Last summer, Megan and I hosted a teen movie marathon for FYADC Book Club wherein we sat in my sweaty sauna of a living room, drank a lot Pimms, and watched 7 teen movies back to back: Easy AShe’s the Man, Clueless10 Things I Hate About You, Drop Dead GorgeousCan’t Hardly Wait, and one other I can no longer recall. The one thing we took away from this experience, besides that a suprising number of people don’t actually like Can’t Hardly Wait, is that all teen movies are THE SAME DAMN MOVIE. 

The logical next step was clearly to come up with a universal drinking game that can be applied to most–if not all–teen movies. We got to work immediately, but our plans were derailed by my inopportune move accross the Atlantic. But now, at long last, we bring you the fruits of our labor. And naturally, those fruits are heavily fermented. Let’s get our drink on!

The Official FYA Teen Movie Drinking Game

Drink every time there is:

  • a voice-over
  • a fanciful house party
  • an incompetent school administrator
  • a teacher who clearly hates his/her job
  • a dead(beat) mom
  • a makeover montage
  • a sports/training montage
  • a shopping montage
  • a backstabbing bestie
  • a gratuitous musical performance, two drinks if it is performed by a real pop star who also has a speaking role in the film
  • an improbably choreographed dance number
  • a love triangle, two drinks if it’s a love polygon
  • scheming that has clearly not been thought through properly
  • a high school that doesn’t actually seem to have classes, ever
  • someone who is now really, really famous in a very minor role (Jason Segel, Amy Adams, etc)

Chug for the entire duration of:

  • slow motion entrances

Take a shot:

  • for inter-class hookups (jocks with nerds, etc)
  • when someone is able to force another character to do something unbelievable based on the SHEER POWER OF THEIR POPULARITY
  • when a lie or secret is revealed

Pour one out for:

  • date rape, date rape enabling, jokes about date rape

BONUS 90S EDITION!

In honor of our March Madness Final between 10 Things and Clueless (vote now! go! before it’s too late!), let’s add a bonus round for the 90s. Drink an inverse amount to popularity for every one of these actors that appears in the movie in a supporting role (also, y’all! I’ve found where Hollywood has been hiding all the non-white actors! It’s in the sidekick parts!):

One Drink:

Two Drinks:

Finish Your Drink:

Basically, if you’re watching Can’t Hardly Wait, you’re fucked.

Alix is a writer and illustrator who spends way too much time reading Jane Austen retellings of varying quality.