[After the success of Crash and Nate, I am afraid I have been bullied into allowing my darling girl a go, by dint of threats of castration, involuntary abstinence and not having my tea on the goddam table when I get home from work. So without further ado I cast you into the arms of my one true love, the gorgeous, the swoonsome, the dazzling Mrs. Toad...]

Ah, the High School Movie, that much maligned genre. Cherished by few regular movie goers, certainly few over the age of 25. My guilty pleasure and the cause of numerous taunts and exclamations of, “oh, for fuck’s sake” from Mr Toad at the video store.

These films are inevitably focused on a few themes; the ascendance to high social status through some crafty plan, bet or blackmail (The New Guy, She’s All That, Can’t Buy Me Love), the last blast of youth before adulthood beckons (American Pie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, American Graffiti, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), breaking down social boundaries (The Breakfast Club) or a love story worthy of Austen or Choderlos de Laclos (Clueless, Cruel Intentions). Occasionally attracting critical acclaim (Brick) but more often leaning towards the execrable (Road Trip), I hire them all with a frisson of pleasure and anticipation.

Snort with disdain, but some of the films above helped launch the careers of George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker and Reese Witherspoon, a fair shake of Oscar winners and nominees. So the next time you see some teenage pap on the boards at the multiplex, take a shufti. You may just find yourself one up in the “I saw him/her first” Dinner Party Artistic Oeuvre Sweepstakes one day.

Now, the other facet of High School Movies is that they generally enjoy a healthy turn from their soundtracks. A party scene is inevitable, being the main forum (apart from exactly where one sits in the canteen/bleachers, a curiously US phenomenon) where social wheat is sorted from chaff. If you wish to see dancing scenes that approach the horrific brilliance of David Brent in The Office, 80’s High School Movies are often fertile ground for a spot of coordinated white boy body poppin with bat wing sweaters and rat tails flying (Corey Haim has a lot to answer for). You can laugh but 20 years ago you wanted to be them, Ice Ice Baby…

Soundtracks are often complemented by “live” prom turns from bands on the up and coming (or down and out..). The prom night denouement is virtually universal and real bands often turn up to have a turn on the silver screen. The legendary Pretty in Pink features the Plimsouls and the Rave-Ups at various points. Its such lucrative ground that some artists such as Sixpence None The Richer specialise in offering journeymanlike poppy nonsense just for the market, having scored “Kiss Me” on She’s All That, they later feature in Smallville (TV) and Not Another Teen Movie (shitting on their own doorstep surely?). Still, it has to be a step above screeching “Whoaaah, Bodyform!!! Bodyformed for youuuuuuuuu” in fanny pad ads at least. We can’t all be Radiohead (who condescended to have a song on the Clueless soundtrack btw). Of course, featuring on a film soundtrack is no guarantee of enduring success. One hit wonders are a frequent occurrence, Steal My Sunshine by Len anyone?

I could talk High School Movies all day and I’m always looking for more to watch, so suggestions welcome. In the meantime, I will leave you with a few instantly recognisable tracks from High School Movies past. In memory of Heath Ledger, who you may remember from an Oscar winning turn in Brokeback Mountain but I from such delights as 10 Things I Hate About You and medieval High School Movie, A Knight’s Tale, I have listed a couple of tracks from those movies.

Len – Steal My Sunshine (From Go)
David Bowie – Golden Years (From A Knight’s Tale)
The Raincoats – Lola (They weren’t on the soundtrack to 10 Things I Hate About You, but pretending to like them was Heath Ledger’s opening gambit in snaring Julia Stiles.)
Sixpence None the Richer – Kiss Me (From She’s All That)
The Platters – The Great Pretender (From American Graffiti)

Posts in this series:
- Crash Calloway from Pretending Life is Like a Song writes about The Commitments.
- Nate, who plays viola in The Young Republic explains why some terrible films have excellent scores.
- My dearest darling Mrs. Toad sings the praises of the High School Movie.
- DC, presenter of The Waiting Room, goes on a truly interminable ramble about the great Tom Waits and One From the Heart.
- Brother of Toad talks about how the context of music can interfere with its use in a movie.
- John sums up Natural Born Killers in three sentences.
- I have a go myself by writing about the art of referencing films in your song lyrics and what it lets you do.
- Tim from The Daily Growl digs away at the sensual texture of In the Mood For Love.
- Matt from Draped in Velvet might never forgive the false start of the world of rap-rock.
- Ian from Broken Records delivers the rant that started this all off: why soundtracks just don’t work!