Simple Terms, Convenient Definitions: Molly Ringwald and Class Negotiations Main Menu

Conclusion

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For three years, Molly Ringwald ruled the box office. In the three films she starred in from 1984 to 1986, she embodied the spirit of consumerist transformation. Through the romances in her films and her characters' unique and creative ways of expressing themselves, Ringwald enacted a fantasy of class reconciliation that helped to smooth over the contradictions brought up by rampant consumerism and materialist culture. By the time she ended her professional relationship with John Hughes not long after finishing Pretty in Pink her image was already set in stone. She spent the remainder of the 20th century struggling to overcome the image that three ideologically powerful films had worked effectively and efficiently to construct, the perpetual high-schooler, eventually settling for repackagings of her type in the new millennium with roles in projects like Secret Life of the American Teenager and Jem and the Holograms. Nothing since has quite matched the power and presence of her films with Hughes, a testament to the films’ ability to craft an enduring star image. While high school cast a shadow over the rest of Ringwald’s career, for us in the audience it was the time of our lives “that may last a lifetime”.

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  1. Pretty in Pink Jasmine Persephone Jupiter

Contents of this path:

  1. Bibliography