John Hughes, screenwriter extraordinaire and pied piper to a generation of devoted Brat Packers, died from a heart attack while walking in Manhattan yesterday. He was only 59. Though he has been out of the spotlight since 1994, he left a legacy that touched every teen who grew up watching his movies. At the age of 14, I vividly remember risking life and limb to sneak into my first R-rated movie - The Breakfast Club. What did I get from that experience? Aside from an appreciation for his laugh-til-you-cry sense of humor? Well, as with the rest of his repertoire, I had a list of songs that I needed to hear again and a cathartic feeling that someone else understood how lousy it was to be a teenager. And John Hughes showed us that the most awkward, socially retarded kid could get the girl/boy of their dreams...or possibly create one with a computer and a Barbie doll if all else failed. Hughes understood the pubescent masses better than we could ever have dreamed.
When I went to college, I found that everyone I met had a similar feeling about this wonderful man. We huddled together en masse in tiny dorm rooms to watch Uncle Buck, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Weird Science... and the list could seemingly continue forever.Thank you, Mr. Hughes - for creating eminently quotable characters, for making us laugh and for keeping warm sentimentality alive. Hopefully you're off on a cloud somewhere doing the Uncle Buck dance and singing "Tweedlee-Dee, Tweedlee-Dee"...
2 comments:
When I heard the news all I could think of,oddly enough, was everyone piled in Dave White's room and (oddly enough) Jay laughing at Uncle Buck.
:(
Back then, I did not think of John Hughes as a sign of our generation, but I do now. Now I have to watch sixteen candles everytime it comes on Encor (like I didn't already)!
Post a Comment