Jake Ryan: 80s Hero and Sometimes Jerkoff

I never thought the day would come when I would criticise a John Hughes film. As a kid, Home Alone, Uncle Buck and Beethoven were watched and re-watched until the VCR burnt a hole in the tape. When I first saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club as a teenager, I was in awe of how I could better relate to films made before I was born than those on offer at the cinemas, which seemed to invariably revolve around tricking people into going to prom (She’s All That, I’m looking at you).

It was only recently that I watched Sixteen Candles, the first of Hughes’ teen films. Even though it captured the essence of being a teenager – family drama, unrequited love, going to school dances without a date (sigh), I couldn’t help but be irked by the ending and its underlying message.

To summarise, Sam Baker (Molly Ringwald) has a major crush on sensitive jock Jake Ryan, who is dating the beautiful but vacuous Carolyn. Thrown into the mix is the affable Geek (Anthony Michael Hall), whose hapless attempts to woo Sam are continually rejected. At a party at Jake’s house, Jake, realising that he loves Sam, not Carolyn, makes a wager with the Geek – if the Geek hands over Sam’s underwear (which Sam gave him to help him win a bet) then Jake will let the Geek take his passed-out girlfriend home. Classy. Jake, who describes Carolyn as so drunk he “could violate her ten different ways” if he wanted to, puts her in a car for the drunken Geek to drive around, firstly to his friend’s house so they can take photos of her suggestively snuggling the Geek, and then to a car park to have sex. The next morning, Jake turns up at the car park in order to “catch” Carolyn cheating, so he can break up with her and go out with Sam.



It’s hard to decide which element of this scenario is the most depressing – the fact that Sam’s dream guy is happy to trade-off his unconscious girlfriend as part of a bet, the fact that the naive Geek is happy to take advantage of her, or the fact that despite not remembering having sex, Carolyn decides that “she thinks she enjoyed it.” Even more depressing is that Carolyn’s rape is apparently grounds for Jake to dump her.

It may have been different times, and it is just a movie, after all. But when Sam and Jake share that super cute kiss over a birthday cake, you have to wonder what kind of relationship she’s getting into.

- Josie