John Hughes: Finding “We” in the Me Generation

To the uninitiated, the name John Hughes might not immediately ring a bell, but as soon as you rattle off a list of his films—Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Uncle Buck, Planes, Trains & Automobiles—eyes get a little wider: “Shit, he did all of those? Really?” To the movie novice, these films are mere comedies, but under close scrutiny and repeated viewing, the layers become apparent. Mr. Hughes was one of our most astute modern social observers—when it came to nailing angst, individuality, conformity, rebellion, compassion or introversion, no one could touch him.

Growing up during the 1980s in the Northern suburbs of Chicago (Northbrook and Lake Forest), not far from the high school Hughes frequently shot at, it felt like Hughes was our personal documentarian. Our feelings, families and hidden attitudes were deftly captured on film in his voice—which was our own. It rarely occurred to us that his movies (our little treasures) had such a widespread appeal.

One day, back in elementary school, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was shooting in my neighborhood. All the kids’ parents let them stay home from school to watch the shoot—all the kids’ parents but mine. There would be no day off for me. It was the first time I had ever been so pissed off. All I could think about, as the day crawled on, was how awesome it was that there was a movie shooting in my neighborhood, and how much it sucked that I couldn’t be there. When the bell finally sounded, I ran home from school as fast as I could, but by that time Matthew Broderick had already sprained his ankle. To finish his trampoline-jumping scene—and the one where he sprints through all the well-groomed lawns—Hughes found a stand-in for Broderick, and draped him in that infamous cheetah vest. I still caught about three or four hours of filming, though. And craft services were open to the entire neighborhood that day, with ice cream and tacos for everyone who wanted it. I even think our mailbox was in the finished film for about half a second.

When Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released that June of 1986, I was in love; I had never in my nine years seen such a seamless combination of intelligence, confidence, humor and compassion. Hughes made me pay attention to the small print in the movie ads in the Chicago Tribune, and flip to the “coming soon” sections in The Enquirer at Sunset Foods, hoping he had something new in the works. He usually did, and it was always entertaining, unique and filled with heart.

I’d been waiting for years for someone to apologize to me for the ’80s, but I now realize that Hughes’ films were essentially the cinematic equivalent. In an era of blown-out hair, mountains of cocaine, neon lights and Ferrari blow jobs, Hughes gave us human characters with whom we can still identify.

“My God, are we going to be like our parents?”

-Andrew Clark, The Breakfast Club

I was a casual friend of the Hughes family while in high school, recording with John II and storming the local teenage-yuppie-rock scene with James. I once had the privilege of spending a weekend at their farm in west Illinois, right around the release of Hughes' film Baby’s Day Out. Being the self righteous and disrespectful teenager I was, I asked Mr. Hughes over dinner if his next movie would be filmed in utero, as he had chronologically descended from teens to tweens to babes in his recent work. He said he didn’t know.

The next morning, as I set out to ride one of his horses with the stable girl they had working for them, it was chilly and all I’d brought was a T-shirt. Hughes caught us on our way out of the barn and said, “It gets windy out there, take this.” He then took off his jacket and handed it to me as I sat atop his horse. I turned and shimmied off into the morning light.

It’s impossible to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and not feel a deep empathy for John Candy’s Del. And the Vacation films have a distinctly energetic family structure that entertains with an often hilarious mix of warmth and dysfunction, ultimately helping us come to terms with the eccentricities of our own families. The Griswolds at their most ridiculous made us feel more at home with our own families because we can see we’re not alone—even with the best intentions, it gets this fucked up for every family once in a while.

Back at the Hughes farm for dinner, I had the nerve to ask John what had happened to his output over the years. He answered frankly that the ideas just didn’t flow to him like they used to. He seemed like a man who was uncomfortable with hollowly imitating himself as if he were playing rhythm guitar in his own cover band. I was reading a Yahoo article yesterday that horribly and mistakenly referred to Hughes as a “J.D. Salinger type." The only parallel I can draw between him and Salinger is that Hughes was Holden Caulfield in a hunting camp; he could see with a laser scope through all the phonies and the bullshit, and he ultimately did not enjoy going there himself. So he focused on his wonderful family, and led a rich life in that way. His sons and family all embody the generous, fun, kindhearted and real people that his movies were filled with.

My friends and I had always hoped Hughes would come back with one more classic to define it all. It never happened. Still, we’ve been gifted with a catalog of films that at once defines a decade, a generation and modern humanity at its most raw and honest. Besides, sometimes stopping when you’re ahead is the right thing to do. We’ll miss John Hughes, but his legacy will continue to inspire, reassure and entertain us.