![Do Not Fear, They Come in Peace
Last week someone made a
Sixteen Candles
reference, and I realized I hadn’t seen the movie in ages.
Which led to the inevitable post-modern conversation:
Buy it on Amazon
or
Rent/Buy it on iTunes?
The first customer review on iTunes is from
Just Big Mama
who wrote:
Great Movie, but not quite PG [4 stars]
I loved this movie when I was young, remembered it being totally hilarious
So I rented for my kids to see, we were all shocked by the shower nude scene.
My kids all screamed and I quickly turned off the TV…
so didn’t even finish the film. Great funny movie, but just be warned of the shower scene.
17 out of 25 viewers found this review helpful
This movie came out when I was 11, just to give you a sense of where my, ahem, personal development was. So I was shocked to read this comment because I didn’t remember a shower scene at all.
I, along with every other hetero boy in North America, have a distinct recollection of
the pool scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but a nude scene in Sixteen Candles? How could I forget that?
Well, long story short, I ended up not doing anything about seeing the movie until the other day when I was out with my son and we stopped to eat next to Blockbuster. There was a big picture in the window of Marley and Me and he wanted to see if they had the movie.
We went in, and as I wandered past the “Comedy” section, I found Sixteen Candles and decided that really, I just needed to rent it, not necessarily own it.
I had forgotten about the shower comment (one of the nice side effects of having access to real, live female breasts) until the 11:12 mark in the movie when, sure enough, BOOM! Boobies.
Now I will grant you that the scene begins with absolutely no warning, and then, naked boobs in the shower (as shown above). For those of you actually interested in the plot around this scene (i.e. almost none of you), Samantha (Molly Ringwald) and her friend are jealous of Caroline Mulford (played by Haviland Morris). Not just her body, which they are admiring, but also that has a reputation about being a nice person.
For you, my dear readers, I made close and repeated viewings of this scene to determine just exactly how long your precious children might be exposed to fiendish naked bosoms.
Naked breasts appear for exactly three seconds from 11:12-11:15, and there is a wider shot from the side from 11:21-11:25 where she is backlit. (The whole scene is 30 seconds long.)
In a movie with a total runtime of one hour, thirty two minutes, and thirty six seconds (or 5,556 seconds), there are seven seconds of nudity. Not rough, raunchy sex, but a girl(1) taking shower.
(1) aside: the “girl” by the way, was played a 25 year old woman, if the age given in her IMDB page is to be believed. If you listen to the dialogue, Samantha says “I swear to God she must have flunked about 9 grades” which is about the only way that a 25 year old would be in high school. If I ever meet John Hughes, I will ask him if this was intentional, given the actresses real age vs the age of the character she was supposed to be playing.
And this leads to kids screaming and parents shutting off the TV?
One wonders if there was 7 seconds of gratuitous violence in a movie, if parents would be so quick to hit the Off button. My guess is no, because for some reason American culture seems to be OK with violence, but nudity! Protect the children! (see, for the clearest example see the hubbub over sex scenes hidden inside “Grand Theft Auto” a few years ago).
One also wonders what these kids have learned about the human body that the sight of a pair of (quite lovely) female breasts made them “scream”. Really? You think that’s an appropriate response to nudity?
I think that says a lot more about you than you know.
P.S. - Buy or Rent?
By the way, if you are looking for the movie, you might as well buy it from Amazon where you can get a $5.49 DVD and then give it to your local library if you don’t want to keep it afterwards. That would be about the same cost as renting it from Blockbuster. (I think you can rent it for $3 from iTunes.)
P.P.S
Not that they needed it, but yes, I did import the picture into iPhoto and clicked “Enhance” just to see if it would make them bigger.
Maybe iPhoto 9.0 will have that feature. Feel free to file a feature request with Apple.](http://29.media.tumblr.com/RP8zlNpJfmrtgblpIVYvQyfeo1_500.png)
Do Not Fear, They Come in Peace
Last week someone made a Sixteen Candles reference, and I realized I hadn’t seen the movie in ages.
Which led to the inevitable post-modern conversation:
Buy it on Amazon or Rent/Buy it on iTunes?
The first customer review on iTunes is from Just Big Mama who wrote:
Great Movie, but not quite PG [4 stars]
I loved this movie when I was young, remembered it being totally hilarious So I rented for my kids to see, we were all shocked by the shower nude scene. My kids all screamed and I quickly turned off the TV… so didn’t even finish the film. Great funny movie, but just be warned of the shower scene.17 out of 25 viewers found this review helpful
This movie came out when I was 11, just to give you a sense of where my, ahem, personal development was. So I was shocked to read this comment because I didn’t remember a shower scene at all.
I, along with every other hetero boy in North America, have a distinct recollection of the pool scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but a nude scene in Sixteen Candles? How could I forget that?
Well, long story short, I ended up not doing anything about seeing the movie until the other day when I was out with my son and we stopped to eat next to Blockbuster. There was a big picture in the window of Marley and Me and he wanted to see if they had the movie.
We went in, and as I wandered past the “Comedy” section, I found Sixteen Candles and decided that really, I just needed to rent it, not necessarily own it.
I had forgotten about the shower comment (one of the nice side effects of having access to real, live female breasts) until the 11:12 mark in the movie when, sure enough, BOOM! Boobies.
Now I will grant you that the scene begins with absolutely no warning, and then, naked boobs in the shower (as shown above). For those of you actually interested in the plot around this scene (i.e. almost none of you), Samantha (Molly Ringwald) and her friend are jealous of Caroline Mulford (played by Haviland Morris). Not just her body, which they are admiring, but also that has a reputation about being a nice person.
For you, my dear readers, I made close and repeated viewings of this scene to determine just exactly how long your precious children might be exposed to fiendish naked bosoms.
Naked breasts appear for exactly three seconds from 11:12-11:15, and there is a wider shot from the side from 11:21-11:25 where she is backlit. (The whole scene is 30 seconds long.)
In a movie with a total runtime of one hour, thirty two minutes, and thirty six seconds (or 5,556 seconds), there are seven seconds of nudity. Not rough, raunchy sex, but a girl(1) taking shower.
(1) aside: the “girl” by the way, was played a 25 year old woman, if the age given in her IMDB page is to be believed. If you listen to the dialogue, Samantha says “I swear to God she must have flunked about 9 grades” which is about the only way that a 25 year old would be in high school. If I ever meet John Hughes, I will ask him if this was intentional, given the actresses real age vs the age of the character she was supposed to be playing.
And this leads to kids screaming and parents shutting off the TV?
One wonders if there was 7 seconds of gratuitous violence in a movie, if parents would be so quick to hit the Off button. My guess is no, because for some reason American culture seems to be OK with violence, but nudity! Protect the children! (see, for the clearest example see the hubbub over sex scenes hidden inside “Grand Theft Auto” a few years ago).
One also wonders what these kids have learned about the human body that the sight of a pair of (quite lovely) female breasts made them “scream”. Really? You think that’s an appropriate response to nudity?
I think that says a lot more about you than you know.
P.S. - Buy or Rent?
By the way, if you are looking for the movie, you might as well buy it from Amazon where you can get a $5.49 DVD and then give it to your local library if you don’t want to keep it afterwards. That would be about the same cost as renting it from Blockbuster. (I think you can rent it for $3 from iTunes.)
P.P.S
Not that they needed it, but yes, I did import the picture into iPhoto and clicked “Enhance” just to see if it would make them bigger.
Maybe iPhoto 9.0 will have that feature. Feel free to file a feature request with Apple.
