MovieChat Forums > License to Drive (1988) Discussion > Kind of weird

Kind of weird

posted 10 years ago by GumWrapper
10 replies | jump to latest

Anybody else think it was a little strange that a high school girl was dating some dude in his mid-twenties that had his own place? Is this an 80s thing? Was it acceptable to be old enough to rent a car and still date a 16 year old?

I know it's a comedy, it just seems odd that Mercedes was a pretty high school girl who got let into clubs and dated a guy who was probably in the Vietnam war. Were the cops easy on statutory back in the day? Like if you were 35 and making out with a high school sophomore in the back of your station wagon, would the cop just give you a high five for aggravated being awesome?

[–] xfilesbell 10 years ago

It was the 80s, people didn't flip out if you had a 20 something guys kicking it with 17-18 year old.. Plus he had money..

[–] GumWrapper 10 years ago

That's kind of my point, though. Dude was in his twenties, had some money and a nice car...and he is going to date a girl he'll have to sneak around to have sex with? Dude is going to drive his slick ride to pick up his girlfriend from school? Guy should have just picked out a nice college girl.

Mercedes seems to have terrible parents, though, considering she wasn't grounded for an eternity for getting drunk with a group of guys and nearly getting killed several times.

[–] ratatatcat29 10 years ago

Both high school girls dated older men in Can't Buy Me Love and Some Kind of Wonderful as well. Definitely a generational thing.

[–] marvelass 9 years ago

In Adventures in Babysitting, Chris was a 17-year-old high schooler dating a college senior. At the end of the movie, she hooks up with another twentysomething college guy.

.

[–] DracTarashV 9 years ago

It's never been strange in Hollywood. And really, it happens more often than you'd think.

Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!

[–] pepetoony (1744) 5 months ago

That was the creepiest part of this movie for me--or saddest, really. Every time they show that older boyfriend I can't help but feel like he's a loser (even though he has a Ferrari). There was one chick in my high school whose older boyfriend would come and pick her up from school every day and I remember it being weird. The last bell would ring, we'd all file out into the parking lot and there he was waiting! Every day. This was in the mid to late '90s. She wasn't 16 though--she was a senior and he'd just graduated one or two years prior so the age difference wasn't that huge, however the whole notion of having to go and pick up your girlfriend from high school is an odd one.

[–] aavfreak (3334) 21 days ago

When I started dating my wife 35 years ago, we lived near each other in the same neighborhood and she moved in during summer, so school grade level wasn't anything on our minds at first.

We're two years apart in age, but because of where our birthdays are on the calendar, we were three years apart in school.

When she was in 10th grade, I was in college. I would often pick her up after school or drive her to/from school activities. No one ever saw it as weird. None of our friends from that time has ever mentioned it. This was early 90s.

[–] pepetoony (1744) 21 days ago

Dude that's weird.

[–] liscarkat (18541) 21 days ago

When I was in my early twenties I went out with a few girls who were sixteen and seventeen. It was not considered a big deal in the 1970s, and their parents had no problem with it. People were more sophisticated then. In recent years, society has become very up-tight.

[–] aavfreak (3334) 7 days ago

It's really interesting how the pendulum has swung back the other way. It's been discussed to end elsewhere, but modern American society has become exceedingly prudish.