Why Teens Wish Their Life Was An 80's Movie

Anyone with good taste in movies has seen at least one 80's movie in their lifetime (if they haven't then they're probably living under a rock, in a coma, with terrible taste in movies). These are the movies that will get passed on from generation to generation- like how it started with my mom introducing me to movies like Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, The Goonies, War Games, and Gremlins, and with me passing them on to my kids-- that is, if I have any.
Many popular 80's movies have teenagers themselves as the star roles, and the setting occurring at your everyday high school where your protagonist has to overcome some sort of conflict. Sounds like the everyday life of of an American teenager, doesn't it? Which is the exact reason why teenagers today and back then feel so drawn to these movies, and why older generations like to sit back and reminisce about the good 'ol days where girls didn't show so much skin and there was a thing called chivalry that was still used by guys. But these movies also taught us life lessons: like you shouldn't join gangs like in The Outsiders, or that you can't always wish for things and expect it to happen like in Teen Witch, or that even little mistakes like feeding small little gremlins after midnight can have disastrous effects and that you should always check if you have the right time on your clock like in Gremlins. 80's movies are just so iconic because they have just a little bit of everything in them. They have a little dash of thriller, comedy, romance, teenage drama that comes with the romance, pretty attractive actors (don't try to deny it), sensitivity, and a feeling of understanding. The type of movies that give us chills and movie hangovers and that adolescent yearning inside that wishes we were born twenty years earlier. 80's movies make us feel better when we're sad because the characters are going through crap too, yet make us feel slightly depressed again when there's the clichéd happily ever after and the girl gets the dreamy, popular guy and they ride off into the sunset with a legendary soundtrack playing in the background.

A popular, well known 80's movie, Sixteen Candles, directed by the magnificent and glorious John Hughes and played by the beautifully funny and talented Molly Ringwald, is a story about a girls' sophomore life in suburban high school: battling creepy freshmen, crushes on unobtainable upperclassmen, insecurities, embarrassing family moments, (I know that feeling all too well) and the fact that her whole family forgot her sixteenth birthday due to her sister's wedding. It's a story about young love, forgiveness, and the drama that comes with being a teenager girl. You can relate to this movie if your feeling insecure because the man of your dreams is currently dating the bombshell beauty of high school and you're lacking the proper, for lack of a better word, assets, if you're a young freshmen just trying to be cool among your fellow upperclassmen, or if you're an ordinary teenager just trying to find his/ her place in the vast, unforgiving world that is high school.

Sixteen Candles is most definitely one of John Hughes best works (even though I consider all his movies to be one of the best) and is just one unique piece of the classic 80's movies cake. The movie gives us slightly less attractive girls hope that our own Jake Ryan (the hot, popular guy that ends up liking the protagonist) will drive up to us after our sister's wedding in his sporty, red car, sweep us off our feet, wish us a happy sixteenth birthday, and give us one unforgettable kiss over a beautiful, pink cake with sixteen candles (it's a shame I already turned sixteen). It's a fantasy worth dreaming about, and don't worry, if you're a guy I'm sure you can dream that you're the freshmen who got the hot babe that was dumped by the hot guy. The movie includes an unforgettable cast: Anthony Michael Hall as the creepy freshman, Michael Schoeffling as the high school hunk, and Gedde Watanabe as the weirdly funny foreign exchange student, Long Duc Dong. Sixteen Candles is a movie filled with great moments in this bittersweet teen comedy that many people, young or old, can enjoy and laugh with.