This year, Fast Times at Ridgemont High celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary. This strikes me as surprising for several reasons, only one of which is that it makes me feel old. It also strikes me that there hasn't been much talk about Fast Times, at least compared to Blade Runner, which came out the same year and which had arguably less influence. (We can debate this in a chat room later. For now, let's continue.) Fast Times is a movie that defined a genre.
There were teen movies before, but nothing as dark and deep and utterly hilarious. It is the
Godfather of teen cinema.
It is also the first movie, or the breakthrough movie, for a staggering roster of talent: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Anthony Edwards, the wonderfully hangdog Vincent Schiavelli, Eric Stoltz, Forest Whitaker (Forest Whitaker!). Nicolas Cage made his screen debut, but he didn't even get any lines. Of course, there is only one actor everyone talks about: Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, one of the great comic-doofus performances of all time.
Fast Times kick-started a successful movie career for Cameron Crowe, who wrote the screenplay based on his book about going undercover as a San Diego high school student. (The book, bafflingly, has been out of print for years.) And the film was a phenomenal debut for director Amy Heckerling, who later would give us the genre mini-classic,
Clueless. It feels like I'm rattling off a list, and I guess I am, but it doesn't even include the film's amazing use of music, its influence on fashion. Shit, people still
wear Vans.
I wanted to write a story about
Fast Times, but I didn't know what to say, or even where to start. I saw the film at thirteen, and its stories of mall romance and bad sex were both achingly familiar and eerily prescient for me. I was a kid who fell into sex too early, who tried badly to be cool about that, but sex was so disorienting and scary, and
Fast Times understood that. There are moments I will never forget: When Jennifer Jason Leigh, as freshman Stacy Hamilton, lies down on a cold concrete slab while some creepy guy from the stereo store rams it up inside her; the embarrassment and disappointment that flashes across the face of Robert Romanus, playing the Lothario-wannabe Mike Damone, after a sloppy sexual misfire. It was also really funny when Spicoli ordered that pizza. Maybe the image I remember most from
Fast Times is Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool. Good lord, Phoebe Cates. I still get hot thinking about the moment when Judge Reinhold, wacking off in the bathroom, imagines her unfastening her wet bikini top, her bare nipples hard and dappled with water. It was, as they say, a seminal scene.
I started talking to my friends about
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I brought it up at parties. I mentioned it on the phone. Like, "How was your week, and what do you think of Phoebe Cates' rack?" Talking about the movie was fun. It confirmed my suspicion that it is a deeply underappreciated film, and somehow, it made me love the film even more.
#1: "If I Didn't Kiss Phoebe Cates, I Was Going to Die"
Neal and I ran into each other in our neighborhood. He grew up in Texas, like me, obsessing about movies and music and the people who made them.
What do you remember about Fast Times at Ridgemont High?
Oh, God. I was in love with Phoebe Cates.
Like, if I didn't kiss her, I was going to die.
How did that work out for you?
Not well.
And what did you think when you got to see her in her full glory?
I think I saw an edited version. I don't know what that would have done to me.
That's unfortunate. What did you like about her?
She looked like a teenager, for one thing. So she felt more obtainable, like someone I might meet. She was soft, and pretty, and she had this long, dark hair.
You know, she was thin, but there was nothing angular about her. She had those pudgy cheeks, such a softness to her. And you think about the beauties of the '80s, they seem so over-the-top and gawdy. Like they have giant blonde hair and tons of makeup.
Like drag queens almost.
And she didn't. She was naturally pretty, with those big doe eyes.
And she seemed like she knew things. She knew more than she was letting on in that film. Maybe she did in real life, I don't know.
I remember thinking that she was the prettiest girl in the world. I wanted so badly to grow up to look like her, which is funny, because she's like the exact opposite of everything I was, which was blue-eyed and blonde-haired and shy. She was dark and olive and luscious. And she reminded me of my older cousin, who I worshipped, because it was my older cousin who taught me all those things about boys and sex and blowjobs. And probably half of it was wrong and a lie, but I never knew that. Do you have a favorite Phoebe Cates movie?
Gremlins.
You didn't even have to think about that, did you?
Nope.
#2: "What Other Teen Movies Do That?"
I mentioned the movie at a dinner party, half women, half men. The guys all remembered the funny stuff: "Aloha, Mister Hand," the van fogged with bong smoke, 
the pizza in class. The girls remembered the murkier stuff. But everyone agreed on its excellence.
Craig: Now that you say it, I remember that there was an abortion in that movie. But it didn't stick with me. The things that stuck with me were the slapstick comedy moments. And Phoebe Cates' tits.
Lisa: That stuff with Jennifer Jason Leigh is so dark. In that way, it reminds me of
Fame. Or
Saturday Night Fever. Also interesting is that it's a female-directed film with females as the protagonists, but it's still totally appealing to men. That's pretty rare, especially back then.
Craig: You know, there's an abortion in
Dirty Dancing, too.
Lisa: That's a morality play. This
was more like what happens in real life. Which isn't true for most teen movies. They don't deal with the darker sides of sex. Things like pregnancy scares, AIDS tests, abortions. What other funny teen movies do that? Maybe
Degrassi. And that's a television show from Canada.
#3: "I Was Having Sex Then, Too. We All Were."
Nick had never seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High
. He was three years old when it came out, but that's no excuse. He agreed to watch the film and tell me what he thought.
What did you think?
The sex was realistic. Because it was awkward, and clumsy, and it's over too soon. That's what sex is like then. A lot of fumbling.
I like how the girls actually talk about how sex hurts. Nobody was saying that, at least not in the movies I saw. They say sex is beautiful, it's magical, it's a special thing. No. Sex fucking hurts the first time. It's like trying to put a bowling ball through your nose.
I kept freaking out about their age. I was like, wait, they're fourteen, that's so young. But I was fifteen when I lost my virginity. In my head, I'm all, "How dare these kids do this?" What am I talking about? Pfft. I was having sex then, too. We all were.
That's the main difference in my viewing experience now. Because I first saw it when I was thirteen, after my first really monumental sexual experience, and the Jennifer Jason Leigh character was older than me. And even though I recognized her behavior as maybe dangerous, it also seemed normal. Now it's like, oh God, she's a baby. What is she doing? Where is her mother?
I have an eight-year-old daughter, and so I'm watching it like,
Whoa, what are things going to be like for me in 2012?
#4: "I Just Find It All So Painful"
Julie is my best friend. She is a legal-aid lawyer who lives in West Texas, but when I called her on a Sunday afternoon, she was surprisingly specific about a movie she hadn't seen in years.
Fast Times is one of those movies I always see on TV, and I think it's going to be funny, and then I watch it and I end up feeling miserable. I just find it so painful and sad. Everyone makes me sad. Except for Spicoli.
And the Phoebe Cates character is maybe the most sad, because she's trying so hard to be this sophisticated woman who knows about life and sex, but even Jennifer Jason Leigh sees through her. Everyone has these dreams that are bigger than they are, and they all end up disappointed. At the end of the film, there's this resolution where I guess you're supposed to think they're happy. But I didn't understand that. I thought they should all be miserable.
Do you think it's a good movie?
I think it's a great movie. But it's one I find difficult to watch. There's a part where Phoebe Cates is talking about how long a guy takes to come and she's like, 'Oh, forty minutes.' Because that's probably what a high school girl thinks — like the longer, the better. Forty minutes! Jesus Christ. If it took forty minutes, I'd be like, Okay, look, you gotta stop.
They're so misinformed! There are jokes I didn't catch as a kid, because I was under the same delusions the characters were. Like, I probably did think it took a guy forty minutes to come. In fact, that's probably something I learned from this movie, much like simulating oral sex on a carrot. I tried that. Sure, penis, vegetable, same thing. At one point, Mike Damone tells his friend Ratner the greatest makeout record is Led Zeppelin IV. I can't think of anything less conducive to making out than Led Zeppelin, even in the early '80s. I mean, fucking songs about mythology and a bunch of wanking guitar?
I just find it all so painful. I guess because I found high school so painful. There's a romance to those times for some people, but I was just miserable. I hated myself. I never experienced the things I wanted to experience, that I hoped for myself. I honestly don't know how I got through.
Do you feel this sad when you watch The Breakfast Club?
No. The Breakfast Club is gimmicky. Those aren't characters so much as archetypes. Whereas Fast Times at Ridgemont High 
feels like real people. I think if it came out today, it would be an indie movie. Like Welcome to the Dollhouse.
#5: And Now, Phoebe Cates' Tits
Bryan is a pop-culture fanatic with strongly held opinions about celebrity nudity. I only had one question for him. Can you guess what it was?
What is so great about Phoebe Cates' tits?
Actually, the boobs aren't that amazing. For that, you need to go to Uma Thurman in Dangerous Liaisons. Actually, in my mind, I don't even remember her boobs. I remember her lips and her totally submissive expression. That's straight out of porn, basically a blowjob face.
But it might be the birth of the American Apparel aesthetic, that girl-next-door-does-porn thing that no one else had ever nailed so well before and she (and her boobs) get it perfect. It wouldn't work if Phoebe Cates weren't so sweet and nice the whole movie. She's gorgeous, but the scene is her doing the equivalent of Yoda kicking ass in those late Star Wars movies — like, the thing you wanted to see but thought you wouldn't. She knows it, and she fucking brings it.
©2007 Sarah Hepola & hooksexup.com