A few months back, my colleague Lou Lumenick proposed that “Gone With the Wind” go the way of the Confederate flag. It’s with a heavy heart that I wonder whether we should retire “Sixteen Candles,” since it seems to celebrate both racism and date rape.
Reviewing the instantly forgettable “Jem and the Holograms” this fall reminded me of my lifelong love of 1980s movie queen Molly Ringwald, who played Jem’s mom. “Sixteen Candles” (1984), Ringwald’s first movie with director John Hughes, was one of my favorites. But rewatching it now, I felt about as repulsed as Ringwald’s character Samantha did when she first saw the Geek (Anthony Michael Hall):
The racism and sexism in Hughes’ movie is so over the top, I have to hope any teens watching it today would view it as a shocking, old-timey artifact. Perhaps most glaringly, there’s Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe), the Chinese foreign exchange student whose every mention is accompanied by the sound of a gong.
Besides the nonstop “Chinaman” jokes, there’s also this offhanded exchange between Samantha and her friend Randy (Liane Curtis) about finding the perfect boy.
Samantha: “You do it on a cloud without getting pregnant or herpes.”
Randy: “I don’t need the cloud. Just a pink Trans Am and the guy.”
Samantha: “A black one.”
Randy: “A black guy??”
Samantha: “A black Trans Am. A pink guy!”
Even more pervasive than the racism, if that’s possible, is the sexism. In 2015, this movie plays out like Date Rape 101 — and both of its male leads, supposedly the heroes, are actually terrible, terrible people.
Let’s review: Jake (Michael Schoeffling) — the supposed Perfect Guy — has a prom-queen girlfriend named Caroline (Haviland Morris), who gets so drunk at his party that she passes out. “I could violate her 10 different ways if I wanted to,” says Mr. Right. The Geek’s response: “What are you waiting for?”
Jake proceeds to put his girlfriend in the car with the Geek, telling him to drive her home and “have fun.”
The Geek gets the girl even drunker, takes her to his friends’ house and takes pictures of himself with her.
The Geek and Caroline wake up in the car the next morning and have the following conversation.
Geek: “Did we, uh . . .”
Caroline: “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
Geek: “Um, do you know . . . um, did I enjoy it? Am I nuts? Of course I enjoyed it. What I meant was, uh . . . did you?”
Caroline: “You know, I have this weird feeling I did.”
Game over, John Hughes. I’ll forgive you the wrongheaded ending of “Pretty in Pink” — obviously, our heroine should have picked Duckie — and the misguided makeover of Ally Sheedy’s goth in “The Breakfast Club.” But “Sixteen Candles” should now be filed under Cautionary Tales of ’80s Cinema: Gather round, kiddies, and check out how rape and racism used to be hilarious punch lines.