Graduation, Growing Up, and why John Hughes is a big fat liar.

Over the last month I have had lots of opportunities to reflect on this mysterious phenomenon that is referred to as "growing up." (Note: Like many other colloquialisms in the English language, I feel compelled to comment on the apparent inaccuracy of this one, which seems, grammatically at least, to be referring to height, not age. Of course, this could apply to me specifically, as I am about 12 feet tall, but I digress.) Such self-reflection can be jarring, to say the least.

Last night, I attended a lovely dinner party to celebrate the accomplishments of the graduating class of 2008. My 2.1 readers may know by now that I am a high school teacher, and this is the first year that I have taught grade 12, the final year of high school in Ontario. I am very lucky to teach at an outstanding school, and to work with some truly excellent students. They are not all dedicated scholars, but they are all kind, compassionate and thoughtful people, and I am very grateful to work in such a positive environment. The students at the dinner (finally freed from their defining school uniforms and ties) looked like sophisticated young adults, and behaved with grace and decorum before they left the hall to go on to their graduation party. (Note: it did seem that a few students had started the party before the formal dinner ended, and to those students; don't kid yourselves ... parents and teachers notice more than you think.)

As if that wasn't enough to inspire a bit of nostalgia, three weeks ago, I attended the celebration of my high school's 45th anniversary. Revisiting high school is a bit of a disconcerting experience, partly because of how much you have changed, and partly because of how much you haven't. I certainly appreciate my high school teachers more now that I am a teacher myself. Because I was a vocal and instrumental music student I had the pleasure of being taught by two of the best teachers in the school. Watching them now with their students, seventeen years (gulp) after my own graduation, I am filled with gratitude and an understanding of how hard they worked and how much they inspired us. (I think that it is not a coincidence that in my circle of, say, fifteen friends who had these teachers, seven of them now make money as professional musicians.) I also have a much better comprehension of the world that I live in, and I understand now (as I did not understand then) that it doesn't actually revolve around me.

But it's the ways that I haven't changed that interest me the most, principally the fact that I am still waiting to feel like an adult. When I look around, I see the trappings of adulthood all around me ... a condominium (aka debt with carpeting), a steady job and a hopelessly indulgent shoe collection. I read the paper. I drink wine with dinner. I'm a member of Amnesty International. But this doesn't change the fact that I don't feel like a "grown up." Acquiring the condo on my own was absolutely terrifying, and even after eight months I have a few unpacked boxes still on the floor. I need advance notice when company is coming over so that I can spend extra time cleaning so that I can look impressive. Sometimes I eat potato chips for dinner. When a friend or family member is sick or sad, I feel scared and helpless. Truthfully, most of the time I still feel like a gawky, awkward teenager, just trying to figure stuff out. And this brings me to John Hughes.

For everyone who had the dubious pleasure of teasing their hair in the 80's, John Hughes was the voice of the teen generation, or at least he kept telling us that he was. He wrote and directed such movies as "Pretty in Pink," "Some Kind of Wonderful," "Ferris Beuller's Day Off," and "Sixteen Candles." I was very familiar with these movies as they were requisite viewing at every single birthday party I went to from 1984-1988. I knew somewhere deep down that the situations in the movies did not represent my life (senior male hunky student falls in love with awkward sophomore, cute sensitive guy gives up his crush on popular girl and chooses faithful girl-best-friend instead, kid skips school and ends up in parade, etc.) but boy, did I want them to. However, none of Hughes' movies strayed farther from any semblance of reality than "The Breakfast Club," the 80's teen movie cornerstone about five diverse students who spend 8 hours together during a Saturday detention.

"The Breakfast Club" is riddled with so many gaps in logic that it is only as realistic as, say, "Spiderman." For example, doesn't it seem strange that a high school principal would a) hate teenagers (as it is clear that he does in the film) or b) choose to spend his entire Saturday at school with the kids he hates the most? (Note: In the movie he actually commits to two months of Saturday detentions. I mean, seriously, folks. I have to do one hour of detention duty a YEAR and I resent it like crazy.) There's just not enough space in the blog to go through all of the unrealistic aspects of this "slice of life" film, so we'll just focus on the most egregiously manipulative one. It's most apparent when the kids are all angsty and weepy and learning that different types of people can be friends. Ally Sheedy's character (shamefully named Allison) proclaims to the group mournfully that "when you grow up ... your heart dies."

Now, Mr. Hughes, I hate to be a stickler about this, but according to my calculations that movie came out when you were 35 years old ... the same age that I am now. I certainly understand the marketing tactic you were going for; after all, how better can you engage an adolescent audience than to remind them that they need to rail against the evil adults? And I am willing to bet that your adult, cold, dead heart was at least somewhat warmed by the gobs of money that you earned as a result of that movie. But ... didn't it occur to you that your demographic would eventually graduate from high school, grow up and have something to say about the predicted death of their hearts?

As I watched my students celebrate their graduation yesterday, I wanted to tell them things about adulthood that would have probably bored them to tears. I wanted to tell them that they are embarking on an incredibly exciting time in their lives, but that they are going to have to search for the opportunities that will enrich them, rather than having opportunities handed to them. I wanted to tell them that they are going to fail sometimes, because ... well, sometimes you fail. It sucks and you deal with it. I wanted to tell them that although they will take responsibility for more and more in their lives (friends, money, education, pets, spouses, children, debt with carpeting,) they will often feel as nervous and unsure as they do right now. That despite their uncertainty, they will make the best decisions they can and soldier on with the consequences. And I want to tell them that John Hughes is a big fat liar and that their hearts will love more deeply and break harder than they can imagine.

Kids (and I know some of you sneaky ones have found this blog) I've had some experience and done some thinking on this topic, but here's all I can come up with. I hate to break it to you, but adulthood doesn't mean answers. All it means is that you decide every day whether you will be a good person, a mediocre person or a dickweed, and that you alone will be responsible for those decisions and what comes as a result of them. Things are complicated, so you have to think of ways to simplify them in order to find your way in this crazy, "grown up" world. Sometimes things are awesome and sometimes things suck, and you never know which it's going to be or when it will suddenly change. All you ever get to control is how you live in this world, how hard you work and how you treat other people. And that's it. In terms of life wisdom, that's all I've got. I don't know what else to tell you, kids, so I'll leave it to Kurt Vonnegut, who penned this, my favourite quotation. I think it's the best guideline for life that you can be given:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you have about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of– God damn it, babies, you've got to be kind."

A

P.S. You should also be kind to John Hughes if you ever see him ... even if what you really want to say to him is "Up yours, you big fat liar."

Geekdom (or Why Sex is Scarier than Chainsaws)

It occurred to me today, as I stood in a line for two hours in 30 degree weather in order to buy two tickets for the 300th performance of "Evil Dead, the Musical!" and the after-show party, that I am a geek. It's a difficult reality to avoid when you are standing in a ticket line with people who are feverishly passionate about musical zombie dismemberment via prosthetic chainsaw.

I could try to present the case that my interest in "Evil Dead: The Musical!" is highly academic and that I am, therefore, not a geek. I could argue the play is incredibly clever, and that I am intrigued by the way that it uses dialogue, music and choreography to lampoon every other musical that has ever been written. I could pontificate about how innovative and technical the show is, and about how I appreciate the physical and musical demands of the roles. I could even add that some of the most intelligent people I know have seen the show and loved it. All true. But it doesn't change the fact that I am really pretty geeky about it.

It ain't easy, being geeky, even for a moderate like me. I classify myself as a "moderate" on the basis that I never dress up in costume (with the exception of a series of Halloween parties in my younger days and one teenaged viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) I do not collect action figures, nor do I write fan fiction. There are many iconic cult obsessions to which I am completely immune: Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Twin Peaks, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, anything with a video game console, Hannah Montana and Star Wars. (Note: All right, all right, before you rip my head off, I was a fan of the first two Star Wars films, particularly "The Empire Strikes Back." Who wasn't? But surely you must have noticed the Lucas/dollar inverse ratio; the more money that Lucas has, the crappier his films get. He can't even leave the first two good ones alone; he has digitized and sanitized them to death.)

My first brush with real geekdom came in university when I became mildly obsessed with the TV show "The X-Files." My friend Cathryn and I were so enamoured of the show and so anxious to learn the exciting conclusion to a gripping two-part episode that we decided to attend a meeting of the university's "X-Files Club." (I am not kidding.) Somehow the club had gotten a copy of the episode two days before it was scheduled to air, and we could go to the meeting and watch it without commercials. Bliss! But the viewing came with a high price; the organizers of the club did not want to let us simply watch the videos - instead they became obsessed with recruiting Cathryn and I, their "new members," for their X-Files club pub crawls, T-shirt and cap design and bake sales. Needless to say, we did not attend other meetings and only watched the X-Files in our dorm after that. We were not geeky enough for that group.

Perhaps in some ways it is harder to be a moderate geek. Let's say you are really into Star Trek, so you go to conventions and club meetings and, as a result, find yourself surrounded with people who agree with you, and who you have that passion in common with. The moderate geek doesn't have the inclination (or time, or money) to pursue an interest to that level, so they will occasionally try to half-heartedly defend their interest to their colleagues in their staff lunchrooms: "No really! I know it sounds silly, but "Buffy the Vampire Slayer really is a fantastic show!" Or take today's "Evil Dead: The Musical!" ticket line. Most of the people there seemed to have arrived in large groups; I arrived on my own. I didn't have the requisite black t-shirt with a horror movie/death metal logo, the black fingernails, tattoos or piercings - in my white cotton skirt and tank top I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a friendly, patient, jovial group of people, all laughing and socializing, and they probably thought I was aloof as I hid behind my copy of "The Painted Veil," out of shyness. And because I hadn't arrived early enough (like the real fans did) I missed the line cutoff for the 300th performance tickets.

But you shouldn't feel badly for me - I embrace my pseudo-geekiness and nobody really bugs me about it. Who we should all feel sorry for are arguably the newest "geeks" out there - the "Sex and the City" fans, or "chic-geeks." These are the people who dressed up in their highest fashion duds and sashayed out to the earliest showings of the long-anticipated film. (Note: I'm not being critical; I tried to do just this last Tuesday night (well, in my rather boring duds, but nonetheless.) Unfortunately, when I arrived to buy tickets they were all sold out. Just like today, I didn't make it there in time as a true, better-than-moderate fan would have.) Women have been flocking in droves to, and enjoying this movie, but we should feel sorry for them because something scary is happening.

When I went online to read about viewer response to "Sex and the City," I was surprised at what I found on the Internet Movie Database page about the film. First of all, it had a "user rating" of 4.9/10, which seemed to be very low to me considering the positive response the movie has had. But I was far more shocked by the comments that were being posted on the film's message board. Here's a sampling of what can be found there; I have not altered any part of the comments including spelling and grammar:

"Ok lets see what feminism has given us:abortion-thanks to this we have few future workers to replace the elderly,divorce-ok i understand sometimes divorce is neccasary ie abusive relationships but honestly you cant say it's with all of them and so many single parent families is it any wonder we got social problems these day? no i'm not sexist and not old fashioned i do believe women should get the right to vote and work etc but this is a step too far into a liberal uncontrolled direction."

You will notice that the above post is not actually about the MOVIE. It's not edited; that was the post in its entirety. I particularly enjoy the inpeneterable reasoning as to why "we got social problems these day." Here's one that is commenting on the fact that "Sex and the City" was outperformed by the children's movie "Kung-Fu Panda" this weekend at the box office:

"These 4 Ho's Beaten By A Panda How fitting. p.s. Guys if you want to keep your self respect don't let your wife/gf make you go see this. If she threatens to hold back sex just hire a prostitute, it is more self respecting than viewing this."

It's wonderful to get advice from someone who is clearly so schooled in the methods of respect, isn't it? I wonder how many Steven Seagal direct-to-video movies his "wife/gf" has sat through? This next one is one of my personal favourites, mostly because of the "signature" line at the end:

"In my day is was called being a slut, whore, etc. Now it's sexually empowered, thanks for the memo SATC fans.

~If you love Jesus Christ and are 100% proud of it, copy this and make it your signature!~ "

Now, it's important to note that I didn't have to look far for these comments - they were but a few of many that were posted TODAY. Since the movie opened last week there have been 70 pages of comments posted on the board, and many of them are incredibly negative and, in some cases, hateful. And they're not about the movie - they're about the people who are going to see the movie. The fans. The geeks. And the rhetoric here is downright dangerous; the implication is that the people who go to see the film espouse the views that are contained within it. If people are making judgements about the views and/or morality of "Sex and the City" audience simply by the fact that they have purchased a ticket to the film, what should we say about the "Silence of the Lambs" or the "Saw" audiences?

As someone who hasn't seen the fim, I not entirely sure why the movie is touching this nerve, but I've got some ideas. I suppose one could argue that people simply feel that it is a film that is based on a TV series that ran its course, that it is full of plot problems and that it is poorly acted. But that doesn't explain the tenor of the comments above, nor does it explain the absence of such comments on the "Dukes of Hazzard" message board which has all of the above problems and wasn't even based on a good TV show (incidentally, the Dukes of Hazzard message board only has three pages of comments.)Maybe it is because this is a movie made for women and, for some reason, people get weird about women being geeks - lining up, dressing up in the requisite costume (of course, the costumes here are high fashion) and going to see a movie they relate to and that they enjoy. A movie that examines male and female relationships with a critical eye and that women watch (for the most part) not with their partners, but with each other. Hmm.

I don't know. I haven't even seen the movie yet. All I can say is that if I am going to be a geek, moderate or not, it seems that I will receive a lot less abuse from outsiders if the object of my interest involves chainsaws and dismemberment instead of Prada and friendships and discussions of female sexuality. Now, isn't that interesting?

A

P.S. What, you want less social commentary and more geekitude? Seriously then, go see "Evil Dead, The Musical." It's so darn good.