Duckie Didn't Deserve Andie

Pretty in Pink as a Wake Up Call

The title might be a bit of clickbait, sorry.

Mentioning the film Pretty in Pink causes many Gen X men and women to dredge up certain specific memories. I saw it in the theater when it came out and found it to be a charming film with some odd little quirks and interesting choices. I remember thinking that Annie Potts was slumming a little and that Harry Dean Stanton never dials it in. Jon Cryer really impressed me with his energy and dedication and I liked the Duckie character a great deal while disliking the character arc very much.

Duckie, as the kid from a poor family (we assume, the only parent we really know anything about is Andie’s father), is obviously doing the best with the hand he has been dealt. He has a quick wit, is willing to defend his friends, and is willing to take some risks. But he’s also sharp-tongued, dismissive, and too cowardly when and where it counts.

The interestingly enough there are two other ‘romantic aged’ male characters in the film, not one. We have Blane and Steff. Blane is done quite well by Andrew McCarthy who is almost acting against type as being confident and successful. Steff, obviously the ‘boo, hiss’ villain of the film, was also well-acted by James Spader who was just getting his icy-smarmy villain chops going. The dynamic between Blane and Steff, two young men on the verge of true adulthood bound together by money, class, status, and school association, is a little one-note but well done.

It is obvious to the viewer that Duckie has feelings for Andie but he screws this up two ways: he never speaks or acts on it, and when Blane is dating Andie Duckie tries to interfere with his friend’s happiness out of envy. Not jealousy which is ‘being fiercely protective of what you have or are owed’, but envy, which is ‘resenting someone else’s happiness’. Jealousy can sometimes be justified, envy cannot. And Andie certainly was not Duckie’s to be jealous of! Indeed, throughout the movie the attitudes and actions of Duckie mirror what Steff is thinking and doing. Both of these young men are acting out of envy because they want Andie but can’t have her.

And now we get to the heart of the click-bait title of this little puff piece. Steff can’t have Andie because he offered to date her and she said ‘no’. Duckie can’t have her because he never even tried. In the (assumed) years Andie and Duckie have known each other he never asked her out until he does so after Blane ditches her, which Andie probably took as a pity move. Given ample opportunities on screen to simply tell her how he fells about her (and minor characters giving him more opportunities is made quite obvious) he never, ever does.

To really paint this very starkly when Duckie learns that Andie is going to date someone else Duckie flat-out tells her if she does that he won’t be there for her any more, rejecting her very directly and still not telling her why is so angry as to not want to be her friend anymore. This direct rejection s obviously quite painful to Andie and Duckie does come back later, and defends her when she isn’t around, but again his his words and actions to Andie are friendship, anger, and rejection - never romantic interest.

In the end Blane realizes he is being manipulated by an envious friend (Steff, not Duckie), rejects the manipulation, and then has the courage to apologize to Duckie and Andie, tells her it was all his fault, confesses his love, and walks off having done all of that with no expectation of her responding positively. That is a very sharp contrast with how Duckie has acted to Andie to that point and frankly paints Blane as the better man. Duckie finally encourages her, she leaves, and Andie and Blane reunite. In the meantime Duckie gets a hope spot.

When i saw the movie in person right after I was talking to a friend of mine (who, coincidentally, went on to be a movie producer) and he said the worst part of the film was the Duckie hope spot where a pretty blonde shamelessly flirts with him. To paraphrase my old pal,
“He should have just gone home alone, like the ending of The Last American Virgin”.
I agree.

I am far from the first person to point out that the script has Duckie seemingly expecting Andie to fall for him just because he secretly loves her. But what has become clearer to me over time is that Duckie isn’t just a goofy coward that misses out because he never took a chance. No, the older I get the more I see Duckie as an actual antagonist, doing to Andie what Steff was doing to Blane. I see him less as hapless and more as feckless, even malicious. In the end he redeems himself by confronting Steff as well as supporting Andie, but his arc (remember me mentioning that?) is one of near-villain.

In the end? Maybe the title of this little essay was more honest than I let on.