I always thought the John Huges flicks were a tad too sophisticated to really represent anything I went through; houses the size of City Hall, Ferrari driving rich kids, money never an issue, allegedly weird kids who were also poor because they're parent/s were divirced and/or drunks (not just because their parents didn't make as much money)...etc, etc. Molly Ringwald's character in Breakfast Club was such a pathetic brat, but her turn as the "different" poor girl with big dreams and a broken home was so stereotypical, as if rich people had to assume that poor people musta really fucked up somewhere along the road to be poor.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High was fun, a tad underacted, which in hindsight, means its not as embarrissing to watch as an adult like the Porky's movies, which was fun when I was a teen, but in hindsight, they really sucked. In the first movie, Porky (the stripclub owner) calls the main characters, "a buncha rich Angel Beach pussies"; it was a true assessment of those characters, and yet it seemed that these assholes were the blueprint for success in the '80s...go figure. Fast Times took on some serious subject matter without being overly preachy about it, which means it may come across as too sanitary by todays standards, but it was for younger audiences, not jaded adults.

Dazed & Confused is the only movie I've ever seen that related to anything I experienced as a kid (yes, that kinda hazing went on in my school), but like all movies, was a tad over-the-top. But like that little Texas town, my experiences growing up in a small southern town in Tennessee were similar in that it seemed some guys could do anything and as long as they had the right last name, every adult within eyesight would just look the other direction. But it also showed the resiliency of those put-upon kids, who somehow managed to find meaning and happiness with what they had, but also the drive to change their lot in life.

I think the key to a movie like Fast Times or Dazed & Confused was that it was an ensemble cast, with multiple side stories. No, these stories never really get fleshed out or explored to the Nth degree, but it makes for a fast paced movie. (Since a lot of screenplay writers suck at what they do anyway, an entire movie revolving around teen pregnancy/abortion would be awkward and clumsy, not to mention rife with bad anecdote on top of bad advise). Maybe one could say some teen movies are bad at character development, but the best of them really aren't character explorations anyway, they're merely observations.

The prototypical teen movie, American Graffitti, really tapped this method of movie making, which sets out to capture a place and/or time, rather than focus on any particular story. Not to say you can paste together a bunch of uninteresting stroies together and call it a movie, because there are a lot of variables that have to mesh. But what you usually have with some of the more memorable teen movies, is decent acting, decent stories, evocative soundtracks, and great editing. These movies are always greater than the sum of any one character or stories, though the movie itself can become iconic. Maybe Fast Times wasn't intentionally nostalgic the way Graffitti or Dazed was, but over the course of time, it has become a sort of snapshot to a bigone day, thus invoking nostalgia for some. Surely, something must be said for not delving to deeply into these kids' psyche, because these movies play out like real life in that manner - how deeply did we know our class mates? We knew snippets of their lives when ever they interacted with us and the best of the teen flicks present their characters in much the same way.

Porky's makes the same mistake the TV show Happy Days made - it was supposed to be a period piece, a paper-thin excuse for a nostalgic look at the early '60s which was mainly personallity driven with poorly conceived characters, contrived stories, no attention to detail and no real sense for the period. These movies always seem to have some shark-jumping prank right in the beginning too. Unfortunately, this became a blueprint for a slew of dumb, forgetable movies. The Hollywood Knights is another excuse for a nostalgia movie which, like Porky's, was just a vehicle for vulgar prank after vulgar prank. And like Porky's, they try to mix in a serious subplot involving one of the characters going off to Vietnam - with Porky's it was racial/cultural prejudice. Unfortunately, its the premise of both movies that while you can spend an entire movie exposing your private parts for a laugh, people will care what you think with regards to social/political matters.

In short - the best teen movies capture a feeling of nostalgia for a place in time and not so much the stories or characters themselves...and you can count those movies on one hand.