Ohmigod.
I JUST rediscovered 'The Faculty'. You know that movie from 1998, when ALL Hollywood was doing was funding films for, about, surrounding, and exploiting teens. And when i say teens i mean the actors who played 16 yr olds but were actually 21, the 16 yr old girls who fell in love with what they were being told was a 16 yr old boy - but was actually a 21 yr old boy, causing the actors 'adoration' of his teenage fans to appear slightly pedophile-ish. The teens who actually believed that the lives, stories, and stereotypical roles would happen to them. I mean how many teenage boy losers do you think dreamed (and believed) in the day that a 'jennifer love hewitt' character would read their letter, put aside her responsibility to being the most popular girl, follow them to the train station and live happily ever - until college.? Or i wonder how many teenage boys thought they could go the Sebastian route and convince a beautiful virgin like Reese witherspoon to give it up to them? While simultaneously trying to get into another girl (their step sisters) pants - - and ultimately shedding the bad boy image for love. Unfortunately he dies in the end, but so do Romeo and Juliet. It's like a teen movie right of passage for someone attractive, in love, or having just recently reached an important point of clarity die. He did leave behind a journal though, gotta love the Virginia Woolf touch.
Teens films of the 90's definitely filled the young and impressionable minds with an idea of unity. Lets go back to 'The Faculty' since that's what inspired me to write this anyway. Six completely different and fairly unlikeable people come together to stop aliens from taking over the world? Right. We have Casey(the nerd), Zeke(the drug dealer), Stokely(the pseudo lesbian, depressed, gender ambiguous loner), Mary Beth ( the southern bell 'out of towner'), Delilah ( the most popular girl in school), and Stan ( the captain of the football team). All of them come together - - they overcome high school differences and hierarchies to emerge as young adults. Mary Beth even goes so far as to say (to stokely) ' i know you pride yourself on being the outsider, but aren't you tired of being something you're not?'B Yup, she said that. And then, after we discover that Mary Beth is the queen alien they have been looking to kill all along, she says to stokely ' we don't know if you're gay, straight, alien..'. Now how sexuality and extraterrestrial life could have ANYTHING to do with one another is beyond me. And i don't mean in a theoretical or symbolic sense, i mean in the physical world. Well, there you have it, the homophobia in film came from two very predictable sources: the small town southerner and the most popular girl in school (who obviously needs to protect her ability to be fucked, because high school IS hell). But of course this cant be blamed on 'the faculty' considering 'the breakfast club' did the exact same damage. But that was the 80's, teens NEEDED that kind of damage.
Anyway, in the end we're left with Casey the nerd. Who is played by a young and eager Elijah Wood...before Tobey Maguire took over his spot. Because he killed the alien queen himself by injecting her with what i believe was speed...crystal meth? (I'm really not sure) he gets the girl and fame - he gets Delilah. We're also shown that Stokely and Stan are dating, c'mon...that's just not likely. And finally we're shown that Zeke has joined the football team. In the end both he and Stokely give into their impulses and are shown to be 'normal' members of their high school class. The resulting message? Sex, drugs, and teenage unity can save the earth.
