Don’t You Forget About Me
Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”
This collection of essays, edited by Jaime Clarke, was a wonderfully painful read. It brought back a lot of memories. John Hughes’ films (at least the teenage comedies) have a way of doing that.
Comprised of wildly divergent points of view, Don’t You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes delivers 20 essays and a forward from Ally Sheedy. These pieces range from the thoughtful to the downright sad, touching on everything from personal tragedy to the symbolism of Duckie.
Clarke, the captain of this ship, claims to have a “special place” in his heart for the films of John Hughes. It shows. This project is a brilliant idea. Gather together a bunch of novelists/journalists who came of age in the 1980’s and let them run wild using some of the most relevant films from the Reagan years as a springboard.
I was a little too young to catch Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club in theatres. These classic 80’s works didn’t reflect my life at the time of their release. Instead, they provided a sometimes terrifying, sometimes beautiful glimpse as to what high school would be like.
Of course high school is a brutal time for everyone. John Hughes speaks to that. But there’s hope. My personal favorite, Weird Science shows that no matter how bad things get you can triumph. You can also tap into a government computer, put a bra on your head and conjure up Kelly LeBrock.
Set to classic New Wave songs like the one that gave this collection its name, these films made an impact on kids. I remember seeing them at friend’s house or on cable television. Although most of the themes were above my head, the ideas sunk in. For years I believed that John Hughes’ vision of teen angst was what I could expect. High school would divide kids into groups: jocks, nerds and or geeks, prom queens, and badasses like John Bender.
I’m not sure how you’d classify Ferris Bueller, but he taught me not to worry so much. In the same way, Molly Ringwald taught me that even the popular are screwed up and Ally Sheedy taught me that I liked moody girls who wore black. Bill Paxton, Chet from Weird Science , taught me to fear jar headed dudes with military buzz cuts. In many ways John Hughes provided a road map, set to Oingo Boingo and Simple Minds.
Don’t You Forget About Me got me thinking. Essays like Tod Goldberg’s “How Andrew McCarthy Ruined My Life” hit home. Seems I’m not the only person who suffered though adolescence. Most of the contributors can agree on one thing: films like Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club helped kids deal. That’s the common theme of this collection. It runs through each chapter and everyone can relate to that. As John Bender would say, ‘So it’s sorta social, demented and sad, but social.’
This review originally appeared at Popsyndicate.com