10 Movies Today's Teens 'Need' Less Than Love, Simon

Love, Simon is an upcoming teen rom-com, in the vein of classic John Hughes movies, that sees release this weekend. The difference is that this film centers on a homosexual character going through high school life, rather than a heterosexual one.

All around, the film has been receiving glowing reviews. Critics and audiences alike who have attended screenings seem to be loving the film and everything it has to say. But, of course, not everyone is so positive.

The multiplex has been overflowing as of late with important films. From Black Panther to A Wrinkle In Time to Love, Simon, there seems to be more representation than ever before in our films, which is a genuinely great thing. And it is also completely acceptable to not love these films. Critics and audiences don't have to be over-the-moon about A Wrinkle In Time, a film is still a film and to judge these important films by any other standard is to short them of equal treatment.

But this is a bit further than that. In their review of Love, Simon, TIME magazine asked allowed if it was really a film that teenagers 'need', strongly insinuating that they don't. Which is a dangerous mentality to have about diverse films, as if because Black Panther was so great we don't ever need another film like it.

So in honor of that incredibly stupid review, here are all the teen-oriented films from the last year that teens definitely did not 'need'.

A teen-centered blockbuster reboot that attempts to broach the life of the modern teenager with care and fragility but instead manages to fumble and become pretty insulting to anyone with a brain.

The Yellow Ranger is changed to an LGBT character, which is great, but the film does absolutely nothing with it. It boils down to her simply saying she's been having 'girlfriend problems' which feels like a strangely shoe-horned moment. Don't try to take the credit for 'breaking new ground' unless you're actually going to break new ground with your choices.

Where the film becomes really problematic is in its portrayal of the Pink Ranger's issues. In attempting to address the topic of cyberbullying, the film gives her a revenge porn-centric storyline, in which her dark past includes her having to overcome the trauma of sharing explicit pictures of one of her friends, without her consent, around the whole school.

What?

And we're still supposed to be rooting for this character? She's absolutely in the wrong here, in every way, and yet we're supposed to care about how this awful deed traumatized her? Its a gross manipulation of something the filmmakers thought was a buzz-worthy teen topic, without even putting a second thought into how to handle it carefully.