John Hughes, A Retrospective
By Katie White
Western Herald
I am proudly a child of the ‘80s, albeit late ‘80s. I grew up on Duran Duran, shoulder pads, teased bangs, and the Brat Pack. The ’80s culture followed me throughout my grade school days and my awkward teen years and continues even now. However, there was one man that orchestrated my dreams and expectations about boys: John Hughes.
After seeing the incredibly moving tribute to Hughes at the 82nd Academy Awards on Sunday, I thought it fitting to finally put into words my gratitude to the incredibly talented man, we and the entertainment world, lost this past summer.
I always knew about this director who just got it right when it came to describing life, as experienced by adolescence.
My first Hughes movie was “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Matthew Broderick set my young, little heart ablaze as Ferris. To be like Mia Sara, in that fringy leather coat, romping around Chicago and skipping class sounded like a dream come true at that age. Ferris’s plan seemed foolproof and I was hooked. I rented it every time I went to Blockbuster and watched it practically till the tape ran dry. It got to the point where I had the movie pretty much memorized but I couldn’t, at that point, grasp how much of a connection I’d make later on.
For as long as I can remember, my mom talked about this dreamy guy that surprised a girl, whose birthday was forgotten at the end of the night with a cake on a glass top table. When I discovered “Sixteen Candles”, I knew my mom was right. Jake Ryan could do no wrong and all I wanted was to have everyone forget my birthday but him, sit on a glass top table and have my first kiss be over a birthday cake.
“The Breakfast Club” was the epicenter of my world come high school. I couldn’t (and still can’t) explain what that movie meant to me. When I got into high school, I joined the theater club. As I honed in on my solid group of friends, we quickly became our own Breakfast Club everyday, in the mornings trying to wake up in class, at lunch, and after school during rehearsals. We joked about seeming like something Hughes created himself, but to me, having grown up on those films, they didn’t know how true they were.
Later on I discovered “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Pretty In Pink,” John Candy movies, “She’s Having a Baby,” and his work on the Chevy Chase National Lampoon movies.
The love affair I had with ‘80s culture, namely its films, influenced every part of me. My ideal man was crafted straight out one of his movies. The music, the way they talked, they way they dressed; I brought it all back for myself.
To me, John Hughes was a genius. He somehow just got it. I’ll remember the day he died like it’s a historic event. Movies will never be made the same way, with the serious honesty of growing up. After John Hughes’s death, I became enthralled with Hughes. I stopped what I was doing to watch his films. I spent money on the films and even stumbled across an indie documentary about young directors in search of Hughes’s guidance.
Through my research, I found that John Hughes, essentially, went into hiding. People in the industry panned his work. They said the films were kid movies, that they had script problems, and were looked at as “simple.”
So Hughes left. He went away and didn’t talk to anyone in film industry. His genius is needed more than ever and we’ll never get it back.
Now that that this visionary is gone, the people that once snubbed him have realized what has been lost. Of all the tributes from the recent awards shows, the one that took the cake, and had to have meant the most, was at the 2010 Academy Awards. The actors whose careers he helped launch gathered on stage to share what John Hughes meant to them.
It’s my turn now. Though I never met him and only ever knew of him through the bonus features on my DVDs, I felt like I had made a connection. This man, that few really knew, had become so deeply ingrained in my life. His characters were just like the people I walked the halls with in school. He made skipping school and detention a cathartic life lesson. Molly Ringwald helped me understand crushes on unattainable boys, and taught me to appreciate the Duckies in my life. I learned ways to befriend the weird girl in the back of the library.
Because of him, I had tricks up for when I was under attack while home alone and what to do with an overzealous stranger when all modes of transportation are unavailable. His soundtracks became my soundtracks.
So John Hughes, thank you. There is no way I could ever forget about you.
Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=15414
Posted by heraldstaff
on Mar 9 2010. Filed under A & E.
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