Most horribly classist and Racist John Hughes film.

Most horribly classist and racist John Hughes film.

the "donger"? That gong everytime he was around?

Hughes' view of the world: there are two kinds of people--rich white folk, and everyone else.

At least the "others" were allowed some modicum of humanity - something "the Donger" didn't get.

That movie reflected reality for some of us. I was out of high school by the time it came out (barely - I graduated in '84), but the roles depicted in the movie fit my high school to a T. That was the kind of high school I went to. I was not one of the privileged, but the movie strongly hit home for me.

Was all about classism, much the same as sixteen candles only moreso.

And actually seemed to be working against a lot of class stereotypes (but within an all-white group, and you knew that the "poor" girl wasn't REALLY POOR, because her room was decorated so cute).

Most of his films seem almost like they were made as propaganda films by some apartheid government they are so rigidly all-white and all-rich.

Have I mentioned that I don't care much for John Hughes?

Is he a talented director? Sure. So was Leni Riefenstahl.

I mixed up Pretty in Pink with Sixteen Candles.

PLS disregard.

Perhaps you should watch it again, because you haven't seemed to retain much from your initial viewing. She's at the school on scholarship, her dad's unemployed and Anthony Michael Hall isn't even in the movie.

In which she was rich.

So easy to mix these films up, since they are so DAMN SIMILAR.

Sorry about that. She's the one with the cutesy apartment.



Ah yes, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, the rough side of town.

She just oozes poverty.

If you want real poverty, feel free to come on over to my neighborhood. :eyes:

but I would never say it endorsed or celebrated class prejudice.

pretty in pink is much different

But I may have a rose-colored glasses view of what he is doing.

It's true that his films show an all-white all-rich world. He wants to have box office success, obviously. Yet his films are often better than they have to be for their genre.

That the movie contained a moral story about classism, as most of his teen epics did. They did have a good moral for the most part, that even though high school is divided into cliques along racial, or in his films, class lines (because of the lack of minorities in white suburbs), that you shouldn't be hung up on them.

Never heard of such a thing. There are social classes. They divide people and hold people back. They do exist. Is it classism to acknowledge and recognize this fact?

Nothing in Hughes movies says this is a good thing, rather the contrary, his plots involve people overcoming the class system and overcoming their class prejudices.

You sound like you would say the movie "Mississippe burning" was racist because there is racism in it. Thats just silly, to say Hughes' movies have stories about classicism whatever that is (to me, it is a mau-mau term conservatives use as a subtle way to suggest that people who beleive in class distinctions in politics are commies).

As for me, I beleive in class warfare. The poor and the working class needs protection from the rich, the corporations and the investment classes that would exploit them, if they could. The rich, the corporations, they have all the power, they make the laws. The only counter to that, historically, has been the democratic party, the party of the working class. Your strange negative reaction to what you call "classisim" is the reason the democratic party has been effectively nuetered, it can no longer openly debate in terms of "us vs. them," making sure the working people get a fair deal and a square deal. Thats the job of the democratic party, they champion tje working class, and its fear of this "classism, class warfare" label that has ruined the party.

Have you drunk the republican coolaid?

Class consciousness is the first step to liberation.
The history of economic struggle is a history of class struggle.

People around here keep plaintively asking "why do poor rednecks vote against their own economic interest?" The answer is because they lack class consciousness. The republican knee-jerk cry of "class warfare," as well as the apparent rejection of dialectical materialism (as opposed to lenninism) as a valid tool for analyzing social change, has led to a generation which is afraid to even admit that social classes exist, and attack anyone who so much as mentions them.

People need to understand that their economic interests are in fact tied to their class. The poor rednecks who vote for Bush have been brainwashed into thinking this is a classless society, and thats why fail to see that Bush isn't good for them, they don't see that their is a conflict between the interests of the inherited wealth investment income class, and the class of people who work for their living (those are the only real economic class distinctions in US society, there are other stupid social distinctions, but they don't matter in the marxist equation).

I am all for class warfare. The democratic party was founded on the principle that the poor and the workers need a champion to stand up for them against the wealthy and the powerful (and nowadays, the corporations). The democratic party needs to go back to that way fo framing the issues, because its the truth. Bush and the members of his class are systematically waging war against those of us whom they hold in contempt to the extent they care at all, we are nothing but fodder for their wars and consumers of their meaningless trash.

If you are going to accuse anyone of class warfare, accuse Bush et al., not John Hughes. hughes' films do nothing more than admit that there are class distinctions and that they can be barriers, that they separate people and hold some back, he never celebrates them or suggests they are a good thing.

His supposedly "poor" characters never really are poor, and still have the exact same pro-establishment white bourgeois values as their rich counterparts.

His efforts at addressing classism are really about rich vs. middle class classism - they ignore the poor altogether.

And minorities may as well not exist as far as Hughes films are concerned.

I essentially agree with your comments, I just don't think they apply to John Hughes at all.

but compared to the rich kids, she was really poor. Her father was unemployed and alcoholic, her mother ran out on them, she had to work and make her own clothes, especially her (admittedly hideous) prom dress. My friend grew up in Bedford, NY. Her father was a professor and her mother worked full time as well. SHE was marginalized in high school for being poor. They had a very small plain house. It's all about perspective.

That was "poor." The movies do take place in suburbia, they certainly don't take into account racism in the class mix, but nevertheless I think that they are more honest about the existence of class prejudice in american society than most movies. I recall lines from the movies, like "my parents have no money for college, I am going to wind up working in some shit job like my old man, while you are going to go off join a sorority and marry some rich guy." Paraphrase, but I have heard variations on that in more than one Hughes movie.

Just because the poor one isn't poor enough and the rich one not rich enough, doesn't invalidate the clear message.

In fact, you ever think that this is as far as he could go, that if he went further, got grittier, he would not have been able to make the movies, they wouldn't have gotten funded, they might not have been as popular? People don't go see movies about poor people, except the occasional fairy tale like Pretty Woman. Now that Roseann is off the air, we're back to 100% fake middle class "leave it to beaver" shit. Hughes is a breath of fresh air, slight as it is, in this climate.

He's done almost 40.

It doesn't quite make up for the dung that is Home Alone, or Baby's Day Out, or Beethoven.

(Didn't you just love it in Home Alone when the little rich white kid electrocutes, burns, crushes and otherwise tortures the would-be thieves? ADORABLE!)

I miss the good old days when the Three Stooges would crash some rich snobs' party, turn it into a food fight and give them an all-around hard time. THAT's comedy. It should always be at the expense of the powerful, not the powerless.

I only associate him with 80s brat pack movies. I stand corrected.

come on - lighten up. It was humor meant for a specific audience.

You'll feel like you've overdosed on middle-class white values - and you'll have forgotten that there is any other kind of person in the world.

And Long Duk Dong was an extremely offensive racist stereotype. A Chines foreign exchange student who doesn't know how to use silverware? And gong goes off every time he comes in?

I suppose you would have no problem with a black character named "Watusi Dong" from Africa who speaks in clicks, dresses in rags and has a bone through his nose, and of course, tribal drums play whenever he comes in the room.

(Which would be pretty funny since millions of African children read, write and speak in much better English than American kids, not to mention dressing nicer...)

And I'm sorry you do. Ever see Blazing Saddles?

His movies reflect reality for ten of millions of rich whites who rarely associate with anyone other than their own.

Classist yes, but it does reflect a certain cultural reality, and
most of the movies are very funny!

most of his movies are about growing up poor and struggling against the class system. "classist" is such a meaningless term as to be illiterate.

Most of them are about being rich, white and privileged.

They are set in the middle class, and tend to have characters both above and below. Pretty in Pink was all about a girl who was actually poor, not middle or rich, and her feelings of inferiority because of her class. Breakfast club was all about the divide between the rich (upper middle) ringwald character with her sushi box, and the "dirtbag" girl and Judd Nelson, characters which were indeed poor, working, lower middle (middle is a myth anyway).

Its facile to criticize the hughes movies because their setting is, yes indeed, overwhelmingly "middle class) (actually, they are more a fictional class, the middle that no longer exists, but that everyone who is polled likes to think they are in). Yes, thats their setting, but thats not their story.

The fact is that Hughes' obvious class consciousness and expression of it is a very, very progressive stance he is trying I think to expose class divisions and destroy the myth that this is a classless society. I think he promotes class consciousness, the first step towards liberation

of the Breakfast Club - the five kids were boxed into their roles by their parents, by their school, and by the principal for whom they were to write the essays. They spent the day breaking out of their boxes, seeing themselves and each other in a new way, and communicating that in their single essay to the principal. The movie was about breaking those walls and allowing each kid to go beyond the expectations everyone else had for them.

I'd hate to think what films would be like if they all had to pass these kinds of tests.

I just wish that Gedde Watanabe had said "Gimme a break - there is no such thing as a Chinese who can't use a fork and spoon! Even Charlie freaking Chan had more dignity!"

Does nobody ever mention to this guy how monochromatic his films are?

Where is my automobile?

}(

Even my Japanese mother laughed.

:silly:

She hates how Asian men in US films are always portrayed as socially inept scrawny geeks and computer geniuses (or martial arts ass-kickers).

portrayed that way in almost all movies I can think of. They are all seen as culturally inept.

I wasn't offended. So maybe your Japanese wife is simply uptight.

It's "LECK.....BIG leck...."

And before that he makes car wreck noises!

No more yankee my wankee. The donger need FOOD.

When he drops the car off with those two guys, one is clearly of some kind of non-white ethnic origin, and the other is black.

Case closed!

BECAUSE they are poor, dirty, ethnic slobs, they take it off on a reckless, crazed joyride.

It was obnoxious.

I can't afford valet parking. But I don't hold disgusting stereotypes about "grease monkeys" of any race as pushed by that film.

Ferris Beuller's Day off was funny and had some redeeming qualities, but it did reinforce a lot of WASP's favorite stereotypes.

Sure didn't to Hughes, either, that racist.

And captured my hometown of Cleveland perfectly. And one of my chilhood best friends had his very own Aunt Lottie.

"Edddddie......I had a bad feeling..."

One was black, I believe, and Richard Edson may be white, but he has an "ethnic look", which they played up by giving him a thin mustache and greasing his hair in the film so he looked more chicano.



But my problem with Hughes comes more from his almost total exclusion of working-class or minority characters of any depth, than it does from his occasional obnoxious racist caricatures/stereotypes.

was being racist too?

Your argument is weak at best.

This is comedy

again - did you ever see Blazing Saddles?

The problem is when he's used deliberately to put out this stereotype that the ethnic grease monkeys in a parking garage will steal your car for a joyride.

Do the Right Thing was a great movie. Is Spike Lee racist? Probably. Most of us are to a degree, but at least he tries to look at and deal with it, and not strictly from his own viewpoint.

And yes, I saw Blazing Saddles many years ago. So what?

What does an old comedy have to do with 80s comedramas? These films are supposed to be about characters, about people. They are not making fun of stereotypes, they are just reinforcing them and making fun of people who are not rich and white.

I think you're the one reaching.


If you like Hughes films, great. You're entitled to.

There are much worse stereotypes being presented on "South Park" on a regular basis. But the way they are being presented is very different. Nobody could possibly take South Park or Blazing Saddles seriously, but millions of teenage girls watched Sixteen Candles and between laughs at the expense of the "ch*nk" and the "geek", they got caught up in the story about the poor little rich girl and her crush on the cardboard cutout rich guy jock.

How can you not see the difference in the style of presentation?

DIDN"T TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY!. I can't think of anyone I know who did.

Coming away with that kind of impression points to a lack of discernment between a movie and reality as well as an insecurioty in the viewer themself that they can't make that leap.

The difference between Hughes's films and Blazing Saddles isn't the issue - it's the mental state of the viewer and what they take away from it.

You're right, the presentation is different but the intent is the same - to make you laugh.

As a teenager in the 80's who loved those films, I can assure you that I "got" it.

Those guys OUTSMARTED the 3 smug teenagers who were the ones on the joyride. There's nothing racist or classist about showing two parking garage workers getting the best of three rich kids.

It's triumphant, not racist.
The Professor

:toast:

:toast:

You know it was ment to be a racist statement and am attempt to attack every working class person of color that is employeed at a parking lot. PURE RACIST HATE !!!

Are you sure you're not really a freeper??? :silly:

You haven't seen too many movies, then. LOL

Ferris Bueller :wtf:

nt.

What is classist? A movie about racism is not racist, Mississippi Burning is an anti-racism movie. Hughes films are against class prejudice (you can't be against "class," that would be to be in denial about the world.)

Can anyone see the sloppiness of this thinking and these terms? Race exists. But racial prejudice is a bad thing, thats racism. Social classes exist, but class prejudice is a bad thing. A movie about race is not necessarily racist, and a movie about class does not necessarily endorse class prejudice. but classes exist, and ackowleding their existence is not "classism".

:cry:

Hairspray?? NO John Waters

DAMN this is hard..

I thought it was playing on a certain 1960s middle-class idealism about the eventuality of a color-blind world.

I thought it was a cute flick. Like Grease, but actually WITH a few people of color.

holding signs and screaming 'Segregation now..Integration never' just seemed a little racist....why, was it actually sarcasm? :shrug:

:shrug:

the von Tussles, the TV station manager, Penny Pingleton's mother - but the movie is not racist, nor does it embrace or condone racism.

Did you miss the parts where Tracy Turnblad and her friends were trying to break the barriers, were protesting segregation, and were insistent upon integration for the Corny Collins show?

yeah the movies weren't perfect. I see your point with Long Duk Dong/racist portrayal. But show me ONE popular 80's movie that wasn't stereotypical. I bet you still let your kids watch Dumbo even tho it has those stereotyped magpies. I think you give too much import to the class issue. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Pretty in Pink. I don't think it has negative class portrayals; the rich kids are shallow, dumb, boring, mean shits and the poor kids go to hip clubs and work at cool record stores. and then love goes above class lines and they live happily ever after. I think that movie even gave a human face to alcoholics, with harry Dean Stanton's character quite well developed. Yeah he was an alcoholic prick who lied to his daughter and couldn't get a job, but he was also conflicted and hurt, and gave fatherly advice. She loved her father. And Duckie ends up with Kristy Swanson at the end.

I personally disagree with the way you perceive John Hughes' films, particularly since I know quite a few people here in Chicago, black, white and hispanic, who have worked with the man. He is far from racist and is most definitely not classist, at least, not in the way you seem to think.


~snip~
John Hughes was born February 18th, 1950, in Lansing Michigan. After spending his youth in the Detroit suburbs, he moved to Chicago, Illinois with his family at the age of 13 (his father was a salesman). The Hughes family lived at the much-scorned outskirts of a wealthier suburban-Chicago neighborhood, which permanently cemented his loathing disrespect and jealousy of snobs. Chicago would become an area that would figure prominently in most of his films (not to mention some rich, snobby characters).
http://www.riverblue.com/hughes/bio.html

thanks for posting this. I was starting to feel guilty about enjoying those movies when I was young (and sometimes now when I'm home sick!)

LOTR has little relevance to modern socioeconomic realities.

"Frida" did not focus on the difficulties faced by women in Iran.

This is fun!

I'll try to temper my criticism a LITTLE in light of that.

Please keep in mind that this is the man that foisted Beethoven, Beethoven's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, Home Alone 1, 2, 3 and 4, Baby's Day Out, Dennis the Menace and Curly Sue on the American Public.

I'll never forget how appalled I was when I was at a relative's house and they put in the "kids' movie" Beethoven. I was so shocked when at the end, the dog flips a tray full of hypodermic needles that all go into the villains ass and inject him. Creeped me out and totally inappropriate for kids.

Though he didn't direct most of those movies you listed, he either executive produced or wrote the script (often just the first draft. The only one he directed was Curly Sue.

I agree with you about Beethoven, I hated those needles. On the other hand, my friend's kids loved that part. I just might be a little more sensitive than they are. ;-)

You also forgot to mention Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which I personally think is a classic buddy picture and is brilliantly written.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles was a great flick!

deeeep breath.

First, not funny unless you're a freeper. Second, even if you aren't put off by its overt racism, it's a lame joke that might be good for one or two scenes, tops. Pulling it out every ten minutes made its racism even more palpable and embarrassing.

Edit: spelng

that character could have been done with any ethnic flavor, as long as it was an exchange student who spoke bad english...remember teh Swerdish exchange student in "Can't Hardly Wait"? "Would you like to touch my penis?" Snarf. Our Japanese exchange student in high school used to get wasted and start spewing outdated slang like he was a stereotype. But that was just him. And he DID speak Engrish....

Me no remember :shrug:

even though you didn't say sexist,the glorification of date rape was shocking :scared:

IIRC, they were both so wasted neither one remembered having sex. All she said was "it was nice to wake up in your arms"...

She was drunk, her boyfriend decided he wanted molly ringwald instead. He sent her off with the geek in the car and told the guy to be sure to bring the car back.(i.e. only the car was valuable)
She was confused as to who she was with so they played a trick on her to convince her that the guy she was leaving with was her boyfriend.
if you watch the movie again you'll be completely disgusted and horrified by that scene.

but I still love Pretty in Pink and I think taken as a whole, the movies aren't that bad. FWIW, 16 Candles was my least favorite by far...I thought it was shallow and unfunny

Interesting law school exam question, especially since rape is most often defined as sex without consent. Hmm, she did agree to have sex, but because of self-induced intoxication, she was mistaken as to the identity of the person she had sex with. I have never seen a case with that fact scenario.

That of course must be distinguished from the situation in which she is so intoxicated she lacks the capacity to give consent.

Now lets consider another angle. I have seen the movie, and in fact, she goes down on him, un-invited, he is actually shocked by the whole thing. He is a freshman as young as 14, she is a senior, possibly as old as 18. Who is assaulting whom? If in fact she is in one of those states where he would be jail bait for her, does her intoxication excuse her mistake about his age? (in most cases, it would not).

On the other hand, when someone voluntarily becomes intoxicated, we do hold them accountable for their actions while intoxicated, such as, oh, being mistaken about where the road is and driving off the road into a tree. Why the double standard here?

On a tangent, the most interesting case I ever read about sexual assault involved cyber-sex. Man over 18 was charged with aggravated assault on child under 12 (which charge requires penetration, otherwise its just assualt). What happened was, he typed some words on his computer keyboard and sent them via IM, telling her to digitally penetrate herself. The court held that her penetration of herself because she was reading words he'd typed to her constituted aggravated sexual assualt, the same as if he'd raped her. he got 15 years.

She's baggage he needs to get rid off. He's sober and he's the person who is primarily responsible for victimizing her

Yup, and I have seen plenty of movies about women in relationships with with men who have become baggage they need to get rid of. I never felt offended by that.

I have heard of actual rape perpetrators that got much less time than that.

Look what you people have done with my baby! :o

WE are being more politically correct, dissecting the movies and putting the commentary in social context and all! >:)

How do you mean?

just means taking things into context...I think most everyone on this thread is being PC to some extent...

That mean it's wrong to bring up my opinion of him and discuss it?

Especially since I despise PC.

flame those movies for negative stereotypes? :shrug: being offended by, let's face it here, relatively innocuous movies, is IMHO being overly PC.

It's the overwhelmingly rich and white disposition of the protagonists of the films.

PC people would call for boycotts or bans. I don't believe in that. I just wanted to talk about it.

A lot of people point out his fims that are exceptions to the pattern Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. They are slightly better, but most of his films, especially the dreck like Beethoven that people don't necessarily associate with him, are all-white, all-rich and cast everybody else as misfit "others".

Supposedly, he hates snobbery, etc. So I wonder why he doesn't choose to do more films about working people with realistic lives?

I don't know why he started making that dreck. But those movies barely registered a blip on the map of cultural memory, whereas the Brat Pack movies were iconic. I forgive Kubrick for AI, Ford Coppola for Bram Stoker's Dracula, Ridley Scott for GI Jane, and Scorcese for Gangs of New York.

I don't think you've said anything offensive here, just differing readings...of course mine is still the most correct! }(

OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!

Jiminy Crickets, folks!

Who drank the hatoraide?

Lemme at 'em, LEMME at 'em!

(They are some of my favorite films--the teen ones from the 80s--and just imagine, I'm not a racist or a classist.)