The Vicarious Life

As we go through the days of our lives, we often sit back and reflect on the past. I often find myself sitting in lecture or in my room, and my mind just drifts away to distant memories, such as the time in junior high when the girls tied me to a jungle gym with a jump rope and threw stones at me. Or the time in high school chemistry when I lit my lab partner on fire to test the flame retarding properties of our lab aprons. Ahh, yes, I certainly led the good life.

But I digress. What I mean to address in this column is the enormous staying power of the movies of the 1980s, and how they continue to impact and reflect our lives in the 90s. Damn, Gilbert, you may say. That’s a pretty deep topic to explore in just a column. I answer, do you think I passed my Hist and Lit tutorial just because I dated the TF?

Consider the Molly Ringwald classic Sixteen Candles. This movie is like a parable of my life as a ladies’ man. In the movie, there’s a dorky guy (Anthony Michael Hall), a "hot guy" (not my designation, but this girl I’ve been following once told her roommate that she thought he was hot), a "hot girl" (my designation), and Molly Ringwald. See, Anthony Michael Hall can be thought of as Typical Male, while Molly can be thought of as Typical Attractive Girl. Hot guy represents me, and hot girl represents my Present Girlfriend. Now, I’m sort of uncomfortable in the relationship with Present Girlfriend, because she is a bitch. But, I have her now, and she puts out. I can’t leave Present Girlfriend and stability for something unknown with Typical Attractive Girl. But, in the end, it somehow works out. I put on the charm on Typical Attractive Girl and get her, and Present (now Ex-) Girlfriend moves on to Typical Male, who’s always wanted Present Girlfriend but could only satisfy his desires, uh, personally. And Long Duck Dong ends up by himself again.

So what’s the point? The point is, someday you will be like me and get a girl who will give you a blow job every morning and animal sex every night, and then you can still dump her and end up with somebody. What a perfect world, right?

Now, that knowledge has certainly impacted your life, hasn’t it? Think about other 80s movies. They have the same properties. Another Molly movie, Pretty in Pink, works under the same concept, with the rich kid as me, Molly as Cute Girl That I Get, and Jon Cryer as Landis. I get laid again, but so do losers like Landis. Ponder Top Gun. Of course, I am Maverick, and I suppose Landis can be Goose (you do sometimes have to stretch a little bit). Now even if my best friend Landis exits my life, I go through a dark period, but still emerge with somebody like Kelly McGillis in my bed. Star Trek? I get to kill Khan, that BASTARD! Return of the Jedi? I get Leia without the funky hair. Indiana Jones? Sweet. I’m still trying to grasp Friday the 13th, and the closest I can come to is that if you’re ugly, deformed, and misunderstood, you’d probably want to kill all those good-looking teenagers having sex around you, too.

The movies of the 1980s are truly amazing. If you’re ever down, and need a pick-me-up, look no further than some of these classics. Even if you’re the biggest loser, you can at least fantasize that you might be cool like me someday. So live life vicariously. Whatever you do, though, don’t ever try to combine this positive thinking with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. You’ll just get messed up, and try to commit suicide with a dining hall fork. Which might make a good movie...for Fox.

This is Gilbert Peters, Esq., saying Good Night.