john hughes jr

From Ferris Bueller on, John Hughes hero is someone just like me.

Matthew Broderick (r.), Mia Sara and Alan Ruck in a scene from the 1986 film "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off."

Teens find a way to connect, no matter what the current technology is, but being a high schooler in the mid-'80s meant knowing almost everyone your age went to John Hughes movies. It didn't matter what crowd you hung with, whether you lived in a city or a suburb, or what music you listened to. The films transcended that.

Stereotypes existed, but were there to be knocked down. The movies were often filmed in and around Chicago, where he lived, helping separate them from the cookie-cutter Hollywood world of "Revenge of the Nerds" or "Secret Admirer."Teen comedies came of age during that decade, and Hughes, who died Thursday at 59, made sure as writer-director of "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and as writer-producer of "Pretty in Pink" and "Some Kind of Wonderful," that the teenage experience was portrayed humanely, even when he was poking fun at it.

For guys, it meant you might see an idealized version of yourself on screen - even if you were really some kind of combination of jock, nerd and burnout.He knew dorks got crushes on the girls who befriended them. He knew what songs you'd put on your personal soundtrack. He knew sadness hurt, happiness was memorable and that there were two kinds of class, neither of them easy to deal with.Hughes wasn't a filmmaker of subtlety, but he respected his audience and knew their rhythms. He knew that the male fantasy of being king for a day involved a gorgeous girlfriend, a loyal pal and a borrowed car.

And he knew how to pick actors who walked a line between reality and parody. Molly Ringwald was Hughes' muse, but Anthony Michael Hall was his go-to geek in "National Lampoon's Vacation" (which he wrote), "Sixteen Candles," "Breakfast Club" and "Weird Science."Matthew Broderick might as well change his name to Ferris Bueller, and Andrew McCarthy and Ringwald felt so tied to "Pretty in Pink," they made the grownup romance "Fresh Horses" two years later mainly to counter the earlier film. In "Pink," Jon Cryer was the first memorable hipster, and James Spader played his first slimeball. Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson were never better than in "Breakfast Club."

Hughes made other contributions to '80s comedy, especially "Mr. Mom" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," and his script for 1990's "Home Alone" began two decades of easy money. But when Hughes was in his mid-30s, his creative adolescence came precisely at the time when the movies needed what he brought to the dance. For most young Americans, it was nice to know you weren't going by yourself.