Online Response #1

Mindy Nelsen

TMA 689

Online Response #1

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Let’s start with a qualifier here…I may be drawn and quartered for saying so, but teen film and cult classics have never really held and interest for me.  I made it through half of Dumb and Dumber, before giving up because I couldn’t handle any more dumb.  Equally, I remember seeing the VHS of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure at my friend’s house in 1992 – when I was 11 years old.  Her brother laughed continuously and I was at a loss for why something so seemingly idiotic held any appeal.  I remember her dad – a lawyer who I thought to be extremely intelligent – chuckling from time to time as we all sat around the TV in her living room. How little I knew then.

Upon this recent viewing, I found Bill and Ted’s to be delightful and informative; in both its accuracies and blatant misrepresentation of accepted historical fact.  Of the many theories that could be applied to this film artifact, a feminist reading, post-colonialism and reader response are of particular interest. 

If Feminist Theory is specifically occupied with exposing masculinist stereotypes, distortions and omissions found in male dominated literature, then surely the unconcealed representations of the feminine in this film (written by two men and directed by a man) deserves some time.  Of particular interest was Bill’s step-mother Missy.  A clichéd young girl, she is merely an object of sexual desire for her older husband and younger son (suffering from a self-diagnosed Oedipal Complex).  She clearly can’t cook and burns grilled cheese, but has a burning desire to be called mom and fulfill her pre-destined role.  Embracing the gum chewing, magazine reading vision of valley girl, she spares no thought on understanding why Bill does what he does.  Further examples of the overt marginalization of the female are found in the poster of the sexual icon hanging near Bill’s bed of Marilyn Monroe, as well as the damsel-in-distress characteristics of the “babes”/princesses who are going to be married to horrible old men, and need help to escape.  They are liberated, first by a man from the future and then from their constraining clothes thanks to the female quintessential “mall and credit card combination”!  Further examples can be found in the maids in the kitchen who run at the first sign of danger and need the male to protect them and even in our protagonists teaching Joan of Arc what it is to be female, who in the film was made to be an aerobics instructor and wash dishes for the teen-age boys. 

Although Post-colonial Studies most often inspects the third world vs. the colonizer, its concept of not understanding and creating imposed meaning of and for “the other” and creating a damaging stereotype through text and media certainly qualifies in our examination of this film.   First, it is important to note that Bill and Ted’s understanding of history and important historical figures is dependent on commercialism and commoditization.  They compare the areas they visit to the Hall of the Presidents at Disneyland as well as the wild west to Frontierland.  Perhaps it’s a depiction on the failing educational system and the lack of reaching marginalized, non-mainstream students – or perhaps it’s just a commonality that the audience can draw upon.  But the creators of the film chose that particular imagery as in intellectual comparison to historical locations.  Language is also imposed on the characters from the past.  There was certainly an interesting difference with the modern teenage vernacular and the historical references throughout.  Moreover, the historical and future figures adapt to Bill and Ted’s phraseology. 

Additionally we have the emergence of a variety stereotypes, Western (Billy the kid), Asian (Genghis Khan), even artsy (Beethoven).  All the foreigners tend to come off as strange and simple.  Even Socrates is depicted as old and slow, believing a quote from a soap opera “As sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives” to be the epitome of thought and reason.  Although the most damaging stereotype is likely found in the depiction of Napoleon, who is seen as a proud, angry, self-consumed, Frenchman.  He is treated like a dog and told to sit and stay, he has tantrums, eats too much, is selfish with ice cream and his own updated version of “Waterloo”.  With no attempt to understand “the other”, these characters are grabbed from their element and expected to survive in this new colonized world.  In post-colonialism, much of supposed history comes down to national flows of commodities, money, information, technology and people.  Equally in this film, we see that the “great historical figures” find solace in this new world in and through the mall and playing with new toys.  And the great men and woman of history become silly typecasts of an empirical, westernized view of the world, proclaiming itself to be far superior to the land from whence they came. 

In the piece, Socrates expresses that the “Only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is most certainly an exploration in knowing everything and knowing nothing.  Reader Response infers that meaning is found in the moment; in the audience response and reception to the text.  Certainly each of our views of this film were different.  Some might have chosen to see a circular paradox wherein what they need to achieve their goals can’t be attained without help.  In order to “make it”, the boys need Van Halen to play with them, but they can’t get him without a great video, and they can’t make a good video without knowing how to play, and they can’t learn how to play without great instruments, which they can only get if they have Van Halen.   Further examples of the cyclical nature the reader might respond to is found with Bill and Ted encounter of themselves at the beginning and near the end of their journey.  They choose to trust themselves stating, “we told ourselves to listen to our selves, why would we lie to ourselves?”  Meaning was created in our recent viewing by our reactions to comedic elements, our response to sensitive moments wherein the protagonists deal with their parental problems or they reflect on the fact that nothing is different.  Or the truth that time doesn’t stop, and the clock from home is always running. 

I think it’s refreshing and sometimes a bit difficult to be taken out of your element and be encouraged to examine something you previously thought not worth a second look.  If we surmise that a “fact of the past becomes historical fact when it is chosen by the historian to construct historical analysis.” (E. H. Carr), then we need to accept our obligation as students to look at and examine our response to those “historical facts”.  Perhaps it’s the middle class, white, prissy girl in me that needed some appreciate of “the other”.  As much as I want to believe that I have an open mind, the truth is that I have an open mind when I want it to be open.  It’s something to definitely rectify as I pursue this degree.   The financial success of this film alone warrants attention, as well as the apparent success of its progeny – two sequels with a fourth in the works, a stand-up act where the characters discussed current events without knowing what they were really talking about, theme park rides, town celebrations, and even a breakfast cereal.  It becomes evident that this particular artifact reflects something that speaks to the populace that is deeper than the chuckles of a teenage boy and his lawyer father in a living room in 1992.  More than a simple cult-classic, it really did demonstrate in a small way an expose on family life, the outreach lacking in formal education, a skewed view of the role of women, the over-abundance of stereotypes, and the commoditization of every aspect of our lives.