John Hughes has written and directed some of the most popular movies of all time, speaking for and influencing an entire generation. Everyone has watched The Breakfast Club and identified with one or more of the archetypical characters, hearing them say lines of dialogue that, up until then, you thought were unique to your own confused adolescence. Everyone has had Ferris Bueller fantasies of cunning and escape, and everyone has gotten at least one of the songs from his New Wave, Brit-pop soundtracks stuck in their heads. I dare say that without John Hughes the song “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths would have been forgotten decades ago if he hadn’t included at least a version of it in virtually every one of his films.
In Pretty in Pink, for example, the song is playing as Duckie sits alone in his room, on a mattress without a bed frame, throwing cards into a hat as it rains outside. There is no dialogue in this scene and the song is playing quietly from a source within Duckie’s room, not from the soundtrack itself. Duckie has had what seems to be a lifelong crush on Andie, who is, all the while, sitting in a horse stable at the Chestnut Hills Hunt Club with her rich boyfriend Blane. This brief scene shows us that, underneath his intense and awkward exterior, Duckie is truly in love with Andie and is capable of experiencing moments of honest emotion. We also get a sense of this in the scene where Duckie yells at Andie about going out with a “richie” who he thinks has no respect for her because her father is poor and unemployed. He stands up to her rationalizations, saying he might not be there for her if she continues on her present course. This difficult confrontation is initiated by Duckie, who seems to know that the result will not be in his favor. Still, his undying affection for her compels him to honesty because, as he says to her, “Here’s the point, Andie. I’m not particularly concerned with whether you like me, because I live to like you.”
Duckie’s argument with Andie is not the only significant discussion in the movie on the topic of socio-economic status and its influence on teenage dating. The day after Blane took Andie to a party for rich kids hosted by Steff, Blane makes a weak attempt to stand up for his girlfriend. As Steff rolls a joint at his father’s desk, Blane tries to call him out on how rude he is to Andie. Steff rolls over him with threats of alienation from the rich clique, and by the time he gets through saying, “If you want your little piece of low-grade ass that’s fine, take it, you know, but if you do you’re not gonna have a friend.” Blane says “Is that right,” and casts his eyes down in the submissive manner of an inferior who has just been put in his place. It is Duckie who actually stands up for Andie when he starts a fight with Steff at school, pinning him to the ground and really waling on him until teachers come and break it up. And what is it that got Duckie so fired up? His overhearing Blane break his date to the senior prom with Andie at the last minute. Whereas Blane submits to the devil whispering on his shoulder, Duckie knocks him down and beats the shit out of him.
Yet, at the end of the movie it is Blane who Andie chooses, though he has done nothing to redeem himself up to that point other than showing up at the prom to whisk her away. In one of the worst fake-outs in cinema history, we see Andie walking alone through a wide corridor towards the dance. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave” is playing from the ballroom. She hesitates, curses, considers turning back, until the crowd parts and Duckie emerges resplendent in a blue suit jacket with matching bolo tie and Lennon glasses. “At last, there is some justice in this film,” you might think to yourself as they reunite, clasp hands (in close-up!) and advance to the dance floor as the triumphant climax of “If You Leave” plays like a New Wave fanfare. The camera shoots to Blane, alone and wretched, and right when Duckie and Andie should start dancing and making out and the credits should start rolling Blane gets up and walks over to Andie. On the way over he gets self-righteous with Steff, who he’s not even going to see after graduation anyway so it doesn’t really matter. Blane stops to apologize to Andie and whispers “I love you” in her ear as he walks out of the dance. It is at this moment that writer John Hughes and director Howard Deutch ruin the movie for everyone. Duckie tells Andie to go with Blane, saying all this bullshit like “He’s not like the others,” and “This is an incredibly romantic moment and you’re ruining it for me.” Andie makes out with Blane in a foggy parking lot, which is, like, the cheapest most unromantic thing I’ve ever seen in a movie. I think we’ve all made out in a parking lot while in high school. I know I have, and I will say that it was not the most romantic making out I’ve ever done. So then Duckie gets a wink from actress Kristy Swanson and, after an aside to the audience, he goes off to hook up with Ms. Vampire Slayer even though she’s totally not his type and her dress is ugly.
So what is John Hughes trying to tell us? We relate to all his other movies, so why would he make one like this unless he made a huge miscalculation in his assessment of the way that teenagers and young adults think about class status? Did he think we’d all go for the normal rich guy, that we all want some affluent pansy to press us against his Beamer and choke us with his tongue? Were we supposed to assume all along that because Duckie is poor and weird that dating him would be like some kind of experiment in avant garde performance art? The only thing I can think of is that he wanted to show us just how effective that cheap phrase “I love you” can be, that it can with a single utterance change the course of lives and ruin movies. Motherfuck, this pisses me off. Of course we’d like Duckie better, how could you be so blind! In conclusion, Duckie was shafted. And fuck you John Hughes.
previously in 'Pocket' 2, 2005
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© 2006 Damion Armentrout. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.