LOL--I didn't even get into the Time Capsule effect. All those references took me back. When they talked about seeing Top Gun--that was one of the movies playing in the movie theater where I worked that summer so I totally pictured them going to my movie theater.:-) Also, I used to ride my bike to the beach club when I was a cabana girl.
And totally agree about Duckie. Though I wanted to say I also liked the thing about Duckie saying that if Andie really liked Blaine she wasn't the girl he thought she was, which I thought was just true, because Andie never really had to *work* for Duckie's crush, and Blaine was so...what was there to see in him? (Besides that kissing scene in front of the headlights--Andrew McCarthy did some great kissing scenes as a teenager!)
As you said, Duckie's own crush seemed mostly performative and sexless. I think I remember looking at the movie not too long later and really *feeling* like Duckie was one of those characters that came just a bit too early to be the gay friend he would be today, and kind of already was. (The biggest example of that kind of character being Murray on the old Mary Tyler Moore show.)
That's necessary for his friendship with Andie, really, I think. Because personally, if I were a girl, I wouldn't feel right hanging around with this boy so much if I knew he was really in love with me. It would be unhealthy for both of us--he'd start to resent her, he'd totally sabotage her dates with other guys, she'd be keeping him from finding someone else. Yet Andie never takes him seriously at all as a possible boyfriend. It only makes sense if there's an almost subtextual understanding that Andie's kind of a beard, and that all Duckie wants is to be able to pretend to want her that way. Her ending up with him, otoh, would be ridiculous.
And that's a great catch about FB and Cameron. At first I was just thinking well yeah, because Cameron's the one who changes, but I think it's more than that. Because the whole magic with Ferris is that he is, well...magic. He's perfect. And how do you have a hero that's perfect and unable to be touched by mere mortals? You can't. So if Ferris is the genie, he needs to have a mortal that's his "charge" or his project in some way.
Damn, that's so interesting. You could probably really decontruct all of that movie under that sort of mythological idea. Ferris is whatever magical being who's decided to bring something to Cameron, and the principal is almost like a Wotan character, because there has to be a possibility that he could actually catch Ferris at the end there.
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And totally agree about Duckie. Though I wanted to say I also liked the thing about Duckie saying that if Andie really liked Blaine she wasn't the girl he thought she was, which I thought was just true, because Andie never really had to *work* for Duckie's crush, and Blaine was so...what was there to see in him? (Besides that kissing scene in front of the headlights--Andrew McCarthy did some great kissing scenes as a teenager!)
As you said, Duckie's own crush seemed mostly performative and sexless. I think I remember looking at the movie not too long later and really *feeling* like Duckie was one of those characters that came just a bit too early to be the gay friend he would be today, and kind of already was. (The biggest example of that kind of character being Murray on the old Mary Tyler Moore show.)
That's necessary for his friendship with Andie, really, I think. Because personally, if I were a girl, I wouldn't feel right hanging around with this boy so much if I knew he was really in love with me. It would be unhealthy for both of us--he'd start to resent her, he'd totally sabotage her dates with other guys, she'd be keeping him from finding someone else. Yet Andie never takes him seriously at all as a possible boyfriend. It only makes sense if there's an almost subtextual understanding that Andie's kind of a beard, and that all Duckie wants is to be able to pretend to want her that way. Her ending up with him, otoh, would be ridiculous.
And that's a great catch about FB and Cameron. At first I was just thinking well yeah, because Cameron's the one who changes, but I think it's more than that. Because the whole magic with Ferris is that he is, well...magic. He's perfect. And how do you have a hero that's perfect and unable to be touched by mere mortals? You can't. So if Ferris is the genie, he needs to have a mortal that's his "charge" or his project in some way.
Damn, that's so interesting. You could probably really decontruct all of that movie under that sort of mythological idea. Ferris is whatever magical being who's decided to bring something to Cameron, and the principal is almost like a Wotan character, because there has to be a possibility that he could actually catch Ferris at the end there.