Most people are familiar with John Hughes’ seemingly universally loved film, “Sixteen Candles”. Starring America’s sweetheart, Molly Ringwald, this 1984 classic is considered by many to be one of the greatest films of the decade.

The other night, I decided to celebrate the end of finals week with a wine and Netflix night. I saw “Sixteen Candles” pop up in my “Recommended for You” section and having never seen it, I decided to give it a try.

I poured myself a glass of wine, got comfy, and prepared myself for what I thought was going to be a cute 80s rom-com. An hour and thirty-three minutes later, I sat in silence, completely in shock over what I had just witnessed.

This movie that I had heard nothing but great things about, this movie that was considered an American classic was the most offensive movie I had ever seen in my life.

As a 21-year-old, I have seen a lot of questionable films. However, those movies knew that they were making jokes about rape and racism while “Sixteen Candles” slid it in ever so subtly.

Before I get into this, I have to say that I rarely ever get offended by anything and I especially don’t tend to get my panties in a twist over something as harmless as a movie, but something about “Sixteen Candles” deeply disturbed me.

For those who haven’t seen the movie in a while (or at all), it revolves around Samantha (Sam) Baker, a teenage girl whose whole family forgets her sixteenth birthday due to her older sister’s wedding taking place the next day. In addition to her family forgetting her birthday, Sam has to deal with sharing her house with her annoying relatives who are in town for the wedding, a way too affectionate geek, and not getting any attention from her crush. Sounds pretty innocent, right? Wrong.

Here is a look at some of the more unsavory moments:

1) While Sam and her best friend walk down the halls at school, they discuss the fact that everyone forgot Sam’s birthday. This turns into a conversation about Sam’s dream sixteenth birthday. Here is the conversation:

Sam: ..you know a big party and a band with tons of people-

Friend: And a pink TransAm in the driveway with a ribbon around it and some incredibly gorgeous guy that you meet, like, in France. You do it on a cloud without getting pregnant or herpes.

Sam: I don’t need the cloud.

Friend: Just the pink TransAm and the guy, right?

Sam: A black one.

Friend: *Looks horrified* A black guy?

Sam: No! A black TransAm. A pink guy.

*Friend looks super relieved and both girls laugh.*

This scene takes place not even ten minutes into the movie. Awesome.

2) Next enter Anthony Michael Hall’s character, Ted, an extremely creepy freshman guy who for some reason believes it’s totally acceptable to sidle up to Sam on the bus, putting his arm around her and saying things like, “Am I turning you on?”, blocking her from leaving her seat, and refusing to leave her alone when she tells him to. Despite his grotesque behavior, he’s portrayed as a “good guy” throughout the movie, basically telling young men that’s it’s totally okay to aggressively pursue any girl you deem fit despite whether or not she’s interest.

Fantastic.

3) Soon we meet Long Duk Dong, a Chinese foreign exchange student living with Sam’s grandparents and staying at her house for her sister’s wedding. Horribly racist name aside, the sound of a gong and stereotypical Asian music plays every time Dong is mentioned or seen. In addition to this, the characters poke fun at his accent, broken English, and lack of knowledge about American culture.

Cool.

4) At a school dance, Ted continues to creep on Sam, sitting next to her despite her and her friends asking him to leave as well as following her when she leaves the gym and jumping on her twice, trying to initiate sex. Instead of kicking him in the balls as I would think any normal girl would have done in that situation, Sam laughs and says “it’s okay” then proceeds to give him her underwear for him to show to his friends. Also, she admits to feeling bad for saying no to sex and “hurting his feelings” since he listened to her problems. Even after all this, Ted continues to ask Sam for sex and she says that her reason for saying no is “off the wall” and it’s because she “likes someone else”. This whole scene was extremely disturbing to me. No matter how badly a guy wants to have sex with a girl, jumping her is never the right thing to do. And if a girl is the recipient of an unwanted sexual encounter, she should never feel guilty saying “no” or feel like she needs an excuse other than not wanting to. Scenes like this really perpetuate rape culture and scarily enough, it’s not the worst thing that happened in the movie.

Terrific.

5) Later that night, a party occurs at Sam’s crush, Jake Ryan’s house. Ted attends but Sam doesn’t due to it being the eve of her sister’s wedding. When everyone leaves the party, Ted and Jake have a conversation in which Jake admits that he has an interest in Sam. Ted, knowing that Sam likes Jake too, tells him to go for it. He and Jake make a deal that if Ted gives Jake Sam’s underwear in return, he can drive Jake’s beautiful and completely smashed girlfriend, Caroline, home in his dad’s car. It is implied that Ted will be able to have sex with a drunken Caroline during this time. Keep in mind the fact that both Ted and Jake are sober. Ted takes Caroline to his friend’s place where his friends take pictures of the two of them together and then has sex with her in a church parking lot. A sober guy having sex with a drunk girl? What’s that sound like? Oh, yeah, rape. Rather than Ted going to jail for raping Caroline, she wakes up the next morning and declares her love for him saying that while she doesn’t remember what happened the previous night, she’s sure that she enjoyed the experience.

Fantastic.

The movie ends with Jake showing up at Sam’s sister’s wedding and whisking her off to celebrate a late birthday.

The ending is supposed to leave the viewer feeling good because everyone found a significant other. Personally, I just felt disgusted by the movie as a whole.

While I’m fan of John Hughes’ other works, it is my firm belief that this movie needs to be booted off of the list of America’s favorites. Its use of racism as a comedy device and troubling portrayal of rape all while disguising itself as an innocent coming of age story truly make this film the most disgusting piece of cinema that I’ve ever seen.