RE:View – The Last American Virgin
The Seventies were horrible in every way imaginable. From the musical incompetence of Wall of Sound to the solipsistic non-philosophy of Easy Rider, to your older sister’s boyfriend’s creepy-ass custom van with the shag carpeting that smelled…funny. There was nothing that wasn’t vomitable. Even the clothing and food were wrong. Polyester ravaged the land for an entire decade, (Hell, your Dad’s leisure suit was packed with the stuff). As for the kitchen it was ruled by Ronco garbage that made everyday tasks slightly worse. Even your Mom’s orange Pyrex bowl seemed somehow off.
All of Generation X said, “Okay we’ll be over here until this Seventies thing finished.”
It’s 1982 now and it is over with. The Boomers are no longer in charge of kid’s tastes. The President of the United States is no longer a sad laughable embarrassment and third-world kleptocrats can no longer flip America the bird unless they want a broken finger. Self-righteous hippies have turned into self-loathing yuppies and Alex P. Keaton is their son. Orange is the new “banished as a color.” The Wall of Sound has been shattered by an MTV that does NOT suck. And Ayn Rand is being openly discussed on campuses as a non-insane figure.
Girls are thin and wear jeans that let boys know it.
Imagine that for a few tragic seconds. American girls who aren’t sluts going out of their way to make themselves attractive for boys. (sigh)
It took her three hours to get those on, so appreciate it
And a generation that hasn’t even taken figured out what to name itself, is starting to make it’s tastes felt in the newly arisen video rental stores.
Turns out Generation X, loved beeewbs. I mean really loved beeewbs. This relationship between the Gen X male and the pre-silicone mammary gland would be something special. We were the last generation of normal teenage men.
It started with a somewhat underrated 1950s coming-of-age comedy called Porky’s. Believe it or not, the first one was kind of, sort of, just a little bit… well… good… In two spots anyway. B Movie moguls shrugged at this sudden change in the market. Stopped making cheap slasher pics and started making unfunny comedies with girls’ locker room scenes.
There followed a completely and utterly forgettable string of dull, boring, ridiculous…I dunno “comedies” I suppose you’d have to call them.
I’d give you a list of them, but I won’t. Not worth my time or yours. These movies were basically porn without the porn. But they could be rented from Papa Kostopoulos’s Authentic Greek Gyros and Video Rental shack without having to walk through the Curtain of Shame, to where the actual porn was located.
Average audience viewing time, (not including fast forwarding), 11 minutes.
However, there was one movie that while pretty average, was also quite a bit above average. The Last American Virgin had a few things going for it that most of those teenage titty flicks did not.
A good soundtrack and brutal honesty.
We will start with the best thing in the movie and that’s the soundtrack. The producers reserved enough of their budget for their music catalog, that they were able to buy up the best stuff that was available. At that point in history, music producers were way behind the power curve on the videotape market, so a good catalog didn’t cost the Earth.
And what an Eighties playlist it was:
The Police
Oingo Boingo
Devo
U2
Journey
The Commodores
Blondie
KC and the Sunshine Band (Okay we are dipping into the Seventies here, I admit it.)
The Cars
The Human League
And of course the cri de coeur of the American Gamma Male: James Ingram’s, Just Once.
All in one pretty cheap movie. Let’s take a look at it.
Meet Gary
His best friend Rick
And the love of Gary’s sad little life; Karen.
By 1980, male virginity had gone from something you could openly admit to with society’s approval to something you kept to your damn self and never admitted to under any circumstances.
Gary was a known virgin, who delivered pizzas in a pink station wagon. Gary’s best friend Rick, (one of natures’ Alphas,) wanted to help relieve his friend of this crippling social disease. The virginity you understand, there was nothing could do about the station wagon. And mind you, Rick wasn’t trying all that hard.
Rick’s plan was to throw Gary “grenades” while he screwed the “grenades” much better-looking friends. This plan actually worked… For Rick. Gary on the other hand was still unknown to womankind, when Karen, the new girl arrived at school. Karen was also a virgin. Gary instantly contracted oneitis for her.
Honestly, his attempts to break the ice with are sad and cringe. The first time he is trying to talk with her, he orders the same flavor of ice cream she does. I remember it was some chick flavor. And it was like watching a guy in bar order a “Sex on the Beach” because the girl he is about to fail to pick up just ordered it too.
Anyway, Gary’s best friend Rick also fell in (not exactly) love with Karen. He had designs on her virginity. They weren’t complicated and they didn’t need to be. Karen had clearly felt the bad boy Alpha vibe the moment she met Rick.
A little later Gary has the opportunity to give Karen a ride to school in his pink station wagon. They talk for a bit. They connect a little and he thinks he finally has an in with Karen. It’s incredibly sad to watch. He’s the loneliest guy on Earth and the girl he has decided to fall in love with is just being friendly with him. He is so cut off from girls that genuinely platonic friendship is drastically misread as genuine sexual interest.
Shortly after that his best friend Rick pops Karen’s cherry with her most very, extremely happy, and quite willing to do it, consent.
On the night of her defloration. Gary keeps staring at Karen and Rick, at a pool party they are all at. Clearly agonizing over the fact that this terrific girl, the love of his young life. Is throwing herself at a slob, who only wants to pop her and drop her.
Of course, Gary falls in the pool.
Rick did not however remember the Golden Rule of Virgin Girls. Which is, “always wear protection because she isn’t on the pill and she probably gave it up at the peak of her fertility cycle.”
Which Karen had.
When informed of his impending fatherhood. Rick, being one of nature’s Alphas, tells Karen, ‘sucks to be you, I guess’. And dumps her on the spot. 1982 was a world without genetic testing.
Karen is now a desperate girl without resources. Where will she turn? Her orbiter of course.
Gary helps Karen get a an abortion without her parents finding out. Pays for it out of his pizza money. He nurses her back to health in secret. He listens to her stories of emotional loss and suffering and nods a lot.
Well it’s movie law at this point, isn’t it? Clearly, Karen has learned her horrible lesson. It was a devastating thing to have to go through but today it’s over with. She can now face life as a strong and confident young woman, who has found a young man of true quality, character, and devotion who will always be at her side. According to this same law, the only thing left at this point is for Gary to present Karen with an engagement ring and for Karen to relieve Gary of his much-despised virginity right before the credits roll. Oh, and she is supposed to kick Rick in the balls too.
And doesn’t.
Gary knows these rules and couldn’t be happier about them. His first time won’t be with some fat “grenade” that Rick tossed his way. No, it will be with his one true (only slightly soiled) love. He has bought her a ring.
Let’s see how this works out, in a truly great cinematic Red Pill Moment
That scene redeemed this whole cheap movie. It was so raw and so real. There is no winning a girl who is a 9 when you’re a 5. It doesn’t matter how deeply your heartfelt confession of true love is. The world doesn’t work like that. This was the only film in the 1980s that would admit it.
That was the end of the movie. Our hero breaks down in tears. Credits roll. The Fucking End.
Gary never knew Karen. Not really, he could never bring himself to think about how she thinks about him. A love object might be more noble than a sex object but she is still just an object. Rick knew Karen, and to him, she was just a Sleeper, not a Keeper. He’d be happy to start banging her again (with protection from now on), at least until it was time to go to college but he didn’t have any of the delusions about her the way that Gary did. More importantly, Rick has looked after his friend. If Karen had ended up with Gary she would have always known she’d settled and it would wear on her and their relationship until she either started cheating with another “Rick” or just divorced him taking the house, the kids, and his paycheck. Rick knew Karen and he knew she wasn’t for Gary.
No, I can’t recommend this movie but that last scene has a staggering honesty to it. It almost makes up for all the of the rest of the garbage that Canon Films created.
But not quite.
