TeenLit: How to Fight, Lie, and Cry Your Way to Popularity [and a Prom Date]: Lousy Life Lessons from 50 Teen Movies by Nikki Roddy.
With all the wise anti-bullying advice and sentiment circulating, it’s comforting to know that a film fan need go no further than the video shelf to get guidance. The life lesson author Nikki Roddy learned from Heathers (1988) is “To end high school cliques, date a psychopath who kills the cool kids (and then himself), leaving you to rule the school.” Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? If we believe the media, there are plenty of psychopaths to be found hanging around school...including those in the cool clique.
Roddy analyzed fifty popular films and gleaned fifty inappropriate life lessons from them, which she gleefully shares with readers, along with “Sound Bites” (quotes), film stills, a synopsis of each, and goofy multiple-choice questions. Don’t sweat the quiz, it won’t be counted as part of your grade.
How to Fight, Lie, and Cry Your Way to Popularity [and a Prom Date]: Lousy Life Lessons from 50 Teen Movies is not just for girls, either. The lesson learned from Varsity Blues (1999), a story about a high school football team and its nutty coach, is “If your coach is criminally insane, don’t bother telling your parents or the school—just take matters into your own hands by defeating him in a locker room brawl.” The beauty of that plan is that even if you’re winded after the coach tries to strangle you, your team is going to win.
For teens interested in securing a good education at a primo university, Risky Business (1983) teaches “If you lie to your parents, steal your dad’s car, and solicit a prostitute, you’ll get into an Ivy League school.” Now I know where I went wrong. Those looking for love might take a lesson from Splendor in the Grass (1961): “If you take your parents advice and don’t have sex with your high school love, you’ll get dumped and wind up in a mental institution.”
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