“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” Isn't Funny, It's Just Bizarre

Maybe things really were like that back in the eighties, I dunno, I wasn't there, but if this movie is anything to go by, I'm glad I wasn't... But maybe I should start off by mentioning some of the positive aspects of this movie though, such as its classic style, what with everyone's specific and characteristic wardrobe, as well as the classic cars they drive, the diners they go to, the detailed decoration in their rooms, and so on. Also, the soundtrack is amazing, featuring Led Zeppelin's Kashmir and Jackson Browne's Somebody's Baby, a great catchy song although its lyrics are made downright surreal due to the movie's story. And I might have to say story because I hesitate to say the movie has a message. I mean, every movie has some kind of message, it's just that in movies like this one that message may be somewhat indirect or even complete trash. Regardless of the original artist's intent, the truth of the matter is that a movie, especially a beloved one, inevitably becomes part of our culture, for better or for worse. And with Fast Times at Ridgemont High I can't help but notice it's all for the worst, and that is mainly due to the events surrounding Jennifer Jason Leigh's character Stacy, arguably the protagonist, maybe more so than the now iconic Spicoli. And alongside Stacy would be her love interest Mark “Rat” Ratner who might just be one of the most tragic characters in cinema history... So I now find myself facing one of those situations where either I'm crazy and stupid, or I'm the only sane guy around, because I can't for the life of me figure out how, after all the events in the movie, these two lovebirds end up together...

I won't get into most of the characters because it don't matter. My criticisms of this movie, which aren't even cinematographic criticisms per say, are more related to the meaning of Stacy's entire character arc, and thus they are moral criticisms more than anything. So to recap, in case you don't quite remember the movie, it goes something like this...

Stacy is a girl starting high school in Ridgemont High, and ends up in the same biology class as Rat, a nice dorky guy. He falls in love her from day one and asks his best friend, a smooth player named Damone, for advice. In the meantime, as Somebody's Baby plays, Stacy is running off at night to go on a date with a twenty-six year old man. The date consists of the man taking her to a sort of fenced area thingy in a baseball field, or whatever you americans call it, and he awkwardly takes her virginity only to then never call her again. Sometime later, empowered by his friend's advice, Rat asks Stacy out, very successfully. By the end of the date, Stacy invites him to her home where they are conveniently alone because her parents are out of town and never seen in the entire film, a very useful, albeit annoying recurring theme in these movies. In seizing that privacy, Stacy and Rat kiss, however, in wanting to be the nice guy or perhaps just feeling nervous, he excuses himself and takes off. After a while, even after saying she likes Rat, Stacy meets Damone, becomes enamored with his attitude as he calls it, and they have sex. For a little while she still has the hots for him and appears to want to date him, but eventually she discovers she's pregnant and wants his support, financial and emotional, to undergo an abortion. When the day comes, she realizes Damone stood her up and so she goes on her own, pays for it herself and then has her best friend exact revenge on Damone. And at the end of the movie, Rat eventually forgives Damone, arguing his actions were done out of mere physical lust and that's just the way he is, and so accepts him back as his friend, but as if that wasn't bizarre enough, he forgives Stacy and they pick up where they left off.

Call me crazy but I feel like I'm watching fifty different movies cut together... I mean, just how much betrayal can Rat take? Either he's the strongest, most stoic man in his existence, capable of an absolute Christ-like sense of forgiveness, or he's the weakest excuse of a man there ever was, and his nickname is wholly unrelated to his surname. Not only is he a sad sack for pining after a girl while she's losing her virginity in extremely questionable ways, but she also cheats on him soon after they start dating, and with his best friend no less, and he appears to have absolutely no qualms about the pregnancy and subsequent abortion. You can read some of my thoughts on abortion here if you'd like, but even if we strip abortion of all its moral considerations I still think it's something that elevates Stacy's actions to a whole new level of irresponsibility and, as far as Rat is concerned, betrayal. Weirdly though, the movie treats it as akin to having a bad tooth pulled, or not even that because Stacy appears to be hungry immediately after the procedure. Her brother picks her up and acts very supportive, and though everyone at school appears to now hate Damone, word of the abortion goes around and thus never gets back to Stacy's parents, who are still nowhere to be seen. In the end, Stacy experiences absolutely no consequences for her actions, and most importantly, Rat still takes her back.

Thus, not only did this story arc matter absolutely nothing, but the movie also goes so far as to retcon the entire event. When confronted about the pregnancy, Damone tries to imply it was Stacy's fault because she apparently wanted it more, but she, in tears, immediately tells him to take it back and he does... But why though? Did we watch the same movie? Like Llewyn Davis once said to his would-be girlfriend during a very similar conversation – it takes two to tango... I have no bleeding clue why after showing Stacy so enamored with Damone, with his smooth talk, his confidence as he walked through the hallways and skillfully opened her locker, her inviting him over and letting him swim in the pool and so on, now all of the sudden the movie expects us to see the whole thing as a kind of very stupid and very impulsive mistake. But I for one seem to recall some light conversation over a glass of ice tea... At this point the movie seems to want to change the entire story and it begins to try to either retcon or gaslight countless details. It's almost as if the movie's devil-may-care attitude eventually gets smashed in the face with real consequences, and so the movie's solution is to just eliminate the consequences instead.

And lastly, I don't understand Stacy either... After the abortion she appears to be much more concerned about the fact that Damone stood her up rather than the abortion itself. In all her confusion she seems to be more heartbroken over a high school tryst not ending in love, much like the movie expects us to simultaneously devalue the moral weight of Stacy's abortion while at the same time overvaluing her teenage crushes as some kind of complex shakespearean tale. And then, after an entire movie of cold approaches to sex, she decides what she wanted all along is a steady loving relationship, which she finds with Rat, as the movie ends and the title card tells us they are now passionate, though sexless, lovers... And as I saw that I was suddenly reminded of Nate Diaz as I screamed at the movie – oh, so you're modest now!... Anyway, I just think at a certain point any story has to carry its own weight, which Fast Times totally and completely doesn't. You know how in some movies, usually adventure ones, the hero has to be exiled from his land, he has to wander along and find his path which leads to him returning home as a conquering hero? In his travels he needs to find whatever was missing in him, like a heart, a brain, or a fetus, and that's how he becomes the hero. Well, I almost wanna say this movie treats Stacy's character in a somewhat similar fashion, only difference is that her discovery of love came at an incredibly high and very potentially immoral cost. It's like at the end of all that very reckless behavior she's supposed to have been completely redeemed even without suffering the consequences, and Rat, after being a great guy the entire time, is supposed to take her back to prove his undying love yet again. She gets to be a terrible person all throughout even if she's always seemingly seen as good, whereas Rat is a good person all throughout only to then seem like the bad guy if he were to decide he has had enough...

Now that's definitely not to say a woman who's had a past like Stacy's is forever banned from finding a loving partner, but it is utterly surreal that in the space of one school year Rat was so spectacularly betrayed on so many levels, only for the movie to end exactly where it began. If the movie wanted a sweet relationship between Rat and Stacy why not just build it and maintain it right from the start? Why go through so much carelessness and lust only to then suddenly value love and modesty? Why change Stacy's focus from immoral casual sex to having no sex at all if the movie doesn't consider casual sex a bad thing? It would appear this movie wants to have its cake and eat it too, and it seemingly expects us to believe one's past can be erased with a jump cut... I dunno, this whole thing just flies right past me nowadays. It's something I've been noticing lately, especially with sitcoms where the male and female leads go through countless relationships, dating each other's best friends and even siblings, only to end up together like it's no big deal. Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? Am I the only one who thinks this makes no sense? I understand for sitcoms it could be done out of convenience, out of wanting to give characters different storylines over years of airtime, but this movie is only ninety minutes long and it still decided to go this frankly disgusting route...

So I don't know, it's just that after having this story sticking in my craw, and having recently come across a significant clip of this movie in what I can only describe as a moment of synchronicity, I just had to write something down. And now that I did, I'm left wondering about the real Mark Ratner and, unsure of just how true this movie is, I also don't wanna find out.

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