American Teen: Fuck Jake Tusing

There is a rule which states that Mikey is always wrong about everything, ever. The corollary to this rule is that, usually, Mikey is correct. So when Mikey said that American Teen was a shitty, anger inducing movie I expected American teen to be an awesome movie. Unfortunately, due to the corollary to the rule, American Teen was not awesome.

The primary question to ask after watching this movie is what THE FUCK is wrong with that Tusing kid? The pimple-faced nerdy guy has three attractive women thrown at him (not to mention the lap dances in Mexico) and he fucks up the relationship every god damned time! Nerdy Freshman girl? He ignores her. Nerdy hot girl at semi-formal? He refuses to dance with her. Busty girl he has flown in to the prom? Who the fuck knows how he screwed that up. Yet inevitably the nerdy sympathetic character becomes the least sympathetic of the lot.

Tusing acts as a microcosm of the problem with American Teen: THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL CONTRIVED FUCKS! The Tusing kid loses women because he ignores them. The hot popular girl creates her own problems. The insane outsider girl's problems all only ever exist in her own head. And the popular male jock? He was the only sympathetic character as a result of his dad (go, basketball, go) being the cause of all his problems. All of the conflict in the movie occurs as a result of horrible people doing horrible things. Usually? To their selves.

The entire narrative of American Teen drips of narcissism and unbelieveability caked in a tapestry of unconcerned self-loathing and self-love. These characters (they truly cease to be human beings after the first ten minutes) simply waft about doing horrible things to one another without any provocation.

What the fuck happened to Erica, the girl who sent out the topless picture of herself in the first act? Everyone in the school shares her topless picture and then the movie continues on without resolution? When outsider girl was dumped at the beginning she couldn't go to school for weeks. Then when popular jock dumps her in a text she continues on as if nothing happened? And is it just me or is Ally one of satan's evil temptress minions cloaked in giggles and cleavage whose primary fixation is upon manipulating the lives of those around her as she attempts to steal the spotlight?

American Teen was a horrible movie whose primary failure is its own source material. It bypasses an exploration of the trials of adolescence by fixating on the particular pitfalls of the lives of its simply malevolent characters. These are not good people. These are not interesting people. Rather than providing an interesting narrative concerning adolescence American Teen provides the audience with an hour and a half long train wreck propelled by the perpetual doltish ineptitude of its shithead cast.

Go Tigers