THE LADY WILL HAVE ... “Everyone was asking me, ‘What’s going with the kids?’” recounted a 24-year-old Cameron Crowe to the LA Times in 1981 while his book was being adapted into a film, “like there was some big secret. I decided to find out. I’d just turned 21 and melancholy. I’d graduated as a junior, never having a senior year. My editor (David Obst) said, ‘You’re still young enough to go back – and report.’”
The film Fast Times at Ridgemont High was released thirty years ago today, and if there's a better line reading in the history of American cinema than Sean Penn's "You dick" to Mr. Hand, I don't think I know it. Featuring three future Academy Award winners for Best Actor, it somehow manages to be funny as hell and sexually explicit while emotionally frank (and painful) in ways that "teen movies" rarely are. Even thirty years later, how many other mainstream American films have featured a character having an abortion, other than Dirty Dancing? (And as Isaac once noted, it reminds us that there once was a time that a major studio picture could depict a 15-year-old having sex.)
Roger Ebert wrote at the time that it was "a scuz pit of a movie" and "offensive vulgarity ... a failure of taste, tone, and nerve -- the waste of a good cast on erratic, offensive material that hasn't been thought through, or maybe even thought about." I wonder if he'd like a do-over.
I watched this movie as part of that "Teen Movie" class in the late 1990s and a big part of our discussion was how there's no way it gets made nowadays. I still think that's true.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm a straight woman and I STILL think of only one (well, two) things when I hear "Moving in Stereo" because of this movie.
Also, Stacey's scene in the dugout always broke my heart - I hope that's not the experience most young women had as their first sexual encounter, but I fear it's true for more than it should be.
ReplyDeleteWatts, completely agree in re: Stacey in the dugout.
ReplyDeleteEvery so often, I like to line up Dazed and Confused, Fast Times, and Go and enjoy teens through the ages.
Jesus Christ, doesn't anyone fucking knock?
ReplyDelete"Mr. Spicoli, what do you think you're doing?"
ReplyDelete"Learning about Cuba and eating food."
Still one of my favorite DVD commentary tracks.
ReplyDeleteWhich edition has the commentary track? Amazon is frustrating about not listing special features on their DVDs. I have loved Crowe's other commentaries so I would definitely be interested.
ReplyDeleteThe current edition, both DVD and BluRay, have the commentary track on them according to the Universal web site.
ReplyDeleteMy answer was going to be "the one I have." May not have been the most helpful?
ReplyDeleteThanks. One would think listing all the DVD special features (not just some) on a site that wants to sell me things would be...wise?
ReplyDelete"Doesn't anybody knock any more?"
ReplyDelete"But if I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it OUR time?"
Even thirty years later, how many other mainstream American films have featured a character having an abortion, other than Dirty Dancing?
ReplyDeleteLast American Virgin (1982)
I was recently watching some documentary about women in the film business and it was pointed out that there are shots in that scene of the cieling/ roof of the dugout. It was commneted on as the mark of a female director that she would think to show the girl's pov like that. It really was her story.
ReplyDeleteCan someone please cut that together with "I am the one who knocks!"
ReplyDeleteI need to re-watch this movie. It's probably 20 years since I've seen it.
ReplyDeleteYes -- heartbreaking, and definitely only shot that way because it was a female director. The "male gaze" always shoots from the man's POV -- watching the girl. (Lookit me, puttin that Ivy League film degree to good use! Hey now! Where's all my dollars for knowing that?)
ReplyDeleteI'm also struck by what a fucking sleaze the guy was. Pretending to believe she's 19 so he can pork a 15-year-old virgin -- gross beyond measure.
I wrote a paper, for credit, in a wonderful class called "Suburbia and Its Cultures," that argued that the Golden Age of teen movies began with Fast Times and ended with Dazed and Confused. I think my thesis was solid, and gains validity with each passing year.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do love me some Can't Hardly Wait. Little cousin of the older kids of the Golden Age, you might say.
Degrassi. Oh, sorry, major Canadian television show, not major American film.
ReplyDeleteIf you cannot recognize that that genre reached its apex with Cruel Intentions and Not Another Teen Movie, I give you a C, maybe a B- with grade inflation.
ReplyDeleteThis may have been the longest span this blog has ever gone without invoking either movie. Who's up for some french toast?
ReplyDeleteI think it might be fair to place Cruel Intentions outside of the scope of a class called "Suburbia and Its Cultures," but it is also fair to say that it is very much a part of the Golden Age of teen movies (including superrich Manhattan teens).
ReplyDeleteI agree- to me, this is a very sad movie. I only have the takeaway of loss of innocence and repercussions of terrible choices, which can totally derail (if not wreck) one's life. There may be other things to get from the movie, but that sad stuff overpowers it all for me.
ReplyDelete