There was a time, not too long ago, when conservative pundits liked to argue that family-friendly movies were, from the point of view of the major Hollywood studios, a safer financial bet. Restricted movies played to narrower, restricted audiences, while G-rated movies were free to play to as wide an audience as the market could al low. A number of hugely successful films in the early 1990s—such as Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin—seemed to prove their point.

But there were voices of caution, too. In 1992, Universal Studios chairman Tom Pollock told Premiere magazine that the movie industry was reaping the benefits of a "baby boomlet," a natural result of the fact that many baby boomers now had children of their own. Pollock noted further that these children wouldn't stay young forever: "They're about to come into their teens, so we're going to be having a whole raft of coming-of-age movies again. Everybody's going to lose their virginity again."1

That raft is upon us now. Teen ensemble films are fairly cheap to make, and studios can usually count on at least getting their money back; in some cases, they can reap substantial profits. Clueless and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet were decent-sized hits, but they didn't prepare Hollywood for the success of Scream, a postmodern high-school slasher flick that opened three years ago and, to everyone's surprise, quietly amassed a domestic box-office gross of just over $100 million.

Sexuality played a significant role in Scream's deconstruction of the horror genre. As Randy (Jamie Kennedy), the film's resident movie geek, explains, there's a "sin factor" at work in the slasher flicks of old. "Sex equals death," he says, and only virgins are capable of defeating the villain. Meanwhile, Sidney (Neve Campbell), the film's heroine, has sex for the first time with her boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich), only to discover immediately afterward that he is one of two unidentified killers who have been terrorizing the town; it turns out Billy was also the one who killed Sidney's mother a year before because she had slept with Billy's father and broken up his parents' marriage. Despite all this, Sidney defeats Billy and his partner in the end, and kills them both. if Scream does not entirely do away with the "sin factor," it clearly suggests that "the rules" can be broken, or rewritten.

But what happens when all the rules have been deconstructed? Just compare certain key scenes in Cruel Intentions, the fourth film adapted from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel, Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, with their equivalents in perhaps the best-known film version of this story, Dangerous Liaisons (1988). In both versions, Valmont (Ryan Philippe in 1999, John Malkovich in 1988) seduces a virgin (Selma Blair in 1999, Uma Thurman in 1988) in revenge against her mother, who has been spreading basically accurate rumors about Valmont's reputation as a lady-killer. The scene in which Valmont coerces the girl into giving him a kiss in the 1988 film is deeply unsettling; the scene in which Valmont propositions the girl in the 1999 film is played for laughs. In fact, his seduction has the effect of not only fulfilling her sexual curiosity but, in a sense, of empowering her.

The Valmont of Cruel Intentions pursues yet another virgin: Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), the daughter of the new headmaster at the local prep school and the author of a teen-magazine article entitled "Why I Plan to Wait." The equivalent character in the 1988 film is Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), a married woman noted for her piety; in that story, Valmont wants his victim to believe in God and yet betray that belief at the same time. He lures her into adultery by convincing her that, if she were to betray all the virtues she holds most dear, she could save his soul. (The irony is, she seems to do just that.) But the Valmont of Cruel Intentions just wants the sex. Moreover, Annette's reasons for celibacy have no solid foundation, religious or otherwise; asked for an explanation, she replies, "It's just my belief that people shouldn't experience the act of love until they are in love." When Annette finally gives in to Valmont, it's because she does, in fact, love him; Madame de Tourvel's betrayal and sacrifice have been completely written out of her character.

Cruel Intentions is only one of the many "teensploitation" flicks that have come out in the three years since Scream. The most successful, by far, is American Pie, a raunchy R-rated comedy about four teenage boys who make a pact to lose their virginity by prom night. (The film cost $11 million to produce and, as I write this, has just passed the $100 million mark at the box office.) Due to its frank treatment of sexuality and its gross-out humor—including a notorious scene in which the sexually curious Jim (Jason Biggs) deflowers the titular deep-dish pastry—the film has, predictably, attracted the condemnation of moral conservatives. In return, the filmmakers, predictably, have replied that American Pie is simply an honest presentation of teen life.

The truth is somewhere between. There is nothing inherently wrong with masturbation itself, and teenagers exploring their newfound sexuality are bound to do stupid, embarrassing things.2 Scenes such as the one in which Jim's father (Eugene Levy) catches him with the pie give teens an opportunity to laugh both with and at the main character: they laugh with him because they can identify with him to some degree and, thus, laugh at themselves and put their own foibles in some perspective; they laugh at him because most of them have never done anything quite so desperate. There, but for the grace of God, go they.

In a way, one of the film's main points is that teens make too big a deal out of sex. Eventually, even Jim gets tired of the pressure to "become a man," declaring, "I've never even had sex, and already I can't stand it." But here, typically, the film hedges its bets; once the main characters realize there's more to life than getting laid, events conspire to get them all in bed on prom night anyway. When Jim wakes up to discover that his partner has left him, he is shocked at first. "I was used!" he cries. Then, a smile comes to his face. "Cool!"

For all the talk of "realism" and "honesty," American Pie and other teensploitation films are paying little attention to the fact that many teens are, in fact, choosing to wait. And despite the increasingly high-profile presence of Christian clubs and Bible-study groups on high-school campuses, most teen flicks have ignored the religious element within their own demographic. (Indeed, according to Rolling Stone magazine, three of the lead actors in American Pie are, in real life, believing, abstinent Christians!) The actors and directors who create these films make much of the idea that their characters serve as role models for real-life teens; perhaps some day they could include a character who chooses not to have sex and, for once, sticks to that choice.

Peter T. Chattaway writes about movies for a number of publications in Canada and the United States.

1. Quoted in William D. Romanowski, Pop Culture Wars (InterVarsity, 1996), p. 293.

2. Even James Dobson makes the point, in Preparing for Adolescence (Bantam, 1980, pp. 63–64), that the Bible is silent on the subject of masturbation and, thus, it "is not much of an issue with God" and teens "should not struggle with guilt over it."

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