Sixteen Candles Film Analysis

The 1986 film "Sixteen Candles" tells a timeless tale of growing up in suburban America. The film's star, Sam, played by Molly Ringwald, wakes up with big expectations on her sweet sixteenth birthday only to be completely disappointed. Not only does she find that she looks exactly the same as when she was fifteen, but her family is so preoccupied with her older sister's wedding that they forget her birthday altogether. The film opens with Sam on the phone with her best girlfriend Randy. She is examining herself in her full length mirror and is totally horrified to find that her body didn't' magically transform overnight. She was hoping to wake up with a body just like Caroline's. Caroline is the head cheerleader, prom queen, and girlfriend of the most popular boy in school, Jake Ryan. Sam is hopelessly "in love" with Jake and is convinced
Sex is a major topic of conversation among Sam and Randy, and the subject of the mispassed note that ends up in Jake Ryan's possession. This note asked some very personal questions about sexual experiences such as, "Have you ever done IT?" This is a seemingly simple and straightforward question, yet Sam responded, "I don't think so." From this, we can tell that there is much confusion among the adolescent population about sex. I think we can also say that the males in the movie felt more pressured into having sex than the females. Ted, for example, was obsessed with having sex, or at least tricking his friends into believing he had sex, the entire movie. A study conducted on gender differences in sexual attitudes among adolescents concluded that males experienced just as much peer pressure as females, but they were more likely to subdue to it. They were also much more likely to lie about sexual experiences (Werner-Wilson, 1998). This is not to say that the females in the movie were not