Sixteen Candles is thirty this year. It remains a beloved teen comedy; an iconic story of a young girl growing up to be a man.
All right, Sixteen Candles isn’t actually about a trans man, unfortunately; representations of trans people in media were even rarer two decades ago than they are now. But rewatching the film, it is surprising how obsessed this girl’s coming-of-age story is with manliness. Partly that has to do with the subplot involving the Geek (Anthony Michael Hall) as he tries to convince protagonist Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald), or anyone, really, to have sex with him. His nerdishness and awkwardness is related repeatedly to a lack of manliness; Sam calls him a “total fag,” and he taunts his even geekier henchman by telling them “don’t be such faggots.” At one point, he even accidentally takes birth control pills, foisted on him by Caroline Mulford (Haviland Morris). He spits the pills out quickly, though…and soon thereafter, as if getting rid of those contaminating hormones is some sort of rite-of-passage, he finally manages his transition to not-womanly by having an unspecified but mutually satisfying intimate tryst with the seemingly way out of his league Caroline.
Like the Geek, Sam is trying to grow up — a process made no easier when her entire family forgets her birthday. Growing up for her doesn’t mean becoming a man, but getting one: in this case, the Robert-Pattinson-before-there-was-Robert-Pattinson hot, soulful Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). Yet, getting the guy and being the guy are wrapped around each other in complicated ways. Sam (whose name is suggestively androgynous) is a sophomore; Jake’s a senior. Her eagerness to be older, then, is a wish to be like him, as well as a wish to be with him. Her desire isn’t just about romance, but about the desire to be acknowledged rather than erased — to get out of her beautiful sister’s shadow, and out from under the bleak school hierarchy. It’s not an accident that the film’s one glimpse of nudity is a scene in the girl’s bathroom in which Sam and her best friend stare at a topless Caroline in an excess of envy at her body and at her good fortune in dating Jake. The camera focuses first of all on her breasts before it pulls back; it’s an eroticized moment, in which the jealous sophomores’ desire to be Caroline (and so date Jake) is visually blurred with the desire to be with Caroline (and so essentially be Jake.)
Adulthood in Sixteen Candles, then, is in many ways coded as male — a patriarchal economy underlined by the viscious Asian stereotype of the quintessentially nerdy, iconically non-manly Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe.) This link between adulthood and manliness isn’t a surprise; power in the 1980s, and still today, is generally coded as masculine. To grow up, to stop being a “fag” or (as one cruel upperclassman calls Sam) a “void”, is to grab hold of the male thing. Desire is not just about love, but about (male-coded) strength and substance and influence — thus the attraction of Bella to Edward, or of Anastasia to Christian Grey, or, for that matter, of Dorothea to Casaubon. Love isn’t just about wanting a man, but about wanting to be the man. Jake’s attractiveness , too, is not just his pretty face; it’s also his fancy cars and his place at the pinnacle of the school’s pecking order — and also the fact that he’s dating the desirable, visibly adult Caroline.
So romance is all about patriarchy? Well, not exactly. Or at least, the dynamic of wanting to grow up by loving and becoming the loved one isn’t restricted to heterosexual love stories. For example, it’s the basic premise of Nora Olsen’s wonderful lesbian YA novel, Frenemy of the People, out last week. At the start of the book, Lexie is the one out lesbian at the high school: she’s fiercely political, anti-bourgeois, and (in what I take as a deliberate Holden Caulfield wink) hates the smarminess and fakeness of her classmates. Clarissa, on the other hand, is a straight girl from a Conservative Christian family who rides horses and has tons of friends in the popular clique.
But then Clarissa suddenly figures out she’s bi (she has an epiphany where she realizes she likes pictures of Kimye as much for Kim as for Kanye) and she and Lexie begin a wary process of falling in love. That process isn’t just about learning to like one another; it’s also about becoming like one another — growing up both by loving and by turning into the loved one. At the end of the book, it’s the fierce Lexie who says, “It’s like Clarissa cracked me open, and all this tenderness spilled out of me that I didn’t even know I had” — and it’s the political Lexie who admits that “All I do now are bourgeois things, like horseback riding and lying around kissing my girlfriend.” Meanwhile, it’s the popular high school girl Clarissa who says that Lexie has “made me more fierce and brave,” and who gushes about the joys of property destruction. (“I can’t wait to do more things like that.”) The two girls have grown and found themselves — and the selves they’ve found are each other.
You could argue that the absence of patriarchal fantasies, not to mention the absence of stupid gay slurs and emasculated Asian stereotypes, makes Olsen’s coming-of-age story better than Sixteen Candles. And “Frenemy of the People” is in fact much superior to the film. Olsen’s a wittier and smarter writer than John Hughes, with a broader range of interests and sympathies than Hollywood formula can manage (the book tackles everything from the housing crisis to mental disability issues, all with an immaculately light touch.)
Nonetheless, I think reading Sixteen Candles through Frenemy actually makes me appreciate the film more, not less. Yes, the anxieties around masculinity are a bit off-putting. But at the same time, as Olsen shows, it’s natural for Sam to want to be Jake, because people, of whatever gender or orientation, often want to be, as well as to be with, their sweeties. If there’s some suggestion that she likes his status and his maturity — well, what’s wrong with loving someone because they have qualities you admire, and want for yourself? When you’re looking for it, you can even perhaps see Jake doing something similar himself — he gives an impassioned speech about wanting a serious girlfriend; he’s sick of partying. Growing up for him means putting aside the childish things that comprise being on top of that social hierarchy, and getting to be more like Sam, quiet and out of the spotlight. Maybe it’s Jake’s birthday too, there at the end of the film, and the gift he gets is to grow up to be the girl he loves.
“emasculated Asian stereotypes”
I don’t like the term “emasculated”. Firstly, it implies that men have some innate endowment of masculinity that has to be forcibly removed to make them non-masculine. Secondly, it implies that non-masculine men are somehow deficient or incomplete. Being masculine has nothing to do with being a man; buchness doesn’t make you a better man or more of a man or a “real” man or any of that crap.
Frankly, I don’t think we need more media depictions of butch Asian men; we need more media depictions of men who are valid, worthy, interesting and attractive because of their non-masculine attributes, straight white men as well as Asian/gay/whatever.
Also, when will Hollywood realize that shy dorks = the hotness? Gedde Watanabe’s character could have been smokin’ had the writers not been idiots.
“If there’s some suggestion that she likes his status and his maturity — well, what’s wrong with loving someone because they have qualities you admire, and want for yourself?”
Because it’s always coded as women desiring men because of their status and maturity rather than the other way around? And Jake’s interest in Sam sees to be partially predicated on the idea that she’s the “good” (chaste) girl rather than the sexy (and thus potentially suspect) girl. The whole setup just has a lot of unpleasant subtext if you look under the hood.
Well…I think I discussed the subtext, or tried to. But my point is that it *is not* always the case that it’s girls who want to be men. It’s not in Nora Olsen’s book; the girls in that want to be each other. (And it’s not in yaoi either, right?) Which gives you a place from which to see 16 Candles as not only about patriarchy, but also about love.
Romance novels sometimes play with these things too. Laura Kinsale’s “For My Lady’s Heart”, for example, has a knight who falls in love with a lady, and part of the attraction is her status and power and sophistication (while what she likes in him is his innocence, which she wants for herself.)
In terms of emasculated…I see what you’re saying, but I think it’s a pretty useful term to talk about how men are seen, or how masculinity is perceived. I would say that masculinity does actually have a lot to do with “being a man” — a phrase that’s has a ton of connotations as well. I’d agree in general that getting to a place where masculinity doesn’t have power over men or women or anybody else would be a good thing…but I don’t think that getting rid of words which describe the status quo necessarily will move us in that direction.
Olsen’s book and BL are both about same-sex relationships, in which that particular axis of the gender dynamic doesn’t necessarily apply (although it can…). Despite the occasional modern stab at inverting the dynamic, it’s still expected that heterosexual women will be impressed by and attracted to older, high-status men but that the converse does not hold (and Kinsale’s book, from your description, sounds like it’s playing off the tradition of courtly love, which is also predicated on a patriarchal encoding of sexuality, in its own way).
“I don’t think that getting rid of words which describe the status quo necessarily will move us in that direction”
But the word “emasculated” does not mean “a social context in which male privilege is dependent on displays of normative masculinity”, it means “the state of being inadequately masculine (and therefore inferior)”. The word doesn’t describe the status quo, it reflects the attitudes of the status quo. It’s useful to talk about those kinds of words and what they imply, but it’s not very useful to simply use them without comment.
Well…I’m all for commenting. I do think that the context of the essay makes it fairly clear I’m not advocating for unvarnished masculinity as some sort of ideal.
Kinsale’s book definitely plays into patriarchal tropes in certain ways…though not in others. I don’t think you really get away from patriarchy, even in lesbian romance; these things are pretty hard to step out of. But as I said, I think looking at what Olsen does suggests that wanting to be, rather than be with, isn’t necessarily an example of folks being patriarchal dupes. It can be about how love is exploring possibilities too.
I don’t think 16 candles is great or anything (parts of it are awful.) But I think young kids exploring adulthood via exploring gender identity isn’t all bad either.
“I do think that the context of the essay makes it fairly clear I’m not advocating for unvarnished masculinity as some sort of ideal.”
Yes, that came through in the essay. But I think the phrase “emasculated Asian stereotypes” frames the problem as the character’s lack of masculinity, not the writers’/culture’s attitudes towards masculinity.
“But I think young kids exploring adulthood via exploring gender identity isn’t all bad either.”
I agree with this. But I don’t think 16 Candles is going very far in that direction.
“not to mention the absence of stupid gay slurs and emasculated Asian stereotypes”
Don’t forget the date rape
Jones,
I had the same thought.
IIRC, there’s also a weird scene involving a rather butch lady forcing herself on a drunk but eager Gette Watanabe. Again with the inversions. It’s like something from an R. Crumb comic.
The R. Crumb thing is there…but there’s no forcing, in that instance.
Caroline definitely consents; the film is pretty careful to show that. She is drunk, obviously, but I guess I’d have trouble calling it date rape as presented. (As opposed to Dead Poets Society, where the protagonist gropes a girl who is actually out cold, and it’s supposed to be cute.)
The Geek is definitely creepy and awful, though. He repeatedly comes onto Sam even though she tells him “no” over and over, and the thing where he displays her underwear in the bathroom is awful and abusive. His social klutziness consists almost entirely of acting horribly towards women, and the film always treats that as cute and funny rather than as disturbing and ugly.
I really liked this piece. Also, while I’m no Freud expert, I might have heard another tid bit that shores up your argument here too, aside from Penis envy.
I guess Freud interpreted sex dreams, particularly sex dreams involving a real life person, as a subconscious admission that you wanted to become that person. Which is fascinating.
Dead Poets Society…it’s not the protagonist, is it? And the character gets his ass kicked right after his attempt, as I recall.
In Dead Poets’ Society, it’s one of the protagonists. And he gets in trouble…with the girls’ boyfriend. The girl herself tries to protect him. The guys who attack him are presented as bullies and jerks, not as self-actualized as him because they haven’t been taught by Robin Williams.
It’s a vile moment in a vile movie.
Noah, by definition there’s only one protagonist in any work of fiction. That’s why he’s called “protagonist”.
Sorry; in an ensemble work, there can be multiple protagonists, and often are.
I suppose you can think of him as the protagonist of that scene if you’d like.
‘Sorry; in an ensemble work, there can be multiple protagonists, and often are.’
No, there are not; never. You’re a professional critic, and you ought to employ critical vocabulary with precision.
‘I suppose you can think of him as the protagonist of that scene if you’d like.’
Fair enough, that works for me.
He kidnaps her while she’s unconscious and she drank enough to pass out. This article http://www.btchflcks.com/2013/07/sixteen-candles-rape-culture-and-the-anti-woman-politics-of-2013.html#.U4DarmcU8jI shows the similarities between 16 candles and Steubenville.
He’s driving her home, and she suggests they make out, not him. The Steubenville rape involved a woman who was actually unconscious, right? I think these distinctions are fairly important.
I agree with the article in general that the film is misogynist and homophobic and that the treatment of aggressive harassment as cute rite of passage is ugly.
I’d forgotten the photographing too. That’s undeniably ugly and awful.
She’s right about the racism and the sneering at disabled people too.
Alex — to the extent that the term “protagonist” has a basis in (I guess?) Aristotelian criticism, then, perhaps it is indeed impossible to have more than one. But, if we’re to be constrained thus, why not go further and declare it impossible to have a protagonist at all unless you have the same structure as classical Greek tragedy? Which is, basically, to say that almost every narrative work of art ever doesn’t have any protagonists either. Surely usage of the term has expanded to become more general?
But I learned everything I know about the Poetics from the back of a cereal box, so maybe I’m grossly mistaken here…
“Oedipus Smax”?
Honey Nut Dramaturgios, actually.