The 1986 film “Sixteen Candles” tells a timeless tale of growing up in suburban America. The film’s star, Sam, played by Molly Ringwald, wakes up with big expectations on her sweet sixteenth birthday only to be completely disappointed. Not only does she find that she looks exactly the same as when she was fifteen, but her family is so preoccupied with her older sister’s wedding that they forget her birthday altogether.
The film opens with Sam on the phone with her best girlfriend Randy. She is examining herself in her full length mirror and is totally horrified to find that her body didn’t’ magically transform overnight. She was hoping to wake up with a body just like Caroline’s. Caroline is the head cheerleader, prom queen, and girlfriend of the most popular boy in school, Jake Ryan. Sam is hopelessly “in love” with Jake and is convinced that he won’t know she exists until she is more developed, more mature, more like Caroline. Little does she know, Jake does notice her. He is intrigued by a certain mispassed note containing some very personal information about Sam’s sex life (or lack of one). In this note, Sam confesses that she is a virgin (she has never done “it”) and is saving herself not for marriage, but for Jake Ryan. Jake finds himself wanting to get to know Sam and wanting a real relationship with someone like her, rather than with someone like Caroline. He knows Caroline doesn’t love him, and he doesn’t love her either. The only real reason they’re together is because he’s the most popular boy at school and she’s the most popular girl. Throughout the movie, Sam is preoccupied with becoming more like Caroline, while the real reason Jake is interested in her is because she is not like Caroline. By the end of the movie Sam learns a valuable lesson about being her own person and even gets the guy along the way.
This film contains some classic examples of the kinds of real life issues adolescents deal with. Issues such as popularity, peer relationships, family/sibling relationships, sex, and struggles with identity are all addressed in this ninety-minute film.
Sam’s high school is like any stereotypical high school with it’s various social crowds. The popular crowd in this movie is composed of mostly jocks and cheerleaders. These adolescents seem to be the most physically attractive and have the wealthiest parents.
Several Years after their marriage, cousin Mattie Silver is asked to relieve Zeena, who is constantly ill, of her house hold duties. Ethan finds himself falling in love with Mattie, drawn to her youthful energy, as, “ The pure air, and the long summer hours in the open, gave life and elasticity to Mattie.” Ethan is attracted to Mattie because she is the opposite of Zeena, while Mattie is young, happy, healthy, and beautiful like the summer, Zeena is seven years older than Ethan, bitter, ugly and sickly cold like the winter. Zeena’s strong dominating personality undermines Ethan, while Mattie’s feminine, lively youth makes Ethan fell like a “real man.” Ethan and Mattie finally express their feeling for each other while Zeena is visiting the doctor, and are forced to face the painful reality that their dreams of being together can not come true.
Sammy, trying to be the hero and standing up for the girls, gets completely ignored and unnoticed by the girls that he so desperately wanted to impress. The trio had already turned their backs and were headed for the exit. Sammy has a quick discussion with his ex-manager and r...
He leaves, with a clean consciousness, but the burden of not knowing what the future has in store. This story represents a coming-of-age for Sammy. Though it takes place over the period of a few minutes, it represents a much larger process of maturation. From the time the girls enter the grocery store, to the moment they leave, you can see changes in Sammy. At first, he sees only the physicality of the girls: how they look and what they wear, seem to be his only observations.
Sam soon time that she has with her family. Sam begins to understand that she only has so much time to live and learns that she is that only one who is experiencing this. Sam has to learn that she needs to cherish the that she needs to hold that in her hands, like a precious diamond. In the book Sam starts to spend more time with her little sister Izzie. She takes her to place she used to go as a little kid when shen was sad or something was wrong. She also begins to fall for Kent, who truly cherishes her. He is so different from her old boyfriend Rob. She finally starts to appreciate her friends and her parents. She notices how much her parents love each other and
Every teenager has the same exact problem: high school. The conflicts, drama, and social assemblage is a part of every high school student experience at his or her different campus. While most students determine that there is no single adult that has any idea of the situations and circumstances that each person faces in their daily life, they are unbelievably mistaken. Novelist and screenwriter, Stephan Chbosky, perfectly captures these issues in a mature, thematic experience that every teen can relate to. And for some odd reason, some individuals feel that this coming-of-age story needs to be banned from public libraries and schools throughout our nation.
He holds his brother high on the totem pole. Sam, on the other hand, is adamant and intelligent, yet indecisive. He’s tried, and still tries, to be independent from his brother. He would do whatever it takes to get out of his brothers control, yet somehow he falls back into his control. They have fought, and still fight, because he feels Dean is “overbearing.” However, in Dean’s defense, all he knows and all that he was taught from his father was to protect Sam no
He looks familiar to all of the characters and shortly after is revealed to be the man who left Maria after seducing her. He is unwilling to tell them much about him, who he is, where he is from, or even what he does, but when asked by Berish if he had been a guest at the inn before Sam himself says,” Possibly. I have been a guest in many homes. You have customers, so do I. Some remember me, others prefer to forget me.” (114). In making this comment, Sam urges us to question who he is and what his intentions are. From what Maria says he is not a good man, in fact she goes as far as to call him evil for seducing her and giving her a false feeling of love, then beating her and leaving her. However, during the trial Sam defends God, telling of his just and fair actions and how he is not to be blamed for the actions his children. This is extremely ironic when Sam is revealed to be Satan but makes complete sense by what he gives away about himself in the beginning and the fact that many of them remember him from towns or villages that have seen tragedy. Sam is everything that God is not, therefore in a way he seemed to know exactly how to defend God for the events that were actually caused by
The movie thirteen touched many important factors of adolescent’s development. Some of the ones I want to concentrate in this paper are: family system, identity crisis, and peer pressure. Just how easy will it be for a thirteen year old to get caught up in a life of sex, drugs, and other thrills?
School and extracurricular activities are hard to maintain and Sam was an example. Many teenage boys deal with harassment by the police and it only makes their lives harder. During teenage years youth are very rebellious. Home life can trigger rebellion causing youth to act out. Rebellious acts can result in trouble with the police. In the movie Sam was constantly on the run, trying to escape the police. He struggled to clear his name and proved that he was on the right side of things. A real life example of teenagers struggle with police would be Beyond Scared Straight, from home life, to drugs to jail.
With a school work load and extracurricular activities, on the outside Sam looks like an average teenager. With blonde hair to the middle of her back and regular, loose fitting clothing, few
who Sam asks to help him with the case because he knew he needed the
In this book, Hall (1904) explores all of the issues of adolescents and how to discipline them. He defines adolescence as a period of storm and stress, or Sturm und Drang. The storm refers to a lack of self-control, and the stress refers to increased sensitivity (Roundy, 2016). Sturm und Drang is a theory that implies that during the time of adolescence, behaviors and emotions such as rebellion, idealism, and passion run wild until maturation (King, 2004). Along with these behaviors comes the search for a mentor or role model that follows the same crowd they do. Hall also stated that adolescence can begin at twelve years of age, and go all the way up to twenty-five years of
A few months before they had a flirty encounter in a coffee shop. This time Carter saved Leah from conversation with a pervert at a restaurant. Leah finds Carter to be extremely charming and to be a gentleman. Eventually, the two begin to date and become involved in a relationship. Carter is very affectionate towards Leah, he shows her emotions that Dave didn’t show and he meets her parents. While Carter is doing an excellent job of being the perfect guy; Leah shortly discover a side of Carter that completely pushes her away from
He gathers up all of the family valuables and places them in a room to keep the kids away from them. Even while doing a morally right thing by switching the kegs, Sam goes the extra mile to not only keep himself from getting in trouble by preventing things getting broken, but in order to keep their value intact to their parents. This also seems like something I would consider doing. If something like this ever happened to me I know exactly what I would go hide in my house to keep them safe. This scene shows that Lindsey may not have respect for the family items, but Sam certainly does. This tells the audience that Sam values his family more than his sister does and considers them a priority, much like I do. Family is important and most high schoolers seem to forget them in order to further their own life goals. Sam holds onto his family ideals unlike most teens, but like me. My family is very important to me and I know if all else fails, they’ll be there for me so I do my best (like Sam does) in order to keep their
power trip which Hally is going through. Sam is an old friend as well as a