o...last night I watched Pretty in Pink for the 199th time? I have no idea how many times I've actually watched it. All I know is that if it's on TV, it's still an irresistible pull for me to watch it once again.
Although I don't remember every time I've watched it, I do remember the first time. I was young, just out of high school, and very much identified with Andie - probably to a degree which was somewhat unhealthy in retrospect - the film made me cry in the end, so wrapped up was I in the character of Andie. I remember what I was wearing. Cropped white pants with tiny pink, green, purple and yellow pastel pinstripes, a yellow long sleeve shirt - button front with a collar, which was buttoned all the way to the neck, fastened with a large pastel brooch made of glistening jewels looking very vintage, one small pearl earring in my left ear, one long dangling white earring in my right ear, 2 additional earrings in my left ear one diamond stud and one pink diamond stud with pink patent leather kitten heels on my feet. Oh yes. The 80s. Don't forget the large white belt askew at my hips, fastened wrong on purpose to complete the ensemble. I saw it in Salt Lake City on a date. We were at the movie theater in the bottom of Crossroads Mall and I remember very clearly walking back to my hotel room at the Hotel Utah a few blocks away.
At the time, and for most of the years since then, I felt the movie had a perfect ending. Andie gets Blaine, Blaine gets Andie and although you feel sorry for Duckie for a minute - even he kind of gets a cute girl in the end too. All loose ends wrapped up in pretty pink bows.
But last night as I was watching it on TV again I saw something I never quite recognized before. Andie made the totally wrong choice in choosing Blaine. Because I realized the happy ending isn't really an ending at all - it's only the beginning.
Duckie stuck with Andie through thick and thin. Not only was he in love with her - he was her friend. He was happy for her and he wanted the best for her. Blaine didn't care so much about Andie as he cared about himself. And although he promises in the end that he always believed in her, he only didn't believe in himself, the sad fact I had to face as an adult watching it last night, is that nothing has really changed. Blaine still doesn't believe in himself. And I'm not all that convinced he believes in Andie either. He admires her. He wishes he could be more like her. He thinks she is pretty and cool and this makes him drawn to her. But at the end of the day the relationship is doomed.
The relationship in my favorite romantic film is doomed.
Duckie is clearly the better choice!
Why do you suppose as women we do this? We romanticize the wrong things? We do it all the time. Women choose Blaine over Duckie in their real lives with a terrible frequency.
The good news of this story is that Andie will survive it just fine. She's strong and she's sure of herself - I'm not really that worried about her. She's young and she'll learn from her mistake and probably become successful in a way where she won't measure her worth by her relationship to a guy anyway.
When I was young I really admired the character of Andie. I still do. Even after all these years, I think there is something so great about her self-assurance and easy cool that's worth trying to emulate. I may not wear cropped pants with kitten heels any more, and I may not have understood anything more about relationships than Andie did, but I think a woman with an inner belief in herself will turn out just fine no matter what comes her way. So what do you think? Who do you think Andie should have chosen?
You know John Hughes wrote the story so that Andie ends up with Duckie. But test audiences really wanted her to end up with Blaine. So they re-shot the ending and tacked on the bit where the girl asks Duckie to dance after Andie goes off with Blaine. John Hughes wasn't particularly happy about the ending and he re-made another version of this story the next year, with "Some Kind of Wonderful". Watts being the Duckie of that film, and Samantha Jones being Blaine to the male protagonist played by Eric Stolz as Keith. I love that film too, and in the end Keith and Watts end up together.
Maybe happy endings where the two people who are more suited for each other is really the more hopelessly romantic idea. Because how often does that actually happen in real life?
6 comments:
It's funny. Since I wrote this post in December, it gets quite a lot of traffic. Apparently hundreds of women out there on the internet (And possibly some men) google "Andie should have chosen Duckie", or "Why Andie Shouldn't Have ended up with Blane" or "Duckie loved Andie for real". No one ever leaves a comment on this post. But apparently lots and lots of you out there wonder about it just like I do. And you know, it's got me thinking about another one of my favorites "Say Anything" and I think I might write about that soon. But I have such an emotional investment in that film, I might not be ready to write that one yet. Maybe soon. So keep googling people, it's makes me happy that so many of you come here and read what I have to say about the Andie/Blane/Duckie triangle. I recently saw an interview with Jon Cryer and Molly and they said that they thought Andie and Duckie should have ended up together - that Andie and Blane probably wouldn't have lasted more than a few months. But that in the end, Duckie probably would have figured out he was really gay and that his admiration of Andie was more that he wanted to BE like Andie, rather than the fact that he really loved her. So there's a monkey wrench thrown in as some food for thought. Duckie did have some awesome fashion sense. :)
Ugh! I totally agree with the Duckie thing. At the end of the movie, I was upset that they weren't together and I was so mad at Blaine. I haven't seen Some Kind of Wonderful though, so I guess I'll have to watch that and see if it makes me feel better! :)
I disagree. While Duckie clearly loved Andie, it was pretty obvious the feelings weren't reciprocated and because of that, to me, Duckie came off as overly entitled to her romantic feelings.
Some Kind of Wonderful is indeed a gender-swap of Pretty in Pink, but, the focus is more on Watts and Keith rather than Keith and Samantha Jones' character (I can't remember the name). In that movie it made sense for Watts and Keith to end up together.
Pretty in Pink to me was like Romeo and Juliet, the war between them being their class. If she ended up with Duckie, it would have been like Juliet ending up with Paris.
Just my opinion, of course. Everyone is entitled to their owb.+
Just a correction to my post above, LEA THOMPSON played AMANDA JONES. I was clearly confused.
I agree! When I was younger I wanted Andie and Blaine to be together, but now that I'm older I see that movie and realize that clearly, Duckie is the better choice. He really did love her and was willing to let her go just so that she could be happy. That kind of love is truly romantic versus Blaine's wishy washy feelings.
I just watched it again tonight. Andie and Duckie should have ended up together. Blaine was more into himself than anything, and Duckie loved her unconditionally. I figure Andie and Blaine may have stayed together through the summer and called it quits. With Andie realizing her true love was Duckie all along!
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