I'm one of those people who was supposed to see themselves in THE BREAKFAST CLUB. My sister and I saw SIXTEEN CANDLES on cable many times. Her because she was watching it and me because I was in the living room. I lived in a fairly affluent middle-class suburb, though in a different region, the coastal south. But we wore all that stuff, listened to that music, etc., just like the rest of you.

So To some of you, I show I have no love inside by declaring: I never, ever thought John Hughes was speaking for me or anyone I knew, and at the time I resented, as I recall, what I'd call now the ubiquity of Hughes and Spielberg and their influence. (for the record, I didn't care for Michael Jackson either--more a Prince guy) And so did many of my friends. HEATHERS was more our speed and closer to the mark, but wasn't around till we graduated.

I don't get sentimental about his movies. I think they're smug, patronizing, and false, pure marketing profiting well from a post-boomer awareness of how every generation wants to feel like someone is its voice. That's leaving aside things like how every girl I knew, whether they liked his films or not, hated Molly Ringwald, or Ringworm as she was usually called. You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard the following sentences from these women: "Do you know that spoiled little b@#$ch made Hughes rewrite PRETTY IN PINK to make her not go with Ducky? And that he DID it! OOH I hate her!" They also had no idea why she'd want Jake in 16Can, who left his drunk girlfriend(Kate Vernon, I think, who also did another memorable drunk recently on some little sci-fi show...) to whatever fate with Anthony Michael-Hall, whose character spells drunken date-rape "This...is gonna be good."

Hughes also helped P.J. O'Rourke change the Lampoon from smart anti-establishment satire to cruel humor for smug preppy dickheads. That alone bothers me.

Hughes did not rule over us all. I was there. We did not all have the same tastes.

Just about anything?

It's true, Woodstock's influence on marketing will never die.

Absolutely nothing ever again.

>>Then again, it's just the musings of one more subhuman cocksucker from the swamp.

True that.

No, you're not being unfair. I'm a Southerner who went north for 7 years, then went back south for almost a year, and your statements correlate exactly with the impression I had then, and indeed had before I'd left. I had the insane idea when I'd returned that maybe I'd been unfair, maybe I'd see it differently as an adult than I had in 18 years growing up down there.

But in fact, it seemed worse. And that thing about "five-dollar words?" Dude, I heard that my entire LIFE down there. One reason I left.

Oh, there were also things like my mom's friend who stole and burned my copy of Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary." Guess what she thought it was. No, she didn't read it. Down there, they think you only read a book as a guide to what to believe. That's why the hardcore fundamentalists there limit their reading.

Of course, as I found when I read the Bible, they don't really "read" that either. They just repeat what they're told. Hooray for the Reformation, where people died so they could read their Bibles in English and decide for themselves what it meant.

I think I'll puke. Don't you dare claim moral high ground for conservatives. I'm liberal and this appalls me as well and anyone else with a brain.

As did what Mel Gibson did, and your side was all ready to defend HIM...

Because Bush was persecuting the OTHER side. That's all right. It's when someone else is in power that they assume the same will go on, but against him.

It says more about what they think the government is.

Where are any of these "persecutions" they fear, anyway? Where the hell is it happening? Meanwhile, how many people we actually KNOW are innocent sit in our overseas prisons thanks to Bush and Cheney?

It's a mistake to think this is about principle in any way.

Seriously.

Hey, kids are annoying. Obviously if risking their deaths is worth that, so would abusing them to get them to be quiet.

It really is a sad argument made here that is definitely no help to feminism.

I wonder what would happen if anyone, ANYONE, tried that defense. It's something Homer Simpson would say. "Your honor, I WAS drunk while driving, but those kids, have you ever been in a car with screaming kids? I hadda take the edge off, your honor. You understand."

Of course it doesn't. Alcoholic or no, he did stupid things and he's responsible for them. But he, pathetically, tried to blame it on that.

Well, guess what. The only difference here is that she didn't also add sexism and antisemitism into the mix. Otherwise? She's just as much to blame as he was.

If alcoholism is the crux and the excuse. Now you're left with the sickening thought you just defended, accidentally, Mel Gibson.

Rethink.

She's just as responsible as she would be were she a man, and it's insulting to women to say otherwise. Your premise carries within it the idea that women are somehow perpetual juveniles, not capable of fully being responsible.

No, equality means equality.

But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This was one of those times.

But Matthews has spent plenty of time demonizing liberals when the political climate favored it.