For the most part, the nineties teen movie has its own unique set of cliches, tropes and genre pre-requisites. All of them follow the same basic structure, have similar approaches to casting, and feature the same bands all things that you'll only find in nineties teen movies. Totally idiosyncratic. Except there's one thing, a vital element of the genre, which it pinched from a totally different kind of film. Ultimately, the message of any teen movie will be that you should just be yourself. Whether that's realising that forcing makeovers of the sort in Clueless don't help anyone or the ending of The Breakfast Club, it's a theme that's been carried through all eras of teen movie. It really came to a head in the nineties, though. That's when you get Heath Ledger's rousing speech to Joseph Gordon Levitt in 10 Things I Hate About You, convincing him that the best way to get a girlfriend is to be confident in himself. She's All That ends with Rachael Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr realising they're attracted to each other just as they are, without the need for any changes in each other's personalities or dress sense. It's the same message that you get in every Disney film since time immemroial: people should love you for who you are, and you should never change for anyone. Because you're special and brilliant! Well hopefully this doesn't apply to you, readers, but not everyone should stay exactly who they are and expect love from it. Some people are arseholes. Those ones should definitely change everything about themselves before anything good happens to them.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
