They say that “your school days are the best days of your life”,
which is a bullshit sentiment designed solely to encourage student
suicide. If there is anybody reading this that's still in education
then please don't worry as that message is thankfully an absolute
slab of crap. Don't get me wrong, life will still be a steady stream
of bollocks after you graduate but being an adult at least brings
with it a protective sense of cynicism. As a kid you look forward to
the future in the naïve hope that things will get better, but...
they won't. As soon as you realise that then two phrases will inject
themselves into your brain and save you from the noose. The first is
“go fuck yourself, you piece of shit”, and the second is “oh
fuck it, whatever”. Those two sentences and the confidence to say
them are the only things that will distinguish the misery of youth
with the misery of adulthood. Well, that and your inevitable decay
into substance abuse.
Being
a teenager for me was a mostly angsty affair, which resulted in a lot
of time sitting alone in my room whilst listening to The Smiths and
having a post-wank cry. I therefore couldn't help but feel
particularly neglected by teen movies such as American
Pie and
Eurotrip
which
had about as much relevance with my life as they did an 18th
century whore's. I didn't spend my prom trying to shag about because
I boycotted it. I couldn't be fucked spending an over-priced evening
with a herd of wankers and I'm yet to regret that decision.
In
my experience, teen movies in general are seriously misinformed and
only add to the unfortunate viewers sense of isolation. I can
therefore only assume that either the people making them have
absolutely no recollection of growing up, or more likely were spat
out of their mothers meaty snapper as a fully formed adult.
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| Grandma Death |
One
such film that I thankfully could relate to was Donnie
Darko, which
rather imaginatively focused on a teenager with more on his mind than
getting drunk and spunking. Donnie is a troubled young chap who
rather worryingly has been told by a six foot bunny rabbit that the
world will end in twenty-eight days. Considering the fact that I can
only associate the phrase “twenty-eight days later” with the
infected, then my only curiosity would be in why we have to continue
our miserable existence for that much fucking longer? However on top
of that, the film also involves time travel, random bits of plane
falling from the sky and a fair bit of casual racism aimed towards a
fat asian girl and the Smurfs. Also, there's a character in it called
Grandma Death who I'm pretty sure is played by Peter Stringfellow. In
honesty I haven't got a clue what's going on here, but that really
doesn't bother me. Life itself was just as obscure when I was
Donnie's age, so all that confusion just makes the film easier to
relate to. The only things my teen self could reasonably expect in a
day was a varying degree of disappointment and a badly timed bone on.
It's depressing to notice how little has changed since then.
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| "Execute Order 66" |
There
are plenty of theories out there as to what Donnie
Darko is
really about which include things like it all being a dream or even a
schizophrenic hallucination. Some more creative explanations might be
that it's either about the second coming of Jesus or more bizarrely
is an unofficial remake of E.T.:
The Extra Terrestrial. Personally
I don't subscribe to the latter because at no point in this film did
my heart break at the image of a half dead mumbling turd.
Having
said that there's no reason that they can't all be correct to each
individual viewer. If you watch Goodfellas and
somehow see it as a giant metaphor for the time Pope Palpatine lubed
up in devil-shit and exploded out of his own arse and into our
dimension, then fine. Where any story is concerned there is no right
or wrong understanding simply different interpretations.
My theory therefore is that this film is merely a reflection of how
shite it feels to be Donnie's age. I'm not denying that there is a
story in there, but for me the important bit is in how each aspect of
it acts as a metaphor for being a young adult. If your average
teenager gets a tit sized spot on their forehead then they can't help
but think of themselves as being the centre of the universe. I'm
therefore sure that we can probably relate to Donnie considering
that's exactly what he pretty much is. It's also worth noting that
he's a suspected schizophrenic meaning that like most people his age
he probably feels like nobody understands him. On top of all that, as
Donnie advances into adulthood he quickly discovers that fighting
against conformity won't get him anywhere. If anybody here has read
any of these previous blogs they'll have probably picked up on my
hatred of following the herd for the sake of it. Considering how
bitter and twisted I now am, I'm sure you can guess that fighting
against society's expectations is not working out too well for me.
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| Hello, Marion... |
I
suppose the scene which best demonstrates an intolerance for anybody
protesting against the norm, would be when Patrick Swayze comes to
Donnie's school. Swayze plays Jim Cunningham, a motivational speaker
who makes a living from preaching his pure arse-reeking bollocks.
This results in a war of words between him and Donnie which ends when
the ex-dirty dancer is called “the fucking anti-christ”. To be
fair to Jim, he might turn out to be a liar and a pervert but he's
hardly Piers Morgan. Personally I've never really liked Swayze
because he has the stench of a creepy weirdo about him. However, Jim
Cunningham is also a creepy weirdo so I guess this may be his
greatest ever performance. I know that he's snuffed it now and you
shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but luckily nor can you liable them.
So although it would be morally wrong for me to say that Swayze
looked like a paedophile, it would ironically be legally fine for me
to say that he definitely was one. I don't think he was but I just
thought I'd point out that this seems like a loophole that just
hasn't been exploited enough. In other news, who'd have thought that
John Wayne would turn out to be a raging transexual? Although I'd
always suspected that the bigoted star of both The
Searchers and
Cum
Lovers 2 was
born with a dangling quim, it still came as quite a surprise.
So
yeah, if you're in school now and want something that might help you
reflect on your own life then I recommend Donnie
Darko. However
I'm
sure by now that most people will have seen it despite it's
originally messy release. The film was scheduled to come out in the
weeks following 9/11 but was delayed because for some reason people
might not have been in the mood for a story in which bits of plane
fall from the sky. If you have already seen it then I guess I'd also
suggest you check out Brick,
Juno, Kes or
just porn. Porn won't help you understand yourself but it certainly
helped distract me when I was in my teens.
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| Welcome to the class of '44 |
If
however you do want something that will perfectly sum up school life,
then you should send me some money to fund my own teen movie. If I'm
being honest it does play out a little less like The
Breakfast Club and
a little more like Schindler's
List but
I think you'll enjoy it. I can't show you a script though because
there's no point in writing it until I get your cash upfront. In the
meantime, if there was a particular film that helped you endure your
youth then I'd be pretty curious to know what it was, simply because
it'd be an efficient way for me to harshly judge you. Let's face it,
if you're one of those popular freaks who actually could somehow
relate to American
Pie
then I guess this blog won't have meant too much to you. In which
case... ah fuck it! Just go fuck yourself, you piece of shit!
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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