Mallrats
Superhero Anatomy! Fortune Telling! Bunny Bashing! And More!
Mallrats is a picture of adolescence in the 90’s. A simpler era, when teenagers actually hung out in person while wondering aimlessly in the mall or grabbed a 40 oz and caught a movie. A time when a road trip to a Gainesville house party or an Orlando theme park could be a step into the great unknown. A time where it was perfectly acceptable to live in your mom’s basement and play video games all night, when instead of text messages we hand wrote each other letters worthy of framing. Yes we may have been too embarrassed to introduce each other to our parents, sometimes for good reason, but there were no shortage of characters and caricatures on our weekend expeditions — some that didn’t say much, some that smoked two in the morning and two at night, some were comic book fans, some were swimmers, some doing their own research into the rules of dating, some who you knew without asking were into the blues, and some who could stare at a picture for an entire hour and still not see the hidden reflection (hint: it’s a picture of a schooner stuck on a reef, the sailor waiting for the tide to get low).
The casting has held up surprisingly well, some here that have gone on to great things. The skate punk Jason Lee has more than enough street cred to pull off the role of a know-it-all comic book nerd late night front man. Shannon Doherty may not always know what is good for her, but a timely elevator pitch could pull her in the right direction assuming it’s not too little too late. Jason’s friend and his girl are also in the movie. There’s a pair of super heroes, one with an appetite like Bob Marley and a mouth like a motor bike and the other the quiet type, although I’m not sure which is the hero and which is the side-kick. There’s even a fat Ben Affleck, taking some time off from hunting oscars to slum it as the bad fish for this motley crew.
The mall of the 90’s was a special place, where movie theaters, retail stores, food courts, and autonomous cookie stand eateries were the setting for often inebriated teenagers to wax intellectual about superman and the paradox of the kryptonite condom, which DJ’s needed lessons, or some bad dream about the girl you love hooking up with another man in the back of a Volkswagen. It is unfortunate that the current trend towards online commerce is picking up pace in decimation of these same social environments, with expected US retail store closings this year higher than any we’ve seen since 2008 and only the top tier malls (rule of thumb: those with an Apple Store tenant) still thriving. Where are the teenagers left to loiter now? Many have turned to the online Babylonian rivers of their social media feed to find their fellow misfits. Yes the number of interactions are much greater, but I think also more shallow. Staring at your phone all night can make you feel alone.
The friendships on display in this 90’s mall are deeper than what we now encounter online. Through the art of conversation, even though mostly about trivialities, or more importantly simple time in each other’s presence there arises a camaraderie that perhaps would feel foreign to the adolescents of today. Just through the experience of sometimes random encounters and dialogue, the characters get to know each other as they really are. This is the kind of learning not taught in online schools, but they know because they are as one. These misfits and stoners and their petty debates and gossip become a force capable of overcoming insurmountable odds and even facing down the law. And what drives this rebellion? The simple need to remind a woman of what she had given up.
The wisdom of a fortune teller is worth chewing on here. These poor saps with love lost on their own were struggling, the solution was to combine their efforts. Enlist the support of these rag tag bunch of outcasts and work together. I was always taught that boy meets girl, falls in love gets married and forgets the world. But real life isn’t that neat. There are struggles and there are misfortunes and life gets in the way. Sometimes the girl you always wanted ends up with another guy. Sometimes it takes you years to figure out what you have to do. Sometimes you just have to have faith, that if you fight for what’s worth having your day will come, that someday you will be the only one.
Books that were referenced here or otherwise inspired this post:
40 Oz. to Freedom — Sublime
Mallrats (Blueray)
The Amazing Spider-Man — Stan Lee
There’s Something About Mary (Blueray)
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