Forever thankful that John Hughes movies were my generation’s Twilight

As I continue to see today’s “breaking news” headlines about a 22 year-old girl’s admission to cheating on her boyfriend, I’m ever more thankful that I spent my teen years in the ’80s when that type of news would’ve been relegated to publications such as Bop, Tiger Beat, and The Enquirer.

I’m not immune, I read the articles. I looked at the sordid photos, but more than gasping at the drama of it, I’m come be grateful that  my teenage years’–the ’80s–version of the Twilight series, were John Hughes (February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009) movies.

Now mind you, my opinion on Twilight is completely based on hearsay as I’ve never and never will read or watch them. All I know is that there’s a sullen-looking teenage girl, a vampire, two teams (Team Glitter and Team Jailbait?), and a lot of teenage girls and adult women (don’t get me started) cheering on their preferred team. Hearsay is more than enough for me, thank you very much.

Maybe I’d think about them differently if I were a teenager, but I can’t imagine that the characters in Twilight will live on past the now. Years from now, when these teenagers are adults, will they watch them and feel the way I do when I’m flipping channels and find that Sixteen Candles is on? Will they glue themselves to watch, again and again, and relive their own teenage angst with sweet nostalgia?  Will watching make them remember how much older they thought they’d feel the second they turned 16 only to realize that all they felt was trapped somewhere between youth and adulthood.

Being overshadowed by an older AND/OR younger sibling, and that first crush on that so-unattainable boy, who to you looked like a man were situations most of us could relate to.

John Hughes had a talent for making almost every teenage stereotype human, and whether you saw yourself in one character or in multiple characters, you saw yourself. That to me is the magic of it all. I was a little bit of Brian, a little bit Allison (shy and nerdy) from The Breakfast Club, and a little bit Andie (quirky and independent) from Pretty in Pink. 

Though there may have been days when I wanted to escape reality–is that what happens with these vampire romances?–for the most part I just wanted to learn how to live in it, and that makes reality timeless.