I Watched "Sixteen Candles" For The First Time At 19 And Here's What I Thought

I feel like I'm a little late to this party

Hi, I'm Abigail, I'm nineteen years old, and I've NEVER seen Sixteen Candles. It's not like my family doesn't watch older films, I mean, from the time I was a teenager, 80s and 90s films were classics in my household. We were seemingly always watching films like Armageddon (1998), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) Top Gun (1986), and more.

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But, we never watched films like the Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles not because of Molly Ringwald, but because parents didn't feel comfortable allowing me to watch them when I was younger, and once I was allowed to watch them, the inclination was gone.

Sixteen Candles

Sixteen Candles is rated PG, has a running time of ninety three minutes, and was released in theaters on January 1st, 1984. You can watch the trailer right here.

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From the moment I started the trailer, I was interested, I've wanted to watch this film since I was a kid, and the trailer was just as interesting as I remember from watching it as a thirteen year old. I immediately noticed Anthony Michael Hall, who is also in The Breakfast Club (which I watched for the first time last year). I also couldn't help but notice a Chinese character named Long Duk Dong, and cringe, obviously racism was far from dead in the 80s.

The first five seconds screamed eighties. The jean jackets, the big hair, and the bangles. It was kinda awesome.

I could easily and quickly understand why my parents didn't think it was appropriate. The sheer amount of "naughty" language, naked bodies, and sex talk present within the first fifteen minutes was kinda insane. I couldn't help but literally say out loud "This is seriously PG?"

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About five minutes in, I knew I was going to like this film. It was adorable and romantic. It perfectly exemplified what it is like to be a teenager in love with someone way out of your league. Except, it doesn't usually work out so beautifully. There were a few moments where it was obvious that this was an old film. Specifically, any scene with Long Duck Dong, which just screamed old school racism, and then the scene with Ted and Jake, where Jake offers up Caroline to Ted because she is too drunk to notice the difference.. yeah, that one was a no from me. But, there were a lot of hilarious, and cute moments of the film that need to be mentioned. Some of my main favorites included the drunk hair cutting moment, where Caroline's friends "help" her out, by cutting her hair out of the door-frame when it gets stuck. Then, of course, the end where Jake shows up at the wedding. I literally screamed when he showed up, and my jaw dropped to the dang floor. I was a bit excited to say the least, and it only got better from there, with the proud dad moment, then the moment with the kiss and the birthday cake, overall, so, so, cute.

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Overall, I have to give Sixteen Candles a 6.5/10. The film was cute, romantic, and definitely had some awesome moments. But, the not so awesome moments were impossible to ignore.

My favorite part: The wedding; the actual wedding was hilarious, and had me peeing my pants I was laughing so hard. Then when Jake showed up it sealed the deal. Literally the perfect ending.

My least favorite parts: I really couldn't get over some of the racist and just wrong moments in this film. Long Duk Dong was simply based upon racist stereotype and really added nothing to the story line of the film. Then then the awful scene where Jake offers Caroline to Ted because she was too drunk to notice. I sat and just yelled "no" 'No" "NO" "no" the entire scene. Those few scenes definitely lost the film some points, as that sort of stuff is NOT okay, and shouldn't be perceived as okay in this film.

Overall, Sixteen Candles was an adorable film that showed a bit of what it is like to be ridiculously in love with someone who doesn't even see you, even though this story ends FAR better than most. Sixteen Candles does have a few rough moments that bring it down a bit, but overall it is a good film.

Universal