I liked John Hughes’s movies; love Ferris Bueller and the Breakfast Club, as well as 16 Candles. My wife looked like Molly Ringwald way back in the 80s….

I also like Ben Stein, though as insightful as he sometimes can be, he can also be analytically shallow. Curiously, this quality comes through in a tribute/obituary about John Hughes’s death:  The American Spectator : John Hughes, RIP.

Stein makes a big deal about the fact that, apparently, Hughes was a Republican. According to Stein, this is partly what made his vision of the lives of upper-middle class white teens interesting. Hmmm… That’s all you got? There was no cinematic vision, clever replaying of classic American myths, or interesting writing of characters?  All you got is that Hughes was a Republican … how utterly shallow.

You’d think a more fitting tribute would have been something about the movies themselves or Hughes’s vision. Simply to turn him into a caricature of an optimistic Republican seems insulting to me, but then I wasn’t his friend.

And, by the way Ben, where has all that Republican optimism gone, where has that celebration of the individual gone?