I’ve found that watching or reminiscing on old movies with my parents is an eye opening experience on both ends of the spectrum. These archetypal pieces of media are a stem behind the ignorance that seems to have stained older generations with many of their dogmatic, and blatantly bigoted views. It’s frightening to see how insensitively set in their way some people are, and when peeking into the pop-culture and media that raised them, it’s clearer to see how this mindset became so widespread. Even more revealing, is how genuinely surprised they are at the content that they overlooked, not able to believe that this type of horror lay hidden between the lines of their beloved Hollywood stars. “Classic” films, that are praised and taught to be so influential in past lives, are drenched in misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, and rape culture, ideas that were normalized and promoted through mainstream films. It’s astonishing, seeing how this behavior is still overlooked by those generations, ideals cemented in their minds, and oblivious to the damage this has caused.
The movie, ‘Sixteen Candles’ was among the most alarmingly stigmatized films I’ve seen. The rape culture, ableism, homophobia, and racism in this movie is profoundly disturbing to me, factors that my parents didn’t seem to be aware of until I pointed them out. Perhaps the most recognized offense of the movie, is its treatment of the character Long Duk Dong, the Asian foreign exchange student who is introduced with the sound of a gong whenever he is shown on screen, portrayed as idiotic and the butt of every joke, similar to the intended “comedic value” of a physically disabled character, her struggles only shown for laughs, robbing her character of any actual depth or context, not even giving her any lines. Then comes the “ good-hearted, geek”, Farmer Ted, whose first appearance in the movie is him borderline sexually harassing the main character on the bus, non-stop hitting on her and asking if he’s turning her on, even after her repeated request for him to stop and leave her alone. His stalkerish habits are played off as “ boys being boys”, even when veering into the lines of rape, when him and another boy take advantage of a drunk girl, touching and trading her off to one another like a possession. ( insert line from movie ) :
Ted: You see, [girls] know guys are, like, in perpetual heat, right? They know this shit. And they enjoy pumping us up. It’s pure power politics, I’m telling you … You know how many times a week I go without lunch because some bitch borrows my lunch money? Any halfway decent girl can rob me blind because I’m too torqued up to say no.
Jake: I can get a piece of ass anytime I want. Shit, I got Caroline in my bedroom right now, passed out cold. I could violate her ten different ways if I wanted to.
Ted: What are you waiting for?
The passed out girl’s boyfriend then trusts the horny, clearly not past assaulting women, teenage boy enough to hand him his unconscious girlfriend and practically give him free range and the opportunity to assault her, telling him to ‘have fun with her’. The scene, to me, was horrific, simply seeing the transition of her unconscious body is hauntingly similar to real life accounts of rape and assault. The boy recruits his friends to take revealing and suggestive pictures of them together. It’s then implied that Ted and Caroline had sex while she was too drunk to tell the difference between him and her boyfriend. Mind you, this is played off as romantic and harmless, categorized as “not really rape”, because she later says she has a feeling she might have enjoyed it. Issues with consent don’t end there. Later in the movie a woman gets married while overdosed on muscle relaxers, so out of it that she had to be dragged down the aisle and then give her already apprehensive vows while not sober.
The language in the movie, no matter the time period, is littered with homophobic slurs. Boys with feminine traits or without girlfriends are labeled as “faggots”. The entire plot centered around ‘Farmer Tom’ has to do with masculinity and could have been used for good, but instead added construction to the stereotypes and roles boys have to take to be men, meaning mainly, sex. Or more accurately, rape.
I felt uneasy throughout the entire film, my concerns overshadowed by the facts that this was a “classic film”, and the endless problematic areas should be dismissed because of the history behind the movie. But, as already explained, these movies were monumental in so many young lives, so much that seemingly meaningless jokes can be transformed into very dangerous realities, plagued with racism, rape, and general disrespect.
