Pink-style clothes."
This was THE movie for me for a very long time. I had my own trifecta as well - Pretty in Pink, Can’t Buy Me Love, & Some Kind of Wonderful. The last one, over time, becoming the one that mattered because I realized at some point that the reason I loved it was Watts ... my own first inklings of being queer. 😉
I also now see all three movies as a kind of continuation of the Disney Fairlytales I grew up on - with similar themes of “love conquering all” and having to work for the things that really matter and the idea of a forever love...Even the key “conflict” w A die’s dad has to do with love that lasts forever. All themes that permeated my own dating life for far too long.
It’s interesting that one could almost sub either of those movies into your essay as the “point” and characters were all some versions of each other.
I also grew up deeply connected to a church (tho sadly not one that would ever have a womxn pastor and not one w a pastor that would have EVER performed gay marriages or discussed abortion - but, as you say, that’s a different essay. Lol.) Reflecting on them now through your story, I think they reassured our middle class status. We weren’t so rich that we were assholes... you know?
I suspect Pretty in Pink stayed “on top” for me for so long because of the relationship between Andie & her dad. In the first essay I wrote after my dad passed, I discussed this move, Dirty Dancing, Steel Magnolias, and even Rumor Has It - the fathers portrayed and their relationship w their daughters and the families at large.
That, and some amazing lines from Duckie that still get quoted in my family to this day!
Thanks so much for this. xx