I’ve been on a slight nostalgia binge, rewatching rom-coms from the 1980s to 2000s. Slowly, I’ve been noticing a reoccurring trend in these films:
Whenever there’s a situation where a girl is in a relationship with a shitty Moid (who is usually a handsome jock), the plot is focused on some Nerdy looking Moid who pines for the girl in question. The only thing keeping them apart is the girl in question having high standards in how men look.
Usually the story will go in the Nerd’s favor and he ends up with the girl after owning the Jock epic style.
This, I feel, honestly explains a lot about the incel mindset. Because we receive a lot of subliminal messaging about needing to lower our standards for social retards, a lot of those same social retards seem to think life is an 80s high school rom com. They seem to believe that they don’t have to take any care for their appearances because they’ll end up with a 10/10 tradwife at the end of the day.
Yet, you rarely see scenarios of a good looking jock who gives the socially awkward nerdy girl a chance (at least, not until at some point in the mid 2000s did you see movies with that premise).
Pretty in Pink was exactly this movie. Molly Ringwald (Andie) is the poorish quirky, bullied, awkward girl with the equally awkward Jon Cryer (Duckie) as her BFF (who was in love with her but friendzoned), living with her single father, Harry Dean Stanton (Jack, a man mourning the loss of his wife, who left them both), and working at the funky record store owned by quirky Annie Potts (Iona), an affirming presence. Andie like rich and popular Andrew McCarthy (Blane), who asked her to go to prom but then flaked on her bc he was weak ("I forgot I asked someone else" when in reality he was chicken to go outside his circle plus someone was encouraging it (see below)). Jack buys Andie a prom dress, with tbh charming well-meaning ineptitude in his selection of a dress. Andie doesn't want to go to prom at all bc Blane dumped her, but Iona encourages her and they recut and resew the dress to a very unorthodox dress, very much Andie's style. She and Duckie go to prom together as friends, despite her feeling humiliated to be seen after being flaked on. Outcome: Andie gets Blane at the end when he admits he's been a jerk and tells off his fellow richie BFF James Spader (Steff) for being an ass who'd been manipulating Blane to torpedo his interest in Andie bc he (Steff) was mad she had previously rejected him (Steff).
And before angry incels cry about forgotten Duckie, he, after getting over his anger and jealousy and wishing her well, ends the movie getting asked to dance at the prom and presumably finding his own t&h boyfriend-free girl.
Like many of John Hughes' 80s movies, the characters and plot can be imperfect or unsatisfying, but "awkward or unconventional teen girl gets the hot guy" was not invented in the 21st century. See also
Sixteen Candles*. And these movies were HUGE in the 80s.
*Sophomore Molly Ringwald (Sam, for Samantha), who's having a terrible 16th birthday bc family forgot, has crush on hot senior Michael Schoeffield (Jake) while braceface freshman Anthony Michael Hall (Ted) has crush on Ringwald. Sam is miserable and Ted is annoying, and at one point he makes utter cringe moves on her in a car, after which she tells him to fuck off but bc though these are not really 3D characters, they're also not 1D, he encourages her to talk to Jake, and she [just go with it/ these movies have been heavily criticized in more recent years] gives him her panties so he can win a bet he'd made with his gaggle of nerdy freshman compatriots**. Ffw, Jake finds his hottie popular girlfriend passed out drunk/hungover in the arms of Ted (yes, Ted) in the car, breaks up with her, gets Sam's panties back from Ted, and returns them to Sam, along with a birthday cake for her. They kiss over the cake. Also her parents finally remembered her birthday and her dad had comforted her & told her she deserved better than Jake when she was mooning over Jake after prom and before he showed up.
**I've posted the clip here before when he reveals the panties in the boys' room at school, because those mouthbreather boys in awe of the panties remind me of...some behavior in some threads.
Sixteen Candles is also the source of Long Duck Dong, the foreign exchange student, which character would in no way appear in a movie today.
Oh, and Andie/Sam changed nothing about herself over the course of those movies. It was the boys who had to - for the popular guys, stop being stuck in their standard ecosystem/situation, and for the pining Duckie/Ted, get over themselves and find their own happiness.