Am I the only one here who thinks that this movie is bland, very shallow, not really funny and immensely overrated? Maybe because most people watched it as a child and still feel attached to it emotionally somehow?
You are responding in a discussion about a lengthy article about the unexpected deepness of a movie, written by a professional author. Your response is that the movie is "bland, very shallow" etc, without evidence, and without discussing or refuting any of the points of the article.
I wonder if:
1. You simply didn't read the article. Your decision to comment in a discussion about this article without even reading it suggests that you might be someone who finds things boring and shallow because you simply don't engage with the material deeply (in this case not at all). So the problem might be you.
2. You did read the article fully, but yet don't have any counter points, or couldn't be bothered to share them. The article provides significant and convincing arguments that the movie is rich, deep and funny, yet you have no rebuttals. It may be that things seem shallow to you simply because you are incapable of deep thought. So the problem might be you.
To quote from High Fidelity: "How can it be bullshit to state an opinion?" :)
FWIW I agree, I thought the movie was boring when it came out. After all there were hundreds of other cooler movies around that time. Same with the breakfast club. As an adult rewatching them I enjoyed them more.
You're not alone, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Like the writer of the article, it never clicked with me on first viewing. Unlike the writer, the second viewing didn't help either. I don't think themes in Hughes' movies are necessarily universal.
Other commenters here have connected the film with Fight Club, and I think it's because they both explore some of the anxieties around masculinity young men might experience in postwar America. There's a dynamic between these two caricatures of a confident, desirable, strong man and gloomy, ineffective, downtrodden one. I think the films attract a lot of attention because men can often feel the weight of these concepts press against them in their day-to-day lives.
I watched it as a child and it was up there with PeeWee Herman as a cheap titillating story. I was too young to really grok the ending; it was boring and totally broke the character. Looking back, the ending fits in well with the tendency for TV and movies of the 80s and 90s to paste over an otherwise shameless action/comedy with a bit of moralizing to appease the puritanical censors of the day (GI Joe being a stark example).
But, taking it at face value, ignoring the man behind the curtain, I kinda get how people are interpreting it here.
