Angela Dove: Award-Winning Writer

or “Don’t You Forget About Me—and My Unfortunate Fashion Sense”

I was recently browsing through a movie rental store when my eyes were caught by a tableau from my past: Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, and Jon Cryer. With a pang of nostalgia, I grabbed the video jacket. Ah, yes. The John Hughes film, Pretty in Pink.

If only I'd stopped there.

For those not familiar with this classic of teen angst, the movie is an 80s Cinderella story in which the heroine decides not to pass herself off as a princess, but instead confronts the class differences between her and her prince. As a teenager I had loved this movie!

I glanced at the sign on the shelf. Only 99 cents. Less than a dollar to take the movie home for a week, indulge in some high school nostalgia, and listen to what I recalled was a pretty good soundtrack. Why not?

It didn’t quite work out that way. Sure, I smiled wistfully as the first keyboard notes from The Psychedelic Furs bounced out of the speaker like beach balls on Paxil. And when Molly came on screen in her paisley vest and white sun hat with the matching paisley band, I settled back on the couch with a half chuckle.

Wait! Something was amiss! Each of Molly’s ears was double pierced, and in one set of holes she wore a small flower stud and a larger dangle bauble that vaguely complimented each other. But when she turned her head for a last look in the mirror, it was obvious that she’d forgotten the matching dangle on the other ear.

How sloppy can a director get? I thought. We’re barely out of the gate here!

And then, it all came rushing back, the way a nightmare’s memory sometimes emerges when you’re halfway through your Raisin Bran.

The one-dangle look. It had been a fashion spawned in part by this very movie. What’s more, I had succumbed. I remembered quite clearly the blue beaded Buddha I picked up in a funky shop in San Francisco the summer after this movie was released. Throughout my first year of college, that Buddha hung from my right earlobe while a small silver star clung tightly to my left. As a statement of personal style, it had been deep. It had been meaningful. And I knew now, it had looked absolutely ridiculous.

The rest of the movie was an embarrassment of adult perspective. Far from the doe-eyed hunk he had been in my youth, Andrew McCarthy seemed immature and whiny and melodramatic. Jon Cryer’s character, once a quick-witted goofball, was now more goof than wit. But most painful by far was the build up to the big scene—the all-important moment when Molly Ringwald walks into her private school prom wearing the pink dress she made herself from hand-me-down formals.

Sitting there on my couch, I felt my stomach clinch in apprehension as the camera followed Ringwald’s shoes up the country club steps. This was it: the shining moment when all the school would recognize that the poor scholarship girl was in fact the princess of this ball. That she had arrived on her own terms, and that the mere vision of her—Pretty in Pink—was enough to cut through the shallow cliqueishness of those inbred snobs and to bring the room to a standstill of awe and wonderment.

I almost covered my eyes. It was like watching a traffic accident.

The camera panned up and reared back majestically to reveal . . . Molly Ringwald in the most heinous implement of torture ever to be festooned with pink lace.

I groaned and turned away, lest I suddenly recall a similar ensemble I once wore with pride.

“Wow,” I heard Andrew McCarthy say in a gaspy, overacted way. “You look . . .”

He paused so long that I turned back to the TV, convinced that my VCR must have finally given up the ghost. But no. He was giving her a sappy, soulful look that was just this side of comatose.

“For God’s sake!” I shouted. “Put this sentence out of its misery!”

“ . . . beautiful,” he exhaled.

“She looks like she was gift-wrapped by seven-year-old girls!” I yelled.

On cue, Simple Minds began singing in the background, “Don’t you forget about me—“ (which then became the 1987 theme song for 4 out of 5 high school graduations). Self-restraint exhausted, I launched myself at the VCR eject button.

In the abrupt silence of the room, my eyes slid unbidden toward my photo albums. No way. Now was not the time to verify my suspicions about that lacy green dress I’d found in a thrift shop years ago. I had been so happy with it—the way the Lone Buddha shone as it swayed above the neckline.

Forcing my thoughts away from the telltale photos, I remembered my walk downtown just a couple of days ago. I fell in behind a group of teenage girls and had been horrified to see the big lettering emblazoned across the back of their shorts. “PINK” read one. “SASSY!” declared another. I had rolled my eyes at this newest batch of fashion victims. The “my rump is a billboard” movement has been largely supported, I believed, by young girls desperate for others to look at their butts. I mean, it couldn’t be more obvious unless they rigged up electric lighting back there.

Now, in light of the Pretty in Pink debacle, I felt a stirring remorse for my judgment. Had not I been just as fashion-challenged (although admittedly less focused on my derrière)? Weren’t these girls allowed their own future embarrassment?

I returned the movie the next day and looked for a replacement on the 99 cent rack. Hmmm. Flashdance. Any other time, I might have been tempted, but not today. It just so happens that I remember quite clearly my days of legwarmers and sweatshirts with the necklines ripped out. No thank you. I’ll choose to believe that look, at least, was a timeless classic.

Angela Dove is an award-winning humor writer living in Western North Carolina. For feedback and archived columns visit www.angeladove.com.