Dazed and Confused

For those of you out there who adore this film, here are some tidbits I noticed after I re-watched it recently. Would love your thoughts.

In no particular order:

• If you watch the scene early in the film when Kaye, Jodi and Shavonne leave the classroom to go to the bathroom and talk more about Gilligan's Island - as they're leaving the classroom, Jodi tells Pink to let their teacher know where they are. A) Just Jodi's concern around telling the teacher where they are tells you she's basically a good kid. But, ALSO B) as she's leaving the classroom she rubs her hand across Pink's shoulder in a very intimate way that tells you there's something between them. It's very quick, but I really noticed it this time around, so subtle, but a foreshadowing to their short make-out session in the woods. And the fact that she will only let him go so far before bringing up his sort-of girlfriend Simone makes me think hmmm...I could see Pink ending things with Simone to be with Jodi his senior year, she's his actual equal. There's also this interesting parallel between how cool she is to Sabrina (despite the hazing) and how cool Pink is to her little brother Mitch. Off the record, I think Jodi's going to be dude's first love.

• It isn't just McConnaughey's acting that makes Wooderson this weird amalgam of cool dude and lecherous small-town loser. It's the way some of the scenes play out in the script. When Clint shits all over his car Melba Toast in front of the Emporium, Wooderson just laughs. For the rest of the male characters Clint's diss could have meant a fight, but Wooderson just laughs. He's just not a belligerent dude. He's also really quick to jump in at the beer bust and help bail Mike out of a serious ass-kicking. This and his L I V I N speech kind of set you up to think, shit, maybe a cute nerd girl like Cynthia makes sense for him. It's wild to contemplate what their first date will be like, but overall Linklater's kindhearted fingerprints are all over these Wooderson subtleties. I might even bet that Linklater had a thought that Wooderson will end up in Junior College at some point after all.

• Did you notice at the very end of the movie, Pink gives his car keys to Shavonne, not Don (who's just said he's tired). It's almost like Pink is saying two things by this gesture. 1) Shavonne should drive 'cause Don's too tired and he wants them to be safe and 2) He's teasing Don by issuing trust over his car to Shavonne and not him. It's another one of these quick little scenes that has so much more in it than you realize. All these little interactions between friends feels so true to life, it's absolutely wild.

• Another little thing I noticed. Linklater captures this little nuance of ingrained sexism. At the beginning of the movie, when Pickford and Michelle run into Slater at the water fountain and he and Pickford do their little handshake thing, Slater doesn't even say hi to Michelle or acknowledge her. Even when he talks about hitting Pickford's house later to score weed, he doesn't say shit to her, even though if you think about it, she's as big of a stoner as he is and probably has a hand in making their weed connections happen. I was an 80s kid, but I ran with a bunch of Deadheads in high school and the dynamic was really similar. A lot of my buddies rarely acknowledged girls in purely social situations, only when they were trying to get laid. Of course we can tell, Slater has no real sexual experience, which Don kind of teases him about with the "Catch Ya Laterrr..." stuff in the car.

• Does it ever strike you as strange that in the film we never see any of the seniors who are about to graduate (except O'Bannion)? Wouldn't they be at the beer bust? In the car, Slater talks about the older Senior girls as if they're already gone. Nothing about the graduating seniors at the beer bust either, no mention of a grad party (what, Pickford was the only guy in town throwing a party that night?). Where are the about-to-graduate seniors?

• Last thing - when the football guys are sitting in the back of the pickup and Mel hands the crumpled drug pledge back to Pink and says "do it for us", Benny gets pissed and says "he ain't doin' shit, man!" I always wondered if this was a character continuity glitch, 'cause Benny is clearly upset in other scenes that Pink doesn't want to sign the pledge. It's weird. I also wondered if Benny just didn't want a black guy stepping to Pink so directly like that. Given deleted scenes of Benny being racist about Asian people, it might track. The other thing I like about this little scene though is how Pink nips the animosity in the bud by making a joke - "Is there any other ways you guys have decided how I should live" or something to that effect. It serves to distract and lighten the mood and makes sense to me that Pink has the observational ability to quell conflict before it gets heated.

To this day, I just think Dazed and Confused is so much more than meets the eye and is one of the most subtle masterpieces in American cinema, while being fun as fuck the entire time. Anyway, let me know your thoughts, cheersI

I got into a debate with a friend, he said the film is portraying him as a cool guy, and I’m like no that guys a total loser he’s like 22 hanging out with high schoolers.