Classic Coming of Age Comedies That Won’t Pass the #TimesUp Test

Published by Vito Calise at January 25, 2018

The #MeToo movement and #TimesUp campaign is making it clear that there is no room to glamourize sexual harassment in 2018. But if you’re over 3 months old, you probably cut your comedy teeth on some movies that don’t quite measure up to todays expectations. How many of your favorite coming of age comedies would pass todays #TimesUp standards? Here are seven of the most iconic teen comedies that won’t make the cut.

Animal House

The Scene: Pinto meet a girl at the SuperMarket named Clorette who he takes to the Toga party and she proceeds to get wrecked, tell Pinto she’s only 13 and passes out. As she is asleep with her breasts out he goes through the old angel and devil on the shoulders dilemma. Only this time the devil is telling her to “fuck her brains out” and “squeeze her tits”, When the angel convinces him not to go along with the deed the devil calls him a “homo” and vanishes. It’s insinuated he decided not to go along with the date rape.

The Problem: OK, so he didn’t go through with the date rape, but that’s not really enough to be proud about. Imagine a movie today getting a huge laugh out of a player not wanting to molest a passed out 13-year-old and calling him a homophobic slur not going through with it. Her being 13 isn’t even a consequence, it’s just something that is said for a shock laugh. Pinto doesn’t go through with it, but the whole situation is just taken way too lightly.

American Pie

The Scene: When the beautiful foreign exchange student Nadia asks Jim for help studying his friends convince him to set up a webcam and send them a link. The plan is that they will get to see her changing on the video stream without her consent or her knowledge of the camera. Jim accidentally sends the link to the entire school mailing list who watch her masturbate to Jim’s porn. When Jim comes in, Nadia comes onto him and before he can get some action, he gets there a little too soon on his own. Nadia’s host family sens her back home after seeing the video.

The Problem: Jim just filmed an underage girl without her consent and even though he didn’t mean to broadcast it to the whole school he did want to share it with his buddies. This is child porn and could even be looked at as revenge porn. Then, to top it all off, because he wanted to get his friend’s rocks off he gets this girl kicked out the country.

Revenge of the Nerds

The Scene: Stan, the movie’s main antagonist who bullies the crap out of the Lambda Lambda Lambda nerds the entire movie is not in the mood to have sex with his beautiful girlfriend Betty. At the time he is dressed in a full Darth Vader costume. The hero of the movie, Lewis, steals Stan’s costume and convinces Betty to have sex with him because she thinks it’s her boyfriend. Luckily when Lewis takes off his mask, Betty isn’t mad and asks if all nerds are as good in bed as Lewis to which he replies yes because “all jocks think about is sports, all we think about is sex”.

The Problem: This is rape. You can’t convince someone to have sex with you by pretending to be someone you aren’t. The movie gives the scene the fun ending that she liked the sex so it’s all good but Lewis raped Betty. Also, don’t forget he took nude photos of her earlier in the movie and made a bunch of money by putting the photos at the bottom of pies he was selling to students.

Porky’s

The Scene: Tommy, Billy and Pee Wee set up a peephole in the showers of the female locker room. They’re checking out the girls in the shower and going completely unnoticed until Pee Wee yells at the fat girl to move out the way from blocking him so he can see the girls he wants. A Bunch of girls run out screaming, but a few of them decide to go along with it. Tommy thinks this is a good time to see how far the girls will go and sticks his tongue through, but when they rub soap on it he decides to stick his dick through the hole. This is when his nemesis, Coach Beulah Balbricker, comes in, sees the dick and grabs it. Tommy luckily breaks free and gets away.

The Problem: This is basically the analog version of what Jim did in American Pie. Spying on girls in a locker room is a big invasion of privacy. Then exposing yourself without any consent? That’s straight sexual misconduct. You also couldn’t get away with having the big punchline of a joke be the teacher grabbing Tommy, the High School student by the dick.

Sixteen Candles

The Scene: Jake Ryan is having a heart to heart with Farmer Ted about his feelings for Sam. Jake mentions that it’s not just about sex with Sam, because his girlfriend Caroline is upstairs passed out and he could “violate her 10 different ways if I wanted to”. Then Jake makes a deal with Ted, that he can drive Caroline home if Ted trades him Sam’s underwear. When Ted is worried he’s only a freshman, Jake says “she’s so blitzed, she won’t know the difference,” Ted drivers her home while he’s drunk. When they wake up the next morning Ted doesn’t even remember what happened and asks Caroline if he “enjoyed it”.

The Problem: It all starts off with the dreamboat of the movie Jake Ryan being OK with date rape and “violating” a girl who is passed out. Then he trades off the chance to date rape his own girlfriend to some drunk freshman in turn for the underwear of the girl he thinks he likes. Farmer Ted jumps at the opportunity and seems more than happy to get laid, even if the girl doesn’t even know what’s happening. But it’s all OK because Caroline later tells Jake Ryan she’s not too bad because Ted “wasn’t too terrible”.

Fastimes at Ridgemont High

The Scene: Stacey is a 15-year-old girl working at a pizza place in the mall. She lies to a 26-year-old stereo salesman and says she is 19 so he will go out with her. The guy takes her to a baseball field where he covers his bases and IDs by just asking once again how old she was. Once he gets a yes and thinks that asking the question makes everything OK, they have sex and he plans to never speak to her again.

The Problem: You can’t make a fun teen movie in 2018 where there is statutory rape in the first few minutes. The scene is also just another chance to showcase another Jennifer Jason Leigh nude scene, something they go back to a few more times. Also, if we’re being completely honest the famous Pheobe Cates scene may seem harmless, but at its base, it is a guy creepily staring out a window at a girl he knows personally, a friend of his sister, and jerking off to her.

Meatballs

The Scene: While Tripper is giving the CIT’s a tour of the camp, he shows them the younger girls bunk and says “alright, this is the 14-year-old girl’s cabin. They have the drive and the equipment, but they don’t have the experience. They better not get from you guys. Not this summer, anyway, huh?”

The Problem: You cannot be an adult spending the summer with young 14 year-old girls and commenting on their “equipment”. To not only talk about their bodies but say they have the “drive” is insane and would make anyone cringe if it were in a movie today. A joke centered around how attractive 14 year-olds are just could not work in any way in today’s world, not even Bill Murray could get away with it today.