Hollywood High by Bruce Handy

Author:Bruce Handy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 2025-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

So why not have some fun with boys? True, the song is more poignant ballad than brassy anthem, and Channing brings an element of pathos to the character, as in the scene where she’s about to have sex in a car and instructs her boyfriend, who’s moaning, “Rizzo… Rizzo,” to call her by her first name, Betty. It’s a line that feels as if it were written to be funny but it lands plaintively. The picture’s third act flirts with punishing Rizzo by saddling her with an unplanned pregnancy. (“I feel like a defective typewriter… I skipped a period.”) But the sunny finale gives everyone a happy ending, including Rizzo, who gets to announce that her pregnancy was a “false alarm” while riding a carnival Ferris wheel. Whee! Never mind! Cue the last number! (Yes, Grease is a musical comedy.) Meanwhile, Sandy has surprised Travolta’s Danny by ditching her prim sweater sets and long skirts for skintight leather and a huge perm that makes her look more like a 1980s porn star than a 1950s greaser’s girlfriend. So this was… progress? I don’t want to oversell Grease’s sex positivity, but it can serve as a mostly cheerful counterpoint to the shame, guilt, and fear swirling around female sexuality in, say, Carrie (1976).

The 1980 summer camp sex comedy Little Darlings, starring Kristy McNichol and Tatum O’Neal, was more sensitive and nuanced than its advertising let on. Winking slutscapades were promised by the tagline, “Don’t let the title fool you,” and the plot was summarized fairly enough by another line used in the ads: “The bet is on: whoever loses her virginity first—wins.” The New Yorker harrumphed: “A disgusting idea for a movie.” But the two heroines—Tatum O’Neal’s poor-little-rich-girl Ferris and Kristy McNichol’s scrappy, working-class Angel—are in fact ambivalent about their wager, which is a result of peer pressure from their cabinmates, rather than any desire or urgency on either girl’s part. Angel “wins,” but it proves to be a hollow victory, one that she keeps secret; the act, which takes place off camera, leaves her angry at herself, while her partner, the proverbial cute boy from the camp across the lake, played by Matt Dillon, winds up feeling used. Meanwhile, Ferris lies about sleeping with the dreamy older counselor played by Armand Assante—who is nevertheless a little too slow on the draw when spurning her advances. When her falsehood is exposed, everyone confesses, and it turns out the supposedly seasoned cabinmates who egged on Ferris and Angel are all virgins, too. Moral: And that’s okay! Surprisingly, all of this is handled with as much tact as the premise and the era’s standards of taste allow, and the endorsement of “waiting” in the final reel would make Gidget’s mom proud. But give Little Darlings credit for treating girls’ sexuality, their curiosity and desire, with respect; the movie lives in a world where girls might conceivably want and enjoy sex.

That girls can be horny without being “bad” or crazy or doomed, or all three, is assumed in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.