Because of the late Britney Murphy, I owned a LOT of plaid in 1995. And 1996. And probably now, if I went through those boxes in my parent’s basement.
I’m not saying it’s completely Murphy’s fault – I mean, the movie Clueless was a phenomenon, and the cute plaid skirts her character, Ty, wore throughout the film probably weren’t the only reason. Neither, I would imagine, was the Coolio song, Rolling with the Homies, but I still bought the soundtrack because of it. To this day, I can’t see Alicia Silverstone without thinking, “As if.” I’m sure she’d be thrilled to hear that. Empire Records was another movie – again with the plaid skirts! Thanks, a lot Liv Tyler – that shaped my fashion and music choices. Oh, Gin Blossoms and Sponge. I still feel that tingle of sophomoric awkwardness mixed with unadulterated hope creep up my spine when I hear your greatest hits. And the aforementioned Tyler? Yeah, I wanted to be her or hate her. Or both. At the same time. But what I think is so remarkable about those movies, and many others from the mid-to-late 1990s, isn’t how I felt then when I watched them, but how I feel now when I watch them. Which is to say, exactly the same way I felt then. The truth is that a great movie can be like a time machine. Where scents always pull you back to a memory or emotion, movies can pull you back to a specific age or life moment. For teenagers, going to the movie theater is one of the few time-honored traditions that still exists very closely to its original form. Yeah, it’s freaking expensive now. Yeah, you could wait for the bootleg copy of the movie. But, on any given weekend, you will still find gaggles of boys and girls lined up to see Paranormal Activity 37 or whatever Seth MacFarlane flick is in the theater at the time. Somehow, our technology-inundated world has yet to find a proper replacement for the movie theater experience. I’m not sure how the tech-gurus of the GoogleAppleMicrosoftian Universe haven’t managed to dethrone the movie theater yet, but it seems like – for now, anyway – it’s here to stay. The biggest advances in recent years seem to be CGI, which is fun and sometimes a little too real for me, and 3-D, which technically is a dimension and has existed since, you know, the beginning of time. So I don’t really think that counts. Bottom line – movies shape(d) everything in our teen world, from fashion choices to music tastes to the way we socialize(d) with one another. I’ve detailed (overshared?) my own affinity for the mid-90s fashion trends, but I certainly wasn’t alone in my commitment to mid-drift baring angora sweaters and platform Mary Janes. Likewise, when The Craft came out, everyone started rocking the crushed velvet baby doll dresses and cross-adorned chokers. Fashion – and, in particular, girl fashion – is often a reflection of the movies because of two reasons. One, the movies teens watch are, by and large, movies about and including other teens. And, two, the teens in those movies are categorically famous and beautiful. It doesn’t really seem to matter at the time that those thigh high white socks were a really, really bad idea for my thighs. If Brittany and Alicia and Liv made it work, it was a trend worth trying. The socialization factor of the movies is an anthropological study in itself. From the time of middle school and all the way up through high school, kids learn the protocol of how to go to the movies together. First, with a parent and a group of same-gender peers – of course, the parent sits waaaay in the back by him/herself. Then, once the chaperoning stage has run its course, we move on to the group date, where anywhere from four to forty teens come to the movies as one mob so as not to pressure any two people to couple up. Beyond that, of course, is the date-date – the legit, one-on-one romantic-ish evening (or what would be romantic if they hadn’t chosen some kind of end-of-the-world zombie thriller where eating people’s faces isn’t a euphemism for kissing.) But, frankly, it’s the group viewing that remains solvent the longest. Even into college, teens are seen heading into movies of all genres in a safety-in-numbers sort of pack. If we looked at these details alone, it sort of seems like movies are breeding a generation of followers. But I prefer to look at it a little differently. Rather than seeing these teens, with their [insert popular fashion item of the moment here] as mindless drones with a pack mentality, what I see is a fostering of relationships. Because the movies, with their trends and their popular music, are not cell phones or iPads or any other handheld electronic device. Teenagers have no control over that big screen or the movie that’s on it. They sit in the seats that are available, not on the couch in their parent’s house. They actually talk to the friends sitting next to them. You know, with their mouths. (Okay, you and I both know that teens are texting each other from the movie theater seats, even if they’re two feet apart – but, whatevs. You can’t win them all.) If we were to hand over the traditional movie theater experience to a technologically advanced world and demand that they revise it into something more contemporary, what we’d get back would probably be less social and more isolated. By preserving the movie theater – it’s popcorn smell and kind of weirdly upholstered chairs and inevitably sticky linoleum floor – we’ve been able to hang onto a right of passage that translates to all ages. Sure, our grandparents might have had drive-ins, but the picture shows still played indoors, too.The movie theater, in all ways, is a portal back to your teenage past, whether it’s been a decade or nearly a lifetime. When the lights go out around you and the screen is illuminated, you – me – everyone can brought back to a place that’s timeless. In the darkness of the theater, we can all be sixteen again.
Kelly Fiore is the author of two YA novels, JUST LIKE THE MOVIES and THE TASTE TEST, from Bloomsbury USA. She holds a BA in English from Salisbury University and an MFA in Poetry from West Virginia University. Connect with Kelly at
www.KellyFioreWrites.com
Pretty and popular track star Marijke Monti is confident about almost everything – she’s got great friends, a great family, and she’s on her way to the State Track Championship. In fact, the only thing Marijke isn’t confident about is her relationship with Tommy Lawson.
Lily Spencer has spent her entire high school career preparing for the future – she’s participated in every extracurricular activity and volunteer committee she could. But, at home, she watches her mother go on date after date with dud-dudes, still searching for “the one.” Lily realizes that she’s about to graduate and still hasn’t even had a boyfriend.
While they live on each other’s periphery at school, Lily and Marijke never seemed to have much in common; but, after a coincidental meeting at the movie theater, Lily gets an idea – why can’t life be like a movie? Why can’t they set up their perfect romantic situations, just in time for their senior prom, using movie techniques?
Once the girls come up with the perfect plans, they commit themselves to being secret cohorts and, just like in the movies, drama ensues.
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