This week’s post isn’t about a sequel, but rather the fortunate lack of one. I went to last week’s installment of the Films at Manship series, which featured a showing of “Pretty in Pink” and an 80s prom-themed after-party.
It’s a classic John Hughes creation centered on an independent young heroine, Molly Ringwald as Andie, being courted by a boy outside of her social caste, Andrew McCarthy as Blane, and an overbearing, lovelorn best friend, Jon Cryer as Duckie. And if you haven’t seen it, for the love of everything 1986, please do (at least before you continue reading).
It was the first time I’ve seen “Pretty in Pink” off of television, the land of scene cuts and excessive censoring, so there were a few surprises in store for me. Duckie saw more screen time, in all of his lovable dorkdom. But so did Blane and his sleazy best friend Steff (played by a very feathered, very young James Spader), in a scene that explains Blane’s gross passive aggressive rejection of Andie right before the prom. Short version: Steff calls Andie poor trash and invokes fear of the ‘rents in Blane because he is incredibly jealous that Andie has rejected his scumball advances for four years. It’s a killer.
One thing that stayed absolutely the same in the movie is that awful cop-out ending, in which Andie flees the prom to embrace Blane in a parking lot make-out completely devoid of chemistry. Reportedly, the final scene was supposed to be a big diss to everyone else as prom in the form of Andie and Duckie twirling for their lives on the dancefloor. The movie was screened with this ending and received unsavory reviews from the test audience, so it was reshot, and now we are stuck with an ending both unsatisfying and ill-fitting with the rest of the movie.
Everywhere you look for information about this, you see that Molly Ringwald was thrilled that Duckie didn’t get the girl, saying that she had always felt Duckie would come out as a homosexual in any imagined sequels. It would be fine if he were actually gay, but I am offended (and so is Jon Cryer, by most accounts) that a dude can’t do his own quirky, not-so-masculine thing without being stereotyped as the gay best friend. Give the Duckman some credit, Molly. Who else would lip-synch Otis Redding as charmingly?
This subject was much debated-upon in the line for the ladies’ restroom after the screening, with the younger viewers leaning toward Duckie and most of the older women admitting that they “would have chosen Blane back in high school, too.” We all twirled to The Cure for a couple of hours in awful 80s attire despite our difference in opinion, and I comforted myself with the fact that “Prettier in Pink” will probably never happen. Fingers crossed.
