Molly Ringwald Reckons with the Sexism of the John Hughes Movies That Made Her Famous
(From Vanity Fair)
The actress, who starred in three of the director’s most iconic films, has some lingering thoughts in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Molly Ringwald became an icon in the 1980s thanks to a trio of movies all directed by John Hughes: Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club. The films were instant hits, and a genre unto themselves for the realistic way they portrayed American teenagers. They’ve since been heralded as classics, and though they occasionally come in for criticism—Sixteen Candles’ stereotypical Asian character in particular—they haven’t lost their place in the pop-culture pantheon.
Ringwald, who owes her career to these films, might find it more difficult to criticize them than anyone. But in a searing essay for The New Yorker, the actress confronts the plain misogyny of various scenes and plot points, while also reckoning with the beloved hold Hughes’s oeuvre still has on the culture.
She was inspired to look back on the film while watching The Breakfast Club with her daughter, particularly analyzing how the character Bender (played by Judd Nelson) bullies her character, Claire, and touches her inappropriately without her consent. “As I can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film,” Ringwald writes. “When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic,’ mocking her as ‘Queenie.’ It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol . . . He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.”
From Vanity Fair article: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/04/molly-ringwald-john-hughes-movies-sexism-metoo?mbid=social_twitter
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There's no way I'm that old. 
