Hollywood High

The thing about high school movies is that everyone has seen at least one – Fast Times at Ridgemont High or the John Hughes movies of the 1980s, Clueless or Varsity Blues of the 1990s, Mean Girls or Bring It On of the early 2000s – because everyone can relate to high school. We’ve all been there – the cliques, the rumors, the sporting events, deciding who to sit with at lunch, etc. So, when I heard about a new book called Hollywood High by Bruce Handy, I was intrigued. I’m over 20 years out of high school but some of the movies I saw in the theater two decades ago still hold up and are quoted today. Others haven’t aged as well – but I’ll get to that in a minute.

While some of the analysis throughout the book is interesting – especially the chapter on Fast Times because I love Cameron Crowe and Amy Heckerling – other chapters are way too long. To be fair, I’ve never seen the Andy Hardy movies or Beach Party, I’ve seen Rebel Without A Cause once, and I never got into the Twilight series, but I still feel like too much time is spent on those chapters. The only one that makes sense is Rebel Without A Cause because, like so many actors and musicians who were gone too soon, James Dean’s car accident death a few weeks before the premiere froze him in time as “an icon…of angry, alienated youth.” Jim Stark paved the way for the Dylan McKays and Chuck Basses of the world because he is “wary, wounded, mischievous, bereft, and…desperate to be loved” and “the film took teenagers as seriously as they took themselves.” That movie – which came out 70 years ago – is still talked about.

Fast Times deserves its own chapter for so many reasons and Handy clearly understands why that movie is so important. “You could call Fast Times at Ridgemont High the coolest anthropological study ever committed to book and film.” Of course, I love that Crowe (a 22-year-old journalist at the time) went undercover at a high school to write the book that would become the movie that both he and Heckerling helmed. Unlikes Heckerling’s future hit Clueless, nothing about the lives of the Fast Times kids is glamorous – they go to class, work at the mall, and discuss sex. And, as Handy points out, they actually look like they are in high school. “It wasn’t just verisimilitude Heckerling was after: she wanted a cast that looked young enough that audiences would empathize with the characters’ struggles.” While Jeff Spicoli is arguably the most memorable character, Stacy and Linda do most of the heavy lifting.

Speaking of female leads doing the heavy lifting, somehow Alicia Silverstone (as Cher) is on the cover of this book but Clueless doesn’t have its own chapter. I don’t get it. The movie is mentioned in pages throughout – especially since Heckerling directed Fast Times – but how can it not have a bigger presence in a book called Hollywood High? The movie is one of the most quotable of all-time, people still reference it, and Silverstone is still making money from Clueless speaking engagements! And that movie came out 30 years ago! Another one that deserves more attention is Dazed and Confused which gets a brief mention in the American Graffiti chapter. The author even says that the movie “nails the 1970s high school experience” – so why not dedicate more pages to it?

Boyz n the Hood was a good call for sure – that movie launched Cuba Gooding Jr.’s career and was one of the first films to poignantly shine a light on gang violence and Black culture in the early 90s. That said, I could have definitely done without the lengthy coverage of Kids. I watched that movie in high school and it was so disturbing and sad. I get that teen movies are meant to represent timely adolescent culture while providing both entertainment and life lessons, but Kids is more of an NC-17 cautionary documentary than a teen movie. Throughout the book, Handy points out that a running theme in teen movies is misogyny. It happens in The Breakfast Club, Fast Times, and is basically the thesis of Kids. These also serve as examples of why certain movies have not aged well. The way women are treated in some of the films, especially the jokes about Jake’s drunk girlfriend in Pretty in Pink, is very cringy. And don’t even get me started on Long Duk Dong.

Speaking of Hughes films, no teen movie analysis would be complete without The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so I get why the Hughes chapter is so massive as his teen movies absolutely defined the 80s. I’m glad Handy explains the allure of Molly Ringwald because I’ve never understood it until now: “She has an awkward grace that’s always watchable – she’s half duckling, half flamingo – with a face that betrays her every emotion, though her specialty is an expression with lips slightly apart that lies somewhere between a grimace and a pout. Resting ‘whatever’ face.” Wow he nails that. He also nails why the final scene of The Breakfast Club is so iconic: “The frame freezes with Bender’s fist in the air, and Monday never comes.”

Of course, Handy is the author and can write about and analyze whatever he wants, and I can see how he wanted to touch on multiple decades, but I was looking for more about the 80s and 90s movies I grew up with. I just looked up Handy’s age and he’s in his mid-60s so it makes sense that his choices are different than mine. As he mentions in the introduction: “Disagree! Write your own teen movie book!” Hahaha that’s fair. He knew people’s opinions about which movies should be highlighted would be abound – and he was right!

Quotes

“I would argue that teen movies have become an essential American genre, rivaling the western as a vehicle for national myth-making.” I agree.

“Since teenagers themselves have so often been the prime movers of American popular culture, the history of teen movies serves as a useful vantage point on the last eight or so decades’ worth of the nation’s sociocultural history.” I agree with that as well.

“When a teenage majority spent the better part of their day in high school, they learned to look to one another and not to adults for advice, information, and approval.”

“The western themes of many teen movies: high school as a lawless territory where civilization is provisional and physical strength and force rule.”

“That’s what Fast Times the film is interested in…the getting by. The movie is close to singular in the teen movie canon for its focus on the day-to-day grind of kids’ lives.”

“Were this book to pass out honors, its homecoming queen and king would be Silverstone’s Cher and Sean Penn’s Spicoli.” Yet another reason why Clueless needs its own chapter!

On Mean Girls: “It takes skill and imagination to weaponize pink.”

Fun Facts

“Rock Around the Clock” is recognized as the first use of rock and roll by a Hollywood film – Blackboard Jungle.

Clueless earned $57 million at the box office making it a big enough hit to launch a trend for adapting classic plays into teen movies: 10 Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew), She’s All That (Pygmalion), Easy A (The Scarlet Letter), and Cruel Intentions (Les Liaisons Dangereuses).

Mean Girls is the first teen movie adapted from a bestselling nonfiction book written for parents. Man, Tina Fey is good! It was also originally going to be called Home Schooled.