"One time early in my career, I got into a fight with a New York writer, this real skinny cat, a real sidewinder. He said, 'I'll tell you a secret, Prince. Writers write for other writers, and a lot of time it's more fun to be nasty.'" --Prince, in Rolling Stone, 1985That quote has always stuck with me for some reason. I don't think it's true all the time and I don't think it applies to all writers. At least I hope not. But I see examples of it often enough to remind me that it's not invalid. I don't know how else to explain this...
Filmmaker John Hughes, the man responsible for "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" among many, many others died yesterday at the age of 59. If you were an angst-ridden teenager (as if there's any other kind) in the '80s, he was your Walt Disney.
Under the incredibly insensitive headline "John Hughes is dead. Get used to it, Gen-Whiners", St. Pete Times film critic Steve Persall chose Hughes's death as the appropriate occasion to denounce him, his work and the people who enjoyed it as irrelevant and obsolete, because apparently "Ferris Bueller" made his previous career as a high school teacher difficult.
Click here to read the whole thing and the irate feedback it inspired.
Granted, as a filmmaker, Holmes wasn't Spielberg (I mean, "Weird Science"?), but cripes, he was a human being and he just died! I would think Persall could have simply said "I didn't care for his work." But what fun would that be?
Once again, I just do not understand some things.
UPDATE: Read this for further illustration and counterpoint.
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