APRIL 11 ― Some movie genres are really just the same story told over and over and over again with only slight variations (in the details, not the plot), if the film-makers are aiming to make something slightly different, that is.

Some classic examples would be the rom-com, the slasher movie, and of course everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure ― the teen movie. It’s a testament to the magic of the movies though, that more often than you’d think, familiarity doesn’t actually breed contempt when it comes to genres like these. Especially the teen movie.

If you really think about it, there’s really only been one type of story that we’d usually associate with teen movies, which is the journey of a nerd (or geek, weirdo and now “duff”, or whatever you’d like to call it) into acceptance.

That acceptance would be either by the crowd, or slightly more profoundly, self-acceptance. You’d be hard pressed to find a teen movie where the protagonist is a nasty jock or queen bee, unless they actually have an inner geek that will slowly blossom.

The point of entry to these films, or the character that’s designed for us to identify with, is always the geek. Maybe it’s because we’re all geeks. Or maybe deep down all of us think we’re geeks, even the jocks and the queen bees.

The teen movie as we know it didn’t start that way, as the 1950s teen movies are usually angst ridden cries against the tyranny of adults or family dysfunction like Rebel Without A Cause or The Wild One and the 1960s ones are mostly rock 'n' roll musicals with the words “party” or “beach” in their titles like Beach Party, Pajama Party, Bikini Beach or Beach Blanket Bingo.

Even the 1970s ones are more or less 1950s or 1960s nostalgia focused teen flicks like American Graffiti, Grease, Rock N Roll High School and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. It’s the 1980s that really shaped the teen movie as we know it now.

Widely acknowledged teen movie maestro John Hughes churned out hit after hit of sensitive movies about outsider teens like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, laying the groundwork and pattern for future teen movies to follow.

However, it’s the melding of the John Hughes style and another crucial 1980s teen movie, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, that really shaped the dynamics of the teen movie as we know it today; blending Hughes’ sensitive treatment of geeks, nerds and outsiders (usually along the lines of the rom-com formula) with the raunchy comedy and sociological observation of the high school hierarchy of Fast Times.

This set the pace and tone for the teen movies of the 1990s and beyond.

The Last American Virgin, a remake of 1978 Israeli teen movie Lemon Popsicle, actually had this blend very early on, 1982 in fact, a few years before John Hughes even started making movies, but the fact that it wasn’t really a big hit meant that it’s at best a cult movie in terms of cultural influence.

The same can be said of Scottish film Gregory’s Girl, also from 1982, which had an even higher level of sensitivity for dorky teenagers than Hughes but was also a bit too little seen to have that much cultural influence.

However we look at it, it’s the late 1990s that most casual moviegoers will associate with the teen movie as Hollywood capitalized on the lucrative teen market and birthed favourites like Clueless, American Pie, 10 Things I Hate About You, Never Been Kissed and Can’t Hardly Wait. Even the much scorned She’s All That (ugh) was such a big hit that it still has scores of passionate fans everywhere.

Of course when a genre is as big and successful as the teen movie, there’s bound to be the anti-teen movie, like Heathers, Mean Girls, Jawbreaker, Pump Up The Volume and to a certain extent Election (though it’s more of a political satire set in a high school, and it’s really a teacher vs. student battle instead of the classic geek vs. jock student battle of teen movies).

But the fact remains that they still adhere to the rules and structure of the classic teen movie. And why shouldn’t they? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

The 2010s have also seen its fair share of good teen movies, but mostly from the independent scene instead of the big studios, like The Spectacular Now, The First Time and The Myth Of The American Sleepover.

There were even found footage teen movies like Project X and the less well known but very enjoyable The Virginity Hit, but to find the sort of classic 1980s or late 1990s style teen movie during this decade is surprisingly a bit hard.

The only good one that comes to mind is Easy A, and it’s only with the recently released The Duff that memories of that type of classic teen movie came flooding back.

Again telling the story of a geek’s journey to self acceptance, only instead of the word geek or nerd, the protagonist here is now called a “duff”, which stands for “Designated Ugly Fat Friend.”

I did not expect the movie to be this enjoyable. Its message ― you’re a weirdo, so own it ― is the same message that all the earlier teen movies have espoused all these years, but it’s a message worth reiterating, I think.

And maybe once every few years it really does need to be delivered to geeks everywhere in a good teen movie, for the benefit of the inner geek in all of us!

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.