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Times change, and so do values and sensibilities. That means that things we found funny in decades past, we are rightfully offended by today. That doesn’t mean that all movies, and all the jokes in those movies, should be dismissed completely, but it does mean we should probably not revisit those jokes in new movies, be they remakes or otherwise.
This list is all about those movies that were hits at the time, movies beloved by an older generation, but would never be made today. This is sure to be a controversial list, but there are good reasons we don’t need to go back to the days of light racism and assault jokes so common in many of these.
The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club isn’t the most egregious example on this list, but it’s awfully edgy, in a real-world way, as compared to comedies today. It takes on some very adult-oriented themes that simply aren’t addressed in modern movies in the same way. There is an argument to be made that there should be, but here we are.
Can’t Buy Me Love
It turns out, you really shouldn’t make movies that are literally about buying a high school girl’s affection to gain popularity. A movie with a plot line like Can’t Buy Me Love wouldn’t even get read past the intro these days, much less financed and produced. It’s still a classic, though. Sort of, anyway.
Cruel Intentions
Oh boy, where to start here. First off, Cruel Intentions is a great movie, even for all its ridiculousness. It’s that insanity that makes it so fun. But with the drug use, incest, and the rest, it’s amazing it ever got made in any era. It wouldn’t stand a chance today. At least it will live in our hearts forever.
Just One Of The Guys
This one is easy to identify why it would never be made today. Just One Of The Guys, about a girl who dresses as a boy to be taken more seriously, is a political minefield from every direction. It was making a decent point in the ’80s that girls should be taken more seriously, but today, it would undoubtedly be taken completely differently. It simply couldn’t be made again.
American Pie
As funny as American Pie is, there is no way on earth they could ever make a movie making comedy out of a scene where a girl is recorded without her knowledge or consent, taking her clothes off. Frankly, while some may not have realized it at the time, it really shouldn’t have been a scene in the ’90s, either. It’s not like the world was all that different. Of course, we do know a lot more now, 25 years into the internet age, just how awful that kind of action is. It’s not high school shenanigans anymore, and it never should have been.
Heathers
While Heathers has had enduring popularity, it’s hard to imagine a movie today making light of high school murder and suicide. We live in a very different world when it comes to violence in high schools in this post-Columbine world, and it’s not something we can joke about anymore. It’s not something we should joke about anymore.
Risky Business
A movie about a high school kid who teams up with a girl to make a little money the “old-fashioned way” before his parents get back from a long vacation was hilarious in 1983. But try making a movie with the plot of Risky Business these days. It’s never happening. It does seem like high school kids are treated less like adults these days than they were in the ’80s, for better or worse.
Clueless
Step-siblings hooking up has a totally different meaning today than it did in the ’90s, thanks to the dirtier parts of the internet. What was once charming and cute has turned, honestly, disturbing because of it. Clueless isn’t the most offensive movie on the list by a long shot, but that bit of plot would have to be rewritten.
Weird Science
Two nerds creating a woman using their computer so she can be their plaything just isn’t the kind of movie that would be greenlit today. Sure, the woman in Weird Science takes charge, but still, the whole “building a girl” thing is pretty creepy.
She’s All That
She’s All That is a ’90s classic that, like the other movies on this list, hasn’t really stood the test of time. Sure, there are still a lot of funny moments, but come on, the idea that a girl can only be popular because she is pretty is obnoxious. This is something that, while we haven’t completely evolved past, we’re getting there, and we don’t need to reinforce it on the big screen.
Porky’s
The romp that is Porky’s is truly a relic of the past. Not only the 1980s when it was made, but also the 1950s when it was set. There is way too much gratuitous nudity to be made today, and that’s for the best. And that’s just for starters.
Jawbreaker
Rose McGowan and Rebecca Gayheart were the original “mean girls” on the big screen at the turn of the century. There isn’t time to get into all the problematic stuff in this movie, but for starters, there isn’t any way a movie today would portray the hazing like this one does. No way.
Sixteen Candles
Now we’re getting into the classic “this won’t ever be made this way again” movies. Sixteen Candles has all sorts of problematic stuff going on. Starting with the racism around “Long Duk Dong.” There is also the fact that one character “gives” his girlfriend to another character without her knowledge, as if that were ever okay. It was a classic for a generation, and it kind of always will be, but some of the content simply needs to be left in the past.
10 Things I Hate About You
Before people get all up in arms about “canceling” Shakespeare, relax. 10 Things I Hate About You and, for that matter the Bard’s play it’s based on, The Taming Of The Shrew tell classic stories, but it’s not like the sensibilities of both are just a little old fashioned, you’d agree, right?
Never Been Kissed
Sure, Never Been Kissed succeeds in getting the viewer to forget that Drew Barrymore is playing an adult going undercover in high school. That doesn’t mean that she’s an adult reporter undercover. The teacher she falls for still believes she’s a student, yet the relationship still has some sketchy moments. It’s just the kind of movie we don’t need to make light of issues like this.
Dirty Dancing
Johnny (Patrick Swayze) is 25. Baby (Jennifer Grey) is 17 in Dirty Dancing. Their love story was unquestioned in 1987 (or 1963 for that matter), but the age difference certainly wouldn’t be ignored these days. It would be lambasted and ridiculed. The movie will always be a classic, it’s just not the kind of story that would be told today.
Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead
Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead is another borderline case on this list. It’s not the worst example of movies from the ’90s, but it’s not exactly totally wholesome, either. Christina Applegate may be proud of the movie today for its enduring popularity, but some of the content is questionable at best.
Hiding Out
Like a few other movies on this list, Hiding Out features an adult masquerading as a high school student who still manages to get into a romantic relationship with an actual student. Why this was common is hard to understand, because the world wasn’t all that different then, was it?
Wild Things
Two promiscuous teens hooking up with a teacher? Yeah, that doesn’t really fly these days. It was shocking in 1998 when Wild Things was released, it’s downright taboo now. Kevin Dillon, Denise Richards, and Neve Campbell made for a steamy throuple in the nineties, but that would not be seen the same way today.
Pump Up the Volume
Christian Slater’s character, Happy Harry, would be just too divisive and controversial today to be seen as a hero. High schools that are worried about school shooters simply wouldn’t cope with that well today. He doesn’t directly call for violence, but the rhetoric is still too much for today.
Can’t Hardly Wait
Another one of the more innocent movies on this list, there still isn’t much respect for the female characters in this teen classic. There are too many examples of the girls having no real agency in Can’t Hardly Wait. It’s sad, but true.
Ladybugs
A boy dressing up like a girl to cheat on a soccer team, which is the plot of Ladybugs, just wouldn’t get made today. It’s not, like, the worst offender on this list in most ways, but there’s no way a writer gets past the elevator pitch on this one. It’s also just a frustratingly annoying movie, but that’s neither here nor there.
Secret Admirer
Unrequited love is a theme as old as time itself, but Secret Admirer is not the way to tell the story. It’s frankly creepy the way C. Thomas Howell’s character pursues Kelly Preston’s in this one. At least Lori Loughlin‘s character is pretty normal. She’s the only normal character in this wacky adventure of misunderstanding.
License To Drive
Any movie that has, as a major plot point, a passed-out girl in a trunk is going to be problematic in almost any era. It might have been passed off as high school hijinks in the ’80s, but it wouldn’t be excused as easily today.
Zapped!
Well, this is another easy one. Zapped! stars Scott Baio as a high school student who develops superpowers and the ability to do hilarious things like “zap” girls’ clothes off. Do we need to say more here? Yeah, pretty sketchy and left in the dustbin for good reason.
Class
Promiscuity was much more celebrated in ’80s teen comedies than it is today, and Class, starring Rob Lowe and a slew of young up-and-coming stars, including Andrew McCarthy and John Cusack in their first movie roles (it was Lowe’s second). There is also a pretty tasteless scene involving suicide that wouldn’t be treated so lightly today, for good reason.
Blame It On Rio
Yet another movie on this list about a grown adult having an affair with a high school girl. Blame It On Rio is a modern Lolita story, and there is a reason stories like that have been left in the past. Michael Caine is actually pretty great in the movie, and it was Demi Moore‘s first big movie role, as the friend of the girl having an affair with Caine’s character, but still, it’s just not a plot that would happen today.
Private School
1983’s Private School is, unbelievably, yet another movie on this list that is really just a celebration of teenage promiscuity. Those were all the rage in the decade, and our modern sensibilities just don’t celebrate that in the same way. Phoebe Cates is great, as always, in her follow-up to another movie that could be on this, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Loverboy
Before Patrick Dempsey was Dr. McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy, he was Pizza Delivery Boy McDreamy in Loverboy. The movie, if you’ve never seen it, features Dempsey as a delivery boy-turned-gigolo. Yeah, you read that correctly. A high school student selling his, um, services to older women that plays for comedy. Sure, why not?
Poison Ivy
1992’s Poison Ivy is really just a modern retelling of Lolita, but again, it’s the kind of movie that just isn’t made these days. It was a movie that was made to ease Drew Barrymore’s transition into more adult roles, but it might have gone a step too far.
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