4 Straight-Up Lies Movies Tell Teens About High School

I feel like I can very objectively say that nothing he's doing is cool, despite the fact that he is portrayed as Bacchus, god of wine, revelry, and late '90s fashion trends.

You can see the same transformation on a smaller scale in Paper Towns, when geeky Ben gets drunk and ends up doing a keg stand while a bunch of jocks cheer him on. He then makes a giant sword out of beer cans and knights his friend.

20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox“Holy shit, alcohol is awesome! I should drink it every day for the rest of my life!”

Absolutely no one gives him an atomic wedgie for this, despite that being the scientifically accurate way to end the scene. Movies haven't exactly figured out that you don't get to be prom king after ten seconds of light intoxicated interaction with the football team.

In 10 Things I Hate About You, America's cool older sister Julia Stiles gets drunk and dances on a table. It's admittedly a pretty damn cool dance, but everyone is supposed to hate and fear her, and they're suddenly just like "Sure, I'll move my beer so you can cha-cha slide or whatever." Alcohol can do some magical things for people, but it's not popularity juice.

Touchstone PicturesPoor Heath Ledger's nervously eyeing for an exit into a less cliched scene.

Although they go by the name The Electrocutes in Drive Me Crazy. Keep that in mind the next time you attend a trivia night hosted by Melissa Joan Hart.

And it's not just school dances that go whole hog and pay for live music in teen movies. Matt Damon gives the least-convincing lip-syncing performance I've ever seen as the frontman of a fictional punk band that plays at a house party in the beginning of the movie Eurotrip.

Which calls into question: What house parties are these screenwriters going to? And what transcendent bands are they seeing there? Whenever I go, it's just a dude with a guitar secretly hoping that people will sing along when he starts to play "Wagon Wheel."

Even the Yule Ball in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire has a full band, and that universe has magic and shit! They could just magic all the instruments to play, but nope, Harry Potter needs to have his Obligatory Teen Movie Moment, so Hogwarts went out of its way to find a hip band that just plays songs about what it's like to go to fucking Hogwarts.

They cut the scene in which Ron gets wasted on butterbeer and lip syncs "Fuck Tha Police."

In the end of Fast Time At Ridgemont High, the history teacher shows up at Sean Penn's house to angrily force knowledge down his throat right before a school dance. Let me think of all the times a teacher has shown up at my house when I was in school. This may come as a shock to you, but never. Not once. No teacher, no matter how ceaselessly inspirational they were, has ever gone to my house unannounced to ensure that I was schooling harder. I don't mean to diss the education system, but I don't think most teachers are that dedicated.

Universal Pictures

Universal PicturesEven people who are paid millions of dollars avoid hanging out with Sean Penn unless absolutely required to.

It's what we want -- justice for all the times those popular assholes were popular assholes at us. The thing is, sometimes popular people kind of rule at life. Popularity is often shorthand for "people skills," and that often stems from being aggressive and/or physically attractive, all of which is really, really beneficial in the adult world.

We mentioned Mike Dexter up there. He was a jerk in Can't Hardly Wait, but he was also good enough at football to get a scholarship to college. Communities tend to have a long memory when it comes to people who were good at sports. In my hometown, football players are the closest things to local celebrities we have. Mike would have to screw up pretty badly to not be able to land a cushy job at a local car dealership there, even if he dropped out of college. So what did Mike do?

Columbia Pictures

Columbia PicturesI need a Can’t Hardly Wait 2, in which we see ... the murders.

The Mikes of the real world will learn to tie a tie, play golf, and get good jobs from their frat alumni, working overtime to figure out how to keep their sexual harassment away from witnesses. And while he's interviewing you for a job years later, you'll look at his gold watch and think, Damn, this could have been me, if only I'd drank more in high school.

If you're the type of person who enjoys reliving your glory days on video, try it with a sick projector set from DB Power.

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For more, check out 5 Horrible Life Lessons Learned from Teen Movies and 6 Ways Society Is Designed To Screw Teenagers Every Day.

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