What I Did For Lloyd

WaPo ^ | Feb 14. | Hank Stuever

[Mr. Blonde]

Two Valentine's Days ago, in the Style section, it was discussed at great length why women still think about Jake Ryan -- the cool-mannered, Porsche-driving, completely fictional hunk from the 1984 teen flick "Sixteen Candles." Then came the e-mail. Women (and some men) wrote in for months, mostly affirming this fantasy. One dreamer in Dallas talked about the lady down the street with toddler sons named Jake and Ryan. There was much linking and blogging. Even now, once in a while, Google will lead the Jakelorn our way. A New York documentary filmmaker came by last summer and set up lights and rearranged furniture and interviewed me -- she was making an entire movie about Jake Ryan.

"But what about," she finally asked, "Lloyd Dobler?"

Because, it turns out, for every one woman with a residual Jake Ryan thing there are maybe 100 with a persistent Lloyd Dobler fetish. Those women wrote in, too, extolling the character played by John Cusack in the 1989 movie "Say Anything": "How oblivious can you be," went a typical harangue. "Jake is plastic. Lloyd Dobler is God."

[Mr. Blonde]

Don't want to register for it? You can go to IMDB and they have a link to the whole article at the bottom of the page.

I confess I like this movie and most Cameron Crowe movies.