A Look At The Film Pretty In Pink

Jennifer Smith

WST 3015

Jeannina Perez

2/17/10



Stereotypes and myths are a constant in the film Pretty In Pink. One of the major stereotypes included in the film is that all rich kids are mean bullies who don't care about school and only associate with other wealthy kids. Steff is one of those “rich” kids and throughout the film he is insulting Andie, who isn't rich. He refers to her as a “mutant” and even calls her a “low grade piece of ass” (Hughes Scene 11). The only exception to this stereotype is the wealthy Blane, who at the end of the movie decides to ignore what his friends say and admit his feelings to Andie, even though she's poor.

Another more disturbing stereotype in the film is that all women are concerned about are clothes and romances. The women in the film, Andie and Iona, are both concerned about their romances; it seems to be the only thing they ever talk about when they're together. When the women aren't talking about boys, they're talking about fashion. In the film Andie is having family problems and is trying to get a scholarship for school, but instead of focusing more on the other issues in her life, the film pushes them aside to focus on clothes and boys.

The myth of the “noble poor” is also touched upon in Pretty In Pink. In the movie, Andie is living alone with her father in poverty. Her father is jobless and Andie handles the tasks of waking him up and making breakfast for them both. Dorothy Allison writes in “A Question of Class” that “the poverty depicted in books and movies was romantic” and from what I watched in Pretty In Pink I would have to agree (113). Circumstances in which most people would find themselves desperate are played off as minimal since both Andie and her father love and care for each other.

Jean Kilbourne discusses how women are told by advertisements that the “more you subtract the more you add” (234). Kilbourne explains how “the loss, the subtraction, the cutting down to size” not only refers to a women's body, but also “her sense of self, her sexuality, her need for authentic connection, and her longing for power and freedom” (235). This idea is best shown in the movie through Andie’s friend and role model, Iona. Iona is depicted as a free-spirited woman with an unconventional sense of style and a string of failed relationships. At the end of the film, in order to keep a “respectable” man, she's willing to tone down her personality and wear clothes more socially acceptable (Hughes Scene 13). She subtracts what makes her unique in order to be accepted by some guy.

John Hughes, writer of Pretty In Pink, was known for his movies that showed a more “realistic” depiction of middle-class high school life. In what schools are there only white heterosexuals? There isn't a diverse representation of people in this film. There aren't any African Americans, Hispanics or Asians that appear in Pretty In Pink and even the Caucasians that make up the cast only represent a small portion of people in society. The women in the movie are all slender, pretty, and fair skinned, and are either rich or middle class. The men in the film share most of the same physical qualities, with the exception of Duckie, who is smaller than the other guys.

Some people, after seeing a movie like this, might consider it to be a good representation of what kids are like in high school and even a realistic depiction of what is really important to all young girls and women. I think it would be very depressing, as a woman, to have a main goal in life that revolves around finding the perfect man, and very depressing, as a person, to live in a world in which the stereotypes from Pretty In Pink are true.





Works Cited

Allison, Dorothy. "A Question of Class." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York City: McGraw Hill, 2010. 112-19. Print.

Kilbourne, Jean. ""The More You Subtract, the More You Add": Cutting Girls Down to Size." Women's Lives Multicultural Perspectives. 5th ed. New York City: McGraw Hill, 2010. 231-39. Print.

Pretty In Pink. Prod. John Hughes. Perf. Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, and Jon Cryer. Paramount, 1968. DVD.