verushka70

I think because of James Spader's, um, sexual ambiguity in some of his early films, I just liked him in anything, even when he was an icky character. He's kind of like CKR's Gary Jensen in Suspicious River. I want to hate him in Less Than Zero for pimping out Robert Downey, Jr. (and what a hottie he was -- and still is!)... but even though I hate him, he's still hot, somehow. (Less Than Zero was an early slash hit for me, before I went to college and discovered the BitNET, with all its Listservs -- and other slash fans of my first fandom, Forever Knight!)

Re: the Andrew McCarthy roles... yeah, I agree, not as attractive as I thought when I was young. Although to give him fair credit, I don't think his roles were as well-written and fleshed out as the others; they were kind of stock, cardboard characters: the richie rich boy. In Less Than Zero his character is necessarily supposed to be the straight man, the one who got away, but it makes him somehow less sympathetic than Robert Downey, Jr.'s fucked up coke addict.

Favorite John Hughes movie... I still think I'd have to pick The Breakfast Club as my favorite John Hughes movie. Just because of Bender and Ally Sheedy, the "Basket Case." Allison. (I had to look her character name up on imdb.com, I haven't seen it in a while.) And the way that it wasn't one of those romantic teen comedies with a happy ending, but it was about realistic kids, and it still kind of had a happy ending. Although the realism of them all actually talking to each other the following Monday... I wonder about that.

But then, I hung out with the burnouts in high school, and I was in advanced placement classes (except for math, which I hated and still hate), so maybe it could happen. The advanced placement people weren't... as accepting as the burnouts. At least, not as accepting of me. Like it was okay to be smart, but don't be *too* smart. Because most of them were either athletically successful (football, basketball players; cheerleaders, poms) or socially successful, or both (since the two often go together in high school), in addition to academically diligent and therefore academically successful.

I wasn't either of those, I was just academically successful, and then, only in the classes I actually liked. After my parents split up and the threat of my dad seeing my report cards went away, I only did well in the classes I cared about. I was probably the only person to get a C in advanced placement history but I hated the teacher.

And just like in the movie, the burnouts weren't as dumb as everyone thought. Actually a lot of them were really smart. Had their parents driven them to succeed academically like mine did (my dad was a teacher!), they probably would have. I intersected with them in my painting and photography classes, which was how I got to know them. And of course, predictably, everyone else thought painting and photography were "easy As." Which of course they weren't. The teachers weren't that dumb; they weren't going to give you an A for something you'd obviously done the night before. But pretty much everyone else who "mattered" socially or academically thought everyone who took art classes were like the people who took shop class: dumb or slackers in it for the easy grades. Like it didn't even occur to them that we might actually *like* what we were doing, or that what we were doing might actually be a lot harder than it looks.

Well, I've certainly rambled a ton, here. Sorry!