Alright, alright, alright: An ode to 'Dazed and Confused'

I don’t have many all-time favorites.

I don’t have an absolute favorite song (“Everlong” comes to mind, though), food or meal (a falafel sandwich and tray of fries from Oasis comes very close), place, album (Communicate by Sasha and John Digweed may be a sliver away), book, memory, or experience. I don’t even have a favorite color. I like many things and have groups of favorites, but I usually don’t prefer one thing head and shoulders above the rest. I’m too much of a Libra in that sense (or simply indecisive).

However, autumn is my favorite season, October is my favorite month, and Dazed and Confused is my favorite movie.

Dazed and Confused turns 25 this year—this week to be exact. Per Wikipedia, the film was released on September 24, 1993. In honor of this silver anniversary, I thought I would write this nonpoetic ode to a movie that has slowly but surely become my favorite.

Dazed and Confused follows a motley cast of teenage characters throughout the last day of school in a Texas town in 1976. (Austin is never specifically mentioned, but the movie was filmed there and the city’s iconic moonlight towers make an appearance.) The teens endure the formality of final classes, engage in ritual hazing, play, tease, imbibe, fight, argue, and take part in all types of hijinks that only careless teens can. It’s simple, linear, relatable, fun, and has an amazing soundtrack. (I heard “Free Ride” by The Edgar Winter Group while closing my car windows Monday night. It’s featured in the movie and reminded me to finish this post.)

Though it is my favorite movie, I try not to watch it too much. Too much of a good thing is never good. I watch it only once a year, usually around Memorial Day weekend, the traditional beginning of summer break in the U.S. and, I assume, the time the film takes place. However, my good intentions are always spoiled whenever I find it on TV. It always sucks me in. I’m a sucker for coming-of-age movies.

I’m also a sucker for all things seventies. I can’t vouch for its authenticity, but it looks and feels kosher. It’s not kitsch or corny. Does it go over the top in its portrayal of wild seventies teens? Of course it does. What movie about teenagers does not embellish? Nothing is ever as great as movies make them, but I want to believe that the seventies were that fun and cool—at least for the kids who were not as socially awkward as I was as a teenager. I want to believe Dazed and Confused is the real deal.

Speaking of awkward, even though Dazed and Confused is a fun movie, it’s not completely a feel-good flick. It’s a collection of connected stories and experiences many can relate to, both good and bad. Rites of passage can be painful and embarrassing. Dazed and Confused shows the depressingly cyclical nature of high school and, maybe, life in general; the young admire and emulate their elders, following in their footsteps, however poorly taken. The movie provides a roller coaster of emotions that play out over the course of a single day, which is one of the reasons why I love it.

Dazed and Confused is more anthropology than drama or story, another reason it appeals to me. It has a plot, and one could argue it has a dramatic arc that focuses on the kegger at the moontower (multiple, actually), but it does not feel structured and there is no overarching conflict other than having as much fun as possible—and avoiding paddlings. (Each character has his/her own conflict.) It follows the natural course of the day, which makes the storyline subtle, the narrative so much more realistic and organic. Everything is connected and there is clear cause and effect, but it is so simple that it doesn’t feel like the movie is anything other than a vapid chronicle of events on the last day of school. I love that. It’s the type of stuff I want to write.

Dazed and Confused is one of the movies that survived my DVD purge earlier this year, obviously. I did not get a chance to watch it over Memorial Day weekend and likely have not seen it all year, so given the film’s anniversary this week, I think it’s high time to make a bowl a popcorn and enjoy another viewing of my favorite movie.