Day 273 of the challenge! I get it’s a classic, but ya’ll never told me how date rapey Sixteen Candles is. And racist. Like, daaamn.
I love the classic, old, dated, whatever you want to call it. There’s a charm old movies have that new ones just don’t. Cliche to say, but “they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.” Every now and again, however, I’ll watch one of these classics and think “maybe it’s good they don’t make ‘em like this anymore.”
While there’s plenty of cute romcom fantasy nonsense to win over most, Sixteen Candles also features some of the worst normalization of rape culture I have ever seen in a movie. It plays off these terrible moments for laughs, and then frames them as romantic. Kind of timely that I saw this one in the middle of the whole Kavanaugh thing I think. Also, if you google rape culture right now, the first article you get is about Sixteen Candles. Very timely. And I don’t want to get started on how incredibly racist the Long Duk Dong character is. Those scenes speak for themselves. This movie has some wicked humor and a lot of heart, but ultimately, it’s gross.