SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
High school can leave quite an impression, and so can movies about high school. Depending on your generation, you can never forget the first time you saw these movies.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BREAKFAST CLUB")
ALLY SHEEDY: (As Allison Reynolds) When you grow up, your heart dies.
JUDD NELSON: (As John Bender) Who cares?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CLUELESS")
ALICIA SILVERSTONE: (As Cher) Ugh, as if.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SUPERBAD")
CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE: (As Fogell) I am McLovin.
DETROW: This back-to-school weekend, we want to go back - way back - to the films that shaped our view of the best and worst times of our lives. So to discuss, we brought in ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers. Hey, Marc.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Hey there, Scott.
DETROW: And NPR editor Barrie Hardymon - Barrie, how's it going?
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Hi.
DETROW: What, to you, is in that list of iconic high school movies? We heard "Breakfast Club," "Clueless," "Superbad." Marc, anything else or like - or is that a good summation of the world we're looking at (ph)?
RIVERS: I mean, it's a good summation of a certain like - of the kind of textbook examples of high school movies. I've always had a kind of difficult relationship with the so-called classics. You know, I think in comparison to other types of movies where, you know, it's all about being transported somewhere or escaping somewhere...
DETROW: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...I think we often look towards the high school movies as a - for familiarity - to be like, do you see me, you know?
DETROW: Yeah.
RIVERS: Like, or - like, is there recognizability? And in those movies, I didn't - I never recognized myself in - you know, in "Ferris Bueller"...
DETROW: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...Or in "The Breakfast Club." I didn't see myself in those movies. And after just seeing "Sixteen Candles" - this is John Hughes' first movie - just seeing that for the first time a couple of days ago, I'm kind of glad he didn't have any Black people in that movie...
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: ...Just based on how he treated the Asian character in that movie.
HARDYMON: (Laughter) It was bad.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SIXTEEN CANDLES")
GEDDE WATANABE: (As Long Duk Dong) Very clever dinner - appetizing food fit neatly into interesting round pie.
RIVERS: So, you know, as far as my...
DETROW: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...Personal candidate, you know, kind of an early example for me was this movie "The Wood" by director Rick Famuyiwa.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WOOD")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I had a girlfriend, but Alicia? Alicia was my friend, you know?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) That's why...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We could talk to each other about anything - boyfriends, girlfriends.
RIVERS: These are Black kids growing up in Inglewood. And, you know, they listen to the same kind of music I did. They weren't listening to, you know, Mr. Brightside or AC/DC. They were listening to The Roots and, you know, Teddy Pendergrass. But I think one of my favorite high school movies has got to be "Carrie" - Brian De Palma's "Carrie."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CARRIE")
SISSY SPACEK: (As Carrie White) I'm going, Mama. And things are going to change around here.
PIPER LAURIE: (As Margaret White) Witch - got Satan's power.
SPACEK: (As Carrie White) It's nothing to do with Satan, Mama. It's me.
RIVERS: That movie traumatized me as a kid.
DETROW: Yeah, yeah.
RIVERS: You know, if you remember that one of those early scenes when Carrie is - she's having her period in the shower, and all the other high school kids are just throwing tampons at her. They're so mean to her.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CARRIE")
SPACEK: (As Carrie White, crying) Help me.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERS: And as a kid, I don't know what a period is. I don't know what's happened to her. All I can see is all these girls is just yelling and laughing, and I'm just wondering, why are they being so mean to Carrie? And that, to me, just, like, encapsulates - that movie encapsulates so many fears about high school, just the feelings of, you know, as her mom says, they're all going to laugh at you, you know? You're going to be exposed as a loser, as an outcast, and that feeling of being judged where you're always being watched and having to kind of be just on, you know, just...
DETROW: Yeah, which is very accurate, even if not to the extremes of that movie.
RIVERS: Not to the extremes.
DETROW: But the feeling, the feeling inside, like, pretty spot on.
RIVERS: Yeah, I hope none of us ever experienced the third act of "Carrie," but I think the stuff that came before, I think we can all relate to some of her feelings there.
DETROW: Yeah.
HARDYMON: I would not mind some of those powers, but OK, sure.
RIVERS: Yeah, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DETROW: Barrie, Marc hit a wide range there.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
DETROW: What to you is an important high school movie?
HARDYMON: When I kind of put them into categories, I always think of - there's, like, the really fun movies that make high school look almost unattainable. You know, I'm thinking about...
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: ...Like, "Clueless"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CLUELESS")
SILVERSTONE: (As Cher) Would you look at that girl? She is so adorably clueless. We've got to adopt her.
STACEY DASH: (As Dionne) Cher, she is tore up. Our stock would plummet.
HARDYMON: ...Which, for me, was a movie that I just really loved because it brought together a dorky part of me, which was that it is based on Jane Austen's "Emma," but it also brought together another part of me that planned out outfits, like, weeks in advance. And really, also, there's, like, an undercurrent of, like, real kindness in that movie. But I like the ones that are in between "Carrie" and "Clueless." Like, for instance, I love "Grease"...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOOK AT ME I'M SANDRA DEE")
STOCKARD CHANNING: (As Rizzo, singing) Won't go to bed till I'm legally wed. I can't. I'm Sandra Dee.
HARDYMON: ...And not just 'cause it's a musical. I like - give me the Rizzo characters. Like, that's what I'm talking about. I love a person who is, like, struggling because it is really - teenagers have these struggles that are adult struggles at a moment when they are still basically children. The John Hughes movies, those are movies about sexuality and about class and about what you're talking about, Marc, with the feeling out of your skin and the people - and incredibly self-conscious. But my favorite of all of those is "Fast Times At Ridgemont High."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH")
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH: (As Stacy Hamilton) Do you think guys find that more attractive?
PHOEBE CATES: (As Linda Barrett) Oh, Stacy, please give me a break. You are so much prettier than them.
LEIGH: (As Stacy Hamilton) Yeah, I know. But do you think they'd be better in bed?
CATES: (As Linda Barrett) What do you mean better in bed? Either you do it or you don't.
HARDYMON: Its depiction of adolescent sexuality is so - it is so incredibly true to life in that sort of, you know, you don't know what you're supposed to want, which is something I think we don't talk about enough with teenagers. They're like, I like it - the sex. I want the sex. But no, you don't even know what you're supposed to want - you know, how you're supposed to be a girl correctly, which is something that was - is, I think, really, particularly difficult. Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays Stacy in that movie, is just - it's an incredible piece of acting. And there's one scene that I really, really love where she's making out with a kid who's probably the right guy for her, Rat. And they're making out on her bed, and he reaches behind him, and he pulls out a stuffed animal. And it's like, this is what high school is.
RIVERS: And what's really wonderful about that movie is while the - the depiction of sex in that movie has this really authentic awkwardness, but you can tell...
HARDYMON: Exactly.
RIVERS: ...The director Amy Heckerling had a mature lens on the sex, right? This is coming from a grownup sensibility...
HARDYMON: Yes.
RIVERS: ...Not juvenile, not "American Pie"...
DETROW: Yeah.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...You know, not "Porky's," but, like, genuine, wise, you know, insightful.
HARDYMON: Well, remember, it's based on a true story.
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: Like, it is based on Cameron Crowe's going undercover.
RIVERS: He went undercover as a high school student, yeah.
HARDYMON: Exactly. And so I think the combination of those things - and again, this is a movie that has an extremely low-key abortion in it. When Stacy comes out of that clinic and Judge Reinhold is sitting on the car, they have, I think, one of the best, you know, scenes in American cinema about kids, where they both really support each other in this way that is really true to life.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH")
BRAD HAMILTON: (As Judge Reinhold) Who did it? You're not going to tell me, are you? OK. It'll just be your (ph) secret.
HARDYMON: Even though there are a lot of crappy characters in that movie, that moment is so loving. And this movie holds up for me, but I would not watch it with your young teenager. I would watch it with your much older one (laughter).
DETROW: I am wondering what either of you think about the last 10 years or so. Are there more recent movies that, if we were doing this conversation again, would hit that montage with "The Breakfast Club"?
RIVERS: Two words, "Lady Bird."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LADY BIRD")
STEPHEN MCKINLEY HENDERSON: (As Father Leviatch) Is that your given name?
SAOIRSE RONAN: (As Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson) Yeah.
HENDERSON: (As Father Leviatch) Why is it in quote?
RONAN: (As Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson) Well, I gave it to myself. It's given to me by me.
HENDERSON: (As Father Leviatch) OK.
RIVERS: That from - this is Greta Gerwig's debut as a director from 2017. I think that is one of the best movies about being a teenager that's ever been made in this country.
DETROW: Yeah. Yeah.
RIVERS: I just rewatched last night. I was almost tearing up at the beginning.
DETROW: Yeah.
RIVERS: I was almost tearing up at the ending sequence. I think it's so lovely and so wise about so many things. Like, simultaneously, like, individual scenes will have so many things going on as far as the relationship between a mother and their daughter and identity and class. And that movie is like a hug.
DETROW: It's - yeah.
RIVERS: And any time I watch it, I feel embraced...
DETROW: I don't know.
RIVERS: ...By just, like, a humanist vision (ph).
DETROW: I agree. And I also - like, I graduated from a Catholic high school around the same year that that movie takes place with all the...
RIVERS: Yeah.
DETROW: ...Like 'cause there's that Iraq war plot, and I graduated 2003.
RIVERS: So you were a Lady Bird?
DETROW: And then as an adult, I lived in Sacramento, so I just feel like I'm like...
RIVERS: You're a Lady Bird.
HARDYMON: (Laughter).
DETROW: I feel seen by this movie, like, in this perfect way.
RIVERS: Yeah.
DETROW: It's so good. Barrie, do you want to just join in on praising "Lady Bird" with us or do you have another?
HARDYMON: I do. I mean, I want to say, well, I think it is a brilliant movie, obviously. It is. I think it's a great movie on its own, high school or no. I, too, want to say two words that are a portmanteau, which is "Booksmart."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BOOKSMART")
BEANIE FELDSTEIN: (As Molly) We chose. We didn't party because we wanted to focus on school and get into good colleges.
KAITLYN DEVER: (As Amy) And it worked.
FELDSTEIN: (As Molly) But the irresponsible people who partied also got into those colleges. They did both.
HARDYMON: And which I think is, again...
RIVERS: It was kind of treated as, like, the women's answer to "Superbad" at the time.
HARDYMON: It was very much pitched that way, but I think what's sort of great about it is that it still retains, like, the awareness of the darkness and yet a real kindness and an ability to let all of the - you know, the players and the habits that we're - we've come to love in high school, all of those groups, all of those people get to be different than we would imagine them to be, which is what you find out when you grow up, you know?
RIVERS: Definitely.
HARDYMON: You're like, oh, actually, that book smart gal is, you know, a little different than I thought she was, or...
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And I think I just love how much that movie is on its characters' sides. Like, it is absolutely pro these ladies who are so great. You know, most of the movies that I grew up with when I was in high school, the verbs were the boys. You know the ones - the actions were the boys.
RIVERS: Yeah.
HARDYMON: It was about boys, boys, boys. And, you know, this one is such a relief. I wish there had been a "Booksmart" when I was growing up.
DETROW: That is NPR's Barrie Hardymon and Marc Rivers. Thank you to you both.
RIVERS: Thanks, Scott.
HARDYMON: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T YOU (FORGET ABOUT ME)")
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