Sixteen Candles is a comedy romance film by John Hughes. The plot follows ignored looked down upon teenager Samantha (Molly Ringwald), who tries to get the boy of her dreams to see her for who she really is and fall in love with her. This is one of the Brat Pack films of the 1980’s.
Before I get into this review, I just want to say don’t watch this film! It promotes harmful stereotypes every chance it gets, it encourages date rape and makes a joke out of it, even going so far as to say that it is okay because she thought she enjoyed it the next morning, it is wrong. As some people have said to me it is dumb to compare an 80s film to modern standards and that apparently there is nothing wrong with a film joking about taboo subject matter, to those people I say how is rape of a drunk barely conscious girl something to joke about? It is not PC to say that the jokes are in bad taste to say the least, it is just the truth, they’re deeply offensive and if John Hughes was still alive, I think he would have apologised for this film.
The messages of this film are rancid, the main girl gets with her dream guy at the end of the film and we are supposed to be happy about this, why should we be? The boy of her dreams blatantly didn’t care about his previous girlfriend, not only is he abusive towards her, but he also allows a group of guys to rape her when she is drunk, which again is played for laughs. So with that in mind, Samantha getting with him at the end of the film, is a sad ending, because it means she will have a terrible time and a horrible life.
This is most certainly the worst of Hughes’ films, some of his other films have issues with them such a racism and stereotyping, but none are as bad or as harmful as this film. It is sickening and the fact that it ever got made makes me lose faith in humanity. I hated it!
Pros.
Not a one.
Cons.
It has horrible messages.
It makes light of abuse and rape.
It plays a rape scene for laughs.
It normalises rape culture.
It is racist through and through as well.
0/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 