Thoughts on Sixteen Candles

[proteanmix]

I've seen this movie a handful of times. It's on right now. I have never understood this movie or why it's so seminal and insightful into the teenage psyche.

A situation like that would not have even flown in my high school. Samantha would've been eaten alive and regurgitated into the mouths of baby birds for sustenance. I wonder if this is a racial/cultural thing.

I have noticed that some women fight against the notion of being "soft." I wish I'd have even had the option. You had to be hard as nails to survive. Any weakness would have been exploited to the max and mocked. And I was pretty soft compared to a lot of girls in my high school. Hmmm, I guess it's all relative. Even now when I deal with other black women they tell me I need to toughen up.

I don't know, I look at the faces of some women when I'm riding the subway and they look so wizened. You can see how life has weathered their faces. I don't want to be too hard or too soft. I certainly don't want my face to be eroded by life as a representation to what's going on inside me. I don't want people to look me and say wow, life got you. Then on the other hand I don't want to be looked at as one of those people you know you can't say anything to because it will upset them. I want to be able to deal with reality, maneuver through it, and not be beat down by it.

Thanks Sixteen Candles for some momentary reflection!

 

[heart]

At my school, if your parents had the money to buy you the required corrrect, expensive clothing and if a girl if your mom took you to the beauty parlor for the right kind of perm jobs and haircuts and you learned to apply make-up as was accepted and had all your orthodontic work done, then yes one could be as soft as you wanted because they fufilled the requirements. They were worthy as fellow human beings and stronger people around them wouldn't stand for them to be bullied or harassed.

But if your parents didn't, one was fodder for all the angst and anger of the students (constant verbal abuse and some physical abuse) and it was accepted as acceptable because one was a member of the underclass, subhuman, not being quite human, those people didn't have human feelings for anyone to protect or stand up for. Like a caste system even. People would avoid the same water fountain as the lessers drank from in junior high.

I have a female relative who just went through that school system and the way she was treated (bullied, harrassed, beat up) made her very tough on the outside. From what she told me, it's gotten much harsher, more physically violent and more substance abuse.

It's a relatively middle-class area and no one's suffering actual hardship so I don't know why people are so cruel. Maybe boredom and having life soft makes people too superficial.

 

[WobblyStilettos]

This year I moved from a very tough secondary school, where I had to learn how to look after myself, to a very posh sixth form college, where a very large proportion of the students came from private schools, and I can be as soft as I like! It's screwed with my head something chronic! But it's worth it to see the looks of shock and horror on the posh students and teachers faces' when I tell them where I'm from. I think I've probably been in more fights than quite a few of the boys at my new school xD