The Internet Killed the Teen Sex Comedy

https://melmagazine.com/the-internet-killed-the-teen-sex-comedy-b70dae947e4c

Set at John Hughes High School, Not Another Teen Movie makes multiple allusions to the director’s films, as well as the 1990s flicks that built upon on Hughes’ knack for capturing the anxieties of the American teenage experience. (There’s even a Molly Ringwald cameo at the end.) The movie was also unbelievably crude — one scene shows a teacher getting drenched in literal shit — and was panned by film critics. It has a lowly 29 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

But Not Another Teen Movie resonated with audiences. It spoke to their nostalgia for Hughes-era teen films, and the abundance of teen sex comedies that marked the MTV era. It earned $12.6 million its opening weekend despite opening against the first Lord of the Rings installment. And it would go on to gross nearly $40 million in total, more than twice its $15 million budget. To this day, people tweet at Gallen whenever the film pops up on a premium channel.

But these days, Not Another Teen Movie seems like a relic of a bygone era, and it’s easy to imagine its jokes being lost on today’s teenagers, in large part because Hollywood doesn’t make movies about teenagers desperate to lose their virginities anymore. The teen sex comedy, once a staple of the summer movie season, no longer exists.

Indeed, most of the teen sex comedies released after Not Another Teen Movie were low-budget retreads of more popular titles, such as 2004’s EuroTrip (inspired by 2000’s Road Trip) and 2009’s Fired Up (which is like Bring it On, but with male protagonists). Both films lost money. There were three American Pie sequels, but they focused on the characters’ lives beyond the awkwardness of high school. (American Pie also became a genre unto itself, with several straight-to-video titles released under the American Pie Presents: banner.)