You Cool, Man?

Freshman Friday - for those of you who did not grow up in a small suburban town, Freshman Friday is a day at the end of the year when the incoming freshman class must hide in fear of being hazed by the new senior class. Just like rushing a frat or a sorority, upperclassman will do anything they can to make this one day out of the year utter hell for the 8th graders. Growing up in the exact kind of town described above, I remember being in 8th grade and getting let out of school early so I could have a head start getting home just so I could lock myself in my house, safe from 17-year-olds wielding water balloons filled with nair. As I got older though, the ritual began to die out slowly as more people began to realize that the animalistic beating of 14 year olds wasn’t actually fun. Having grown up in a town where Freshman Friday wasn’t just an urban legend, but rather a very real thing gives me what I like to think is a special connection to the cult classic Dazed and Confused.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, Dazed and Confused is a comical coming of age film about Freshman Friday in a suburb of Cleveland back in the 70’s. It’s one of the funniest films I have ever seen and very possibly the best high school movie of all time (sorry High School Musical). The movie follows  two 8th graders trying to avoid the hazing, Mitch and Sabrina, as well as a group of juniorswho are surprisingly likable considering they’re mercilessly beating up little kids with their meticulously hand crafted paddles. Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey both appear in the movie as young, unknown actors - Affleck playing a real jerk and McConaughey playing a twenty-something guy who peaked in high school. It’s a really wonderful movie that shows what it’s like to be teens at two separate yet profound times of every person’s life - 1) when they’re entering high school and getting their first taste of maturity, and 2) when they’re on the verge of leaving it and having to sort out what it means to actually be an adult. The movies ability to bounce back and forth from the perspectives of the different age groups and characters is really something to be admired and goes a long way to demonstrate the parallels, as well as distinctions, between the two times of our lives. Dazed and Confused also manages to capture that rare feeling of nostalgia that hundreds of directors have been trying to lure out in the audience for decades. 

I love Dazed and Confused. I really do think it’s a phenomenal piece of film in every aspect - cinematography, script, acting, and especially music (it actually has the best compilation of 70’s hits anyone could ever hope for), but something that really bothers me about it is that it portrays Freshman Friday as a good thing. It puts hazing in a positive light that almost makes it seem like a cool “right of passage” rather than the horror of suburban culture that it truly is. It’s actually unreal - especially for someone like me who’s seen classmates head off to the hospital with butts so raw from paddling they can’t sit down. Every time I watch the movie I feel like I’m being tricked somehow - doped or brainwashed into believing something so terrible could actually be okay. Is this a credit to the movie? Or is mistake?

What do you think of Dazed and Confused? What about hazing? Does liking this movie mean you approve of rituals like Freshman Friday? Are you cool, Man?

As Always,

Jess