In 2009, Yahoo published a list of the top one hundred movies to see before you die. Of these films, only one was directed by a woman. That film was Fast Times at Ridgemont High and was directed by Amy Hecklering. The screenplay was adapted from the book of the same name and has become one of the most well known teen comedy films along side Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds, and the American Pie series.
Hecklering’s Fast Times is a unique film; it is a teen film, but it also has a focus on women’s issues. In Fast Times at Ridgemont High, having a woman director affects the nature of the teen film, but the teen film has an affect on the nature of the woman’s issues film as well.
The teen movie genre has been made relatively available for female directors due to the films usually lacking an expensive budget and famous actors (Speed). The films usually bring in a profit from the teenaged population, but they rarely are a widespread success.
Fast Times stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stacy. Most of the film is spent following Stacy as she seeks out to become more familiar with her own sexuality. She tries to find herself through sex until the end of the movie where she comes to the realization that she may not be ready to grow up, and instead decides what she really wants is a relationship.
This story easily could have made an entire movie, but because the film needed to make money, the screenplay needed to supply material for a male audience. Films that are solely concentrated around women’s issues tend to dissuade men from seeing the movie.
Vulgar and low comedy usually gain an audience of both males and females, even when the females on screen are highly objectified (Speed). This is the reason why Fast Times has become such an iconic teen movie. The audience focuses on the humor of male masturbation, fantasy, and premature ejaculation opposed to centering their focus on the teenaged girl’s sexual curiosity.
Even though the film’s story mainly follows Stacy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s most memorable character is Jeff Spicoli, played by Sean Penn. Spicoli is often confused by many people to be the main character of the film. While Spicoli is a secondary character who is only designed for comedy relief, he is the only character featured on the front of the DVD package.
In fact, the description of the movies plot on the back of the DVD package even says “Sean Penn leads an all-star cast.” When Spicoli is first introduced in the film, he is set up as a speculation of a student in Stacy’s class. The class room scene, in which he is brought into the film, is mostly shot the point of view of Stacy. After this scene, Spicoli develops his own scenes that do not need other main characters to view him.
What makes Spicoli so memorable as a main character is the fact that he is a male, and he is by far the most humorous character to see interact with people. He doe not have a struggle in the film aside from simply passing his history exam; his character was just developed for laughs.
Fast Times may be a women’s film, but the objective male view found in most teen comedies is still very much present throughout the film. It is mostly present through segmentation of women’s body parts. In the transition scenes, we see close-ups of women’s rear ends, men kissing photos of women’s rear ends, and close-ups of women in thin shirts and erect nipples.
Probably the most memorable scene in the movie is Brad’s fantasy scene. Brad comes home from work wearing his embarrassing uniform while Stacy, Linda, Mark, and Damone are playing in the pool. He then steps inside the house to pleasure himself in the bathroom while fantasizing about Linda.
Brad imagines Linda stepping out of the pool saying, “Hi Brad, you know how cute I always thought you were,” as she takes off her bikini top and kisses Brad. Opposed to wearing his pirate work uniform, Brad is wearing a suit in his daydream, which shows that he is also fantasizing about his future success. Before Brad can finish his business, Linda accidently walks in on him in the bathroom. This instantly puts an end to Brad’s fantasy and brings him back to reality.
The male gaze at a woman is nothing new to the teen comedy. A similar scene takes place in Bob Clark’s Porky’s in which a group of men make holes in the women’s shower so they can watch the naked women. When the women find out that the men are watching them, rather than leaving the showers, most of the women begin to flirt with the men. The biggest difference between these two scenes is how they differ through gender perspectives.
In Porky’s, the audience only gets the male point of view. The women act the way the men want them to instead of reacting in a realistic way (VanderHoff). At least with the pool scene in Fast Times it is made apparent that the objective view of Linda is all a fantasy of Brad. The female perspective is shown through Linda when she walks in on Brad in the bathroom, which puts an abrupt end to his daydreaming. He is conversely objectified by both Linda and the audience at his most vulnerable position at this point (VanderHoff).
Fast Times is one of the few teen comedies that show relationships from both the male and female perspective. Movies like Porky’s and Animal House neglect to show how women interact with each other; they are only shown interacting with men. Most of the female interaction in Fast Times involves Stacy and Linda. Their companionship is represented to be just as strong as the average male/male relationship in teen movies and a much more powerful connection than Mark and Damone’s friendship.
The women’s relationship is the strongest and the men’s relationship is the most fragile after Stacy and Damone have sex together. Mark is angry at Damone for engaging in sexual activity with Stacy because he wants to have a relationship with her. Linda displays the most emotion around this time of the film when she finds out how Damone reacted to Stacy’s pregnancy and abortion. He responded to the pregnancy by questioning whether or not the baby was his, putting blame on Stacy’s promiscuity, and demanding that Stacy get an abortion.
The two then decide that they were going to split the price of the procedure and Damone would give Stacy a ride home. He ended up backing out of the agreement, and Linda did not take this lightly. In support of her best friend, Linda takes revenge against Damone by writing “Prick” on his car and locker.
Stacy and Linda’s bond can be compared to the relationship found in Thelma and Louise. Stacy and Thelma are more naïve and play more of an apprentice role to Linda and Louise. Linda teaches Stacy how to perform good oral sex while Louise attempts to train Thelma to be less innocent-minded. They learn from their friends how to be stronger, whether it is sexually or emotionally.
Both Stacy and Thelma experience a woman’s issue involving sex (Stacy gets pregnant and needs to get an abortion and Thelma is assaulted), and Linda and Louise stick up for their friends (Linda gets revenge against Damone for not helping out with Stacy’s abortion, and Louise kills the man who attacked Thelma). At the end of each movie, the student becomes the master.
When Stacy comes to her realization of her needing a relationship more than sex, she realizes that Linda may not be as insightful as she once believed. Thelma towards the end of the film saves Louise from being arrested in a similar fashion to how Louise saved Thelma from her assaulter at the beginning of the film.
Unlike other teen movies, Fast Times’ sex scenes are strictly from the point of view of the women. In the scene where Stacy loses her virginity, we do not even get a glimpse of her male partner’s face. The audience looks into Stacy’s eyes to witness her discomfort and also views the graffiti on the ceiling of the dugout that she is distracted by while she is having intercourse.
We see her point of view during her sex scene with Damone as well. After he climaxes prematurely, he is quick to leave the scene, and the camera holds a shot on Stacy for several seconds to present her feeling of abandonment.
Fast Times may have feminine issues and problems, but is it truly a feminist film? According to Artel and Wengraf’s essay Positive Images, a feminist film not only has to have a focus around women’s problems (teen pregnancy and abortion), but it also must contain characters that have non-stereotyped behaviors such as having smart and adventuring women or nurturing men and shows characters displaying sexist attitudes or behaviors to contrast the non-sexist elements.
It is debatable whether or not some of the characters have non-stereotyped behaviors. Aside from Mark, all the men in the film tend to fit some sort of stereotypical male role. Mark is much different than his buddy Damone. The dating advice he receives from Damone is mostly how to get the date to result in Mark getting sexual relations. It is clear that Mark does not care to have sex so soon, as evidenced in the scene where he walks out on Stacy when the two were about to get down to business.
Damone, on the other hand, had sex with Stacy while barely considering how it was going to affect his friendship with Mark. The only women’s behaviors are only non-stereotyped those surrounding sex. Women in America society are told that their body is a temple and are taught to be prude. Stacy becomes promiscuous in the span of the film in attempt to satisfy her physical needs, much like a stereotyped male. However, the film shows that sex is not enjoyable for Stacy.
Her first experience is painful for her and her second experience was short, unsatisfying and resulted in her getting pregnant. Her promiscuity would come to a halt at the end of the film when she comes to the realization that she does not want sex, thus she molds into the female stereotype. It is unclear whether or not the film is attempting to show Stacy’s growth and maturity when she reaches this epiphany or if it is attempt trying to persuade younger audiences not to engage in sexual activities.
Heckerling has improved the teen film by representing women’s relationships and sexuality and objectifying the male body. Her vision for a woman’s film, however, was corrupted by traditional teen movie aspects such as objectifying the female body and allowing a minor male character steal the spotlight from the lead female character.
Work Cited
Positive Images by Linda Artel and Susan Wengraf.
A World Ruled by Hilarity: Gender and Low Comedy in the Films of Amy Heckerling by Lesley Speed. Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Porky’s: Gender Perspective in the Teen Comedy by Kerri VanderHoff.
