Pointless Lists: Virginity

On Friday, I revisited a movie from my youth where the protagonist is focused on something many boys long to accomplish: losing their virginity. That makes this as good a time as any to discuss my favorite movies on the subject. It is such a universal one that there have been many. Filmmakers in every era keep returning to the theme. I personally have seen dozens of them. These are my favorites...

10. Superbad

(2007)

We follow the misadventures of high-school seniors Seth  (Jonah Hill), Evan (Michael Cera) and Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), AKA McLovin, on their quest to finally get some. Their best chance seems to be supplying alcohol for the party they're going to attend. Our heroes don't necessarily have trouble talking to girls, but often say the wrong thing which provides a good deal of humor. As in the best of teen sex-farces, parents & most adults are rarely seen except as punchlines. The acting of the three main characters carries the movie. Indeed, each of them has parlayed success here into very busy and profitable careers.

9. The Last American Virgin

(1982)

Like lots of guys, the thing most preventing Gary (Lawrence Monoson) from losing his virginity is himself. He gets close often, but he also gets nervous and/or just works too slow. He also turns out to be a romantic. The first two acts of this movie are funny, raunchy, and entirely typical of movies about teenage boys. In the last act, it elevates itself by veering into some dark territory and finishing there. A very underrated film generally dismissed as just another teen sex romp.

8. Teeth

(2007)

This little seen horror flick gives us a female who fully believes in abstinence until marriage. Dawn (Jess Weixler) has not only taken a vow to remain a virgin until marriage, but even to abstain from masturbation. So serious is she about this, she counsels her peers in hopes of getting them to do the same. Of course, she meets a boy that makes her rethink things. Sorta. Unfortunately for him, he finds out she has teeth where she shouldn't. Let's just say he comes up short. Not just a horror flick, this is a wonderfully dark comedy with a girl-power slant.

7. The 40 Year-Old Virgin

(2005)

If you can't tell by the title, our hero Andy (Steve Carell) is a little older than most virgins. He's gotten to the point where he's not really even trying to lose it, happily receding into his own world of action figures, video games and watching "Survivor" with the elderly couple next door. When the guys at work find out, they spring into action in an effort to change his sexual status. It's funny and endlessly quotable. It still stands as some of director Judd Apatow's best work.

6. Kids

(1995)

This one is much less about losing virginity than it is about taking it. Specifically, we follow Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) and Casper (Justin Pierce). Telly has taken it has his mission in life to deflower virgins. This is a dark and unsettling trek through an urban landscape overrun with carefree teenagers. We take unflinching looks at promiscuity, rape, drug and alcohol abuse, violence and sexually transmitted diseases. All of it involves youngsters ranging from possibly pre-pubescent stages to their late teens. Most of the performers are actually as young as they appear. Because of that I can safely say this is the most controversial film on this list. It's also the one you're most likely to hate. By the way, most of the actors are making their film debuts including Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson.

5. Easy A

(2010)

Rather than giving us a protagonist actively trying to lose their virginity, Easy A gives us Olive (Emma Stone), one that pretends to. As news of a tryst she completely makes up gets out, she is suddenly the most notorious girl in school. This is a whip-smart comedy that doesn't just use Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic "The Scarlet Letter" for inspiration, it openly refers to it. Ditto for John Hughes movies. It also deals with the religious aspect and displays just how easily perception becomes reality.

4. American Pie

(1999)

Not satisfied with giving us one guy, pun intended, this teen sex romp gives us four guys in a race to see which one will lose their virginity first. Most of our focus is on Jim (Jason Biggs), who is awkward himself, but has an even more awkward dad (Eugene Levy). The story functions well enough, but what makes it work is that it has given us so many iconic scenes that are hilarious all by themselves. Yes, this includes what happens to an innocent cherry pie. And yes, this is the movie that introduced the acronym MILF to the American lexicon.

3. Porky's

(1982)

Our frustrated virgin is Pee Wee (Dan Monahan). So frustrated is he, he can think of nothing else besides getting into some girl's pants. Believe me, he and his buddies get into all sorts of situations where poor Pee Wee gets close but no cigar. To me, this is the most consistently funny of all the movies listed. Sure it's crass, irreverent and awfully juvenile, but it's downright hilarious. The scene showing why a female gym-teacher is called "Lassie" (played by a young Kim Cattrall) simply puts me in stitches every time I see it. And I would argue that behind the Hitchcock classic Psycho, and only by a very slim margin, this movie has the second best shower scene in cinematic history.

2. The Sessions

(2012)

In what is pretty easily the most unique movie on this list our virgin is not only an adult, but Mark (John Hawkes) was stricken with polio at a very young age and cannot move anything below his neck. We follow him during his time with Cherryl (Helen Hunt), a sex therapist who agrees work with him. The end goal is that the two will have sex. As you might imagine, Mark is filled with anxiety and things don't always go smoothly. This is not merely about getting some, it is about figuring out how the mechanics of it will work. It is wickedly funny and both Hawkes and Hunt are absolutely amazing.

1. Fast Times at Ridgemont High

(1982)

There are lots of things going on in Fast Times. Most prominent of all is the story of Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a high school sophomore looking to give someone her most precious gift. Like American Pie it has given us a number of scenes that have become indelible parts of American pop culture history. It also gives us a story that works from every angle. It's also more mature than just about any teen sex movie out there. Every part of it just sizzles. Finally, it gives us by far the best cast of any movie on this list and many others. Many of them, including Leigh, Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz, and Judge Reinhold, went on to lengthy and successful careers. Three of its players went on to win Oscars for Best Actor: Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, and Nicolas Cage (billed under his birth name of Nicolas Coppola).

Easy A

Directed by Will Gluck.
2010. Rated PG-13, 92 minutes.
Cast:
Emma Stone
Amanda Bynes
Alyson Michalka
Thomas Haden Church
Lisa Kudrow
Stanley Tucci
Patricia Clarkson
Penn Badgley
Dan Byrd
Malcolm McDowell
Cam Gigandet

Keeping up a lie usually involves telling more lies. One mistruth simply begats the next. For most of us, this continues until the entire house of cards comes tumbling down on our own heads. Olive (Stone) is going through just such a thing.

It all starts innocently enough. She tells her best friend Rhiannon (Michalka) that she’s got a date this weekend when she really doesn’t in order to avoid going camping wither Rhi’s eccentric family. By the time Monday rolls around Rhi wants to know the juicy details of said date. Even though she’s done absolutely nothing at all since leaving school Friday afternoon, she tells Rhi that she lost her virginity to a college guy. Though said in confidence, this happens to be overheard by the wrong set of ears which, of course, share a head with the wrong set of lips. Olive suddenly finds herself to be the most scandalous girl in school. A select few know the tale to be false. However, most of these are boys who help perpetuate the myth, plus create more falsehoods. These guys are in search of changing their own rep and soon they’re lining up to pay Olive for the privilege of saying they slep with her, even though they hadn’t. As you can imagine, Olive soon comes to be viewed as the school whore.

Of course, this all coincides with Olive’s English class reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel “The Scarlet Letter.” She is inspired by the plight of Hester Prynne and embraces her new found notoriety since before she was never talked about at all. She also yearns to piss off Marianne (Bynes), the school’s “Jesus freak.” Olive not only dons progressively sluttier outfits, she adorns them with a giant red “A” just like Prynne was made to wear. Things are going great, until she realizes they really aren’t.

Brazenly, but wisely, Easy A juxtaposes itself with the Hawthorne classic. It even takes the time to note the similarities and differences for us. It goes so far as to defend not only the novel, but the original film version while throwing barbs at the much more recent cinematic attempt starring Demi Moore. The movie gets much mileage from this, even filling in the uninformed on what happens in the book nearly as much as telling its own story. This makes the correlation between the two easily accessible and not just an in-joke to those of us who actually did the reading assignment in school.

The film doesn’t hide from its other major influence, John Hughes movies of the 1980s. Olive blatantly tells us she wishes her life were helmed by the famed director. We also get plenty of references and even short glimpses of those movies. As with “The Scarlett Letter,” this aids our audience, presumably mostly made up of teens and twentysomethings, get the jokes. However, this also highlights the one major flaw I find in Easy A. Our BFFs are too good looking. Part of the charm of movies like Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club is that stars like Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy looked and felt like awkward teens relegated to high school’s lower social class, unsure whether they would ever blossom into the beautiful butterflies they so longed to be. It helped they were actually teenagers. Stone did a fine job with the role. She just can’t possibly give off that type of vibe. Her age, she’s 22 may have something to do with it. The natural confidence of someone already past the painful stages is difficult to contain. In addition, Michalka (also 22) as Rhiannon looks anything but the sexually frustrated, unable to get a boy co-ed we’re told she is. Let’s be honest, if she went to almost any high school in America looking the way she does here, she’d be constantly surrounded by an ever-widening swarm of athletes, rich kids, pretty boys and local college underclassmen. Beating them back with a stick might be a literal action for her instead of just a figure of speech.

The looks of the cast aside, I find Easy A funny in enough spots and very smart. It doesn’t often cause out loud laughter, but extracts the grins and soft chuckles that come from being able to relate to what we’re seeing. It may resonate more with females because their reputations are generally touchier topics. Still, I enjoyed it and had no problem becoming vested in the fate of our hero.

MY SCORE: 8/10