Hacker Cinema
Sixteen Candles
1984 · Film · 93 min
Directed by John Hughes
With the occasion all but overshadowed by her sister's upcoming wedding, angst-ridden Samantha faces her 16th birthday with typical adolescent dread. Samantha pines for studly older boy Jake, but worries that her chastity will be a turnoff for the popular senior. Meanwhile, she must constantly rebuff the affections of nerdy Ted, who is unfortunately the only boy in school who seems to take an interest in her.
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2 comments on Hacker News
Access to sexual experiences is something I would count as a great liberation of the past decades. When a man got desperate for release not all that long ago, they didn't hop online for an outlet, they drove to the seedy part of town and visited a strip club, went to a porno theater, solicited hookers, etc. Those things are still around, and there were some possibilities to "phone date", but lack of options made things overall less secure and discreet for everyone involved relative to today where the man can just look up an Onlyfans or prowl Tinder profiles. 1980's teen movies like "Sixteen Candles" were OK with date rape as a concept, and that was just the tip-of-the-iceberg. We're doing better.
This goes even more so if we speak of the spectrum of LGBT identities, which in 1991 was in the midst of losing all continuity with the past because so many died from AIDS; many folks then would stay closeted and quiet because coming out was just too threatening. Casual homophobia was everywhere, and the "gay neighborhoods" of larger cities were somewhat exceptional even within that city. Now it's hardly unusual to be out, though generational acceptance remains rocky.
Because suburbs were more the domain of angsty or angry teenagers?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079688/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_65
That was 41 years ago. Over the Edge, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller were more common than ET.