In John Lewis's book, The Road to Romance and Ruin, he defines the teen movie as "the principle mass mediated discourse of youth; a discourse that rather glibly and globally re-presents youth as a culture" (p. 2). In using the term "teen movie" this does not refer to a movie geared towards teens, but instead to movies about teens. The 1980's gave us many teen movies, such as Pretty in Pink, Better Off Dead, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, and Can't Buy Me Love, which have become classics to the twenty-somethings of today. These were movies usually involving two teens from different classes most likely, and the impossible love that they find not-so-impossible. Joseph Reed, in American Scenarios, believes that the ongoing popularity of these movies is that they "call up something primal in all of us...High school pictures tend to be about public high school, but they know this: even if I went to private school I can be every teen in this picture. I can be (because I have been) victim or failure or nerd" (p133).

The late 1990's gave birth to a new breed of high school movies. Freddie Prinze Jr. replaced John Cusack; Jodie Lynn O'Keefe replaced Molly Ringwald. Though o

While Pretty in Pink teaches us a lesson about being an individual and that social class and popularity are not what is important, She's All That does quite the opposite. When we meet Laney, she is a girl who is very socially conscious. We see her in art class speaking about a painting about the terrible injustices going on in Mogadishu. By the end of the movie, she has dropped all of her prior beliefs. "Not only does the girl who can spell 'Mogadishu' go to the prom - now she even learns to care about being elected prom queen" (Klawans, 34). We see a completely different girl than who she was at the start of the movie. She has lost every bit of what made her an individual, only reinforcing the idea that the popular group has stolen Laney's true self and made her into something they felt they could easily accept - something more like them.

Pretty in Pink, written by John Hughes, tells the story of Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald), an unpopular, lower middle class girl who dresses in thrift shop/homemade clothes. In the opening scene we learn that not only is the mother missing (we find out later that she left three years earlier), but Andie and her father have a slim budget and he is not a "model father" (she wakes him in the morning and his first words are "where am I?") Her only true friend in the school is an eccentric boy named Duckie (John Cryer) who is completely in love with her. We like them both right away, and almost as quickly as we are introduced to them, we meet the "richies." Lead by Steff (James Spader) - a rich, bored, obnoxious yuppie-in-training - the "richies" represent all that Andie does not have. When a "richie" named Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) asks her out, though harboring a previous crush, she has her doubts. After their date, though there were many downs, they agree that nothing should stop them from being together. They enjoy a short time together until Blaine backs out of their prom plans without even a phone call. Andie, being the strong girl, goes to the prom alone, where she meets up with Duckie. Blaine, obviously a wreck about what he has done, professes his love and the movie ends with a beautiful kiss in a parking lot.

Many people, including critics, are quick to put movies like Pretty in Pink and She's All That in the same category, and assume that they are quite similar. Though it is true that the plot lines to these movies, as well as other teen movies, are very similar and follow the same track, the underlying messages are distinctly different. One reason that the movies of the eighties are so memorable is the fact that they represent something or someone that most people can relate to. Like Reed said, everyone was the nerd or the failure at some point in their life (p 133). This is not the case in the nineties movies. Very few people have been or will be a Zack Siler. Only a small minority can understand and care about the problems he faces. Even worse, those who have been the nerd don't want to hear of his problems wi

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Approximate Word count = 2023
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)