“Slow change may pull us apart,
when the light gets into your heart, baby.
Don’t you forget about me.”

This was one of those quintessential movies of my adolescence that will live within me for life. I pretty much know it by heart. Give me a line and I can see the scene in my mind, and can hear the character delivering the words in my memory. Molly Ringwald and I are the same age which made these movies all the more relevant to me, even if the characters did not always reflect my reality. Molly’s Claire was never me (I was more Andie in Pretty In Pink), but I certainly envied her moments making out with Judd Nelson’s John Bender.

John was definitely my John Hughes movie crush, which at closer introspection shouldn’t surprise me at all. My first crush was Han Solo, and that sarcastic, rough and roguish exterior, with all that vulnerability and passion just under the surface, was certainly in full effect with Bender (see also my long-standing crush on James “Sawyer” Ford from Lost and “Captain Tight-pants” from Firefly). I definitely wanted my five minutes in the closet with Bender, and yeah, I would have given him one of my diamond earrings, too, if I had such a thing.

I always did wonder did they forget each other the next day? Or if they remembered, did they lock the memory up inside themselves to protect their high school societal status, or lack thereof. I wonder, what would I have done in their situation? Would I have had the spine and confidence to say fuck them to my friends and be with who I wanted to be with? I certainly did not run in the same crowd as Claire and Andrew, but I wasn’t in the heavy metal stoner group, like John, either. I suppose I fell into some space between Alison’s loner-ness, and Brian’s academic club brains. My friends and I were not popular, but we weren’t bullied either. We were the drama geeks and the music obsessives, outsiders to some degree, but none of us had to worry about our butt cheeks getting glued together.

I fell for a John Bender my Senior Year though. He was in a band, though it was punk and not heavy metal, he wore leather jackets and did his hair like he was James Dean. He had a motorcycle, smoked Marlboro Reds and was going prematurely grey. He had a whip smart sense of humor, killer sarcastic wit, but he could also be the sweetest thing ever. Our first year of college we actually became good friends, though I never did get to make out with him like Claire got to with John. Ah well, when I spin this song and think of the ending of the film I can pretend I’m Molly for a moment, can’t I?

Don’t You (Forget About Me) :: Simple Minds