Someone on Reddit asked fellow film-lovers to share the movie moments they "wildly misunderstood" while watching as a kid. Some of these responses are making me question everything, and others are making me laugh out loud.
To set the vibe, my answer for this is the moment in Hairspray (2007) when Corny Collins (played by James Marsden) asks Brenda how long she'll be taking "a leave of absence" from the show. She replies, "Just nine months," which prompts an awkward pause...It wasn't until I was a few years older that I realized what the inference was, LOL.
So, get ready to take a trip down memory lane...
Note: Some of the text has been edited for clarity and length.
1. "I was 11 when Dumb & Dumber came out, and I completely missed that there was a kidnapping plot happening in the background. I thought Mary really did just forget the briefcase because she was distracted by Lloyd crashing the limo. The goons who were after it, I figured, were just like, really determined robbers after a big score. When the case is revealed to be full of money, I just thought rich people carried around stacks of cash like that."
2. "The abortion plot in Dirty Dancing went right over my head. I understood that Penny was pregnant and even knew how she got pregnant, but abortion was not on my radar at that point in my childhood."
3. "In Dirty Dancing, I didn't understand Penny being 'in trouble,' and thought her dad was too uptight as a child. I watched it with my husband a few years ago, who had never seen it. He said, 'I'd be mad too. He took his teen daughter on vacation, and she slept with an old grifter who was caught up in a botched abortion scandal!'"
4. "I was a kid when Ratatouille came out, and I thought Chef Gusteau died because it was the cultural norm for the French to kill the head chef if their restaurant lost a Michelin star."
5. "For the longest time, I thought the blind kid in Dumb & Dumber's name was Billy Enforcie. Subtitles later revealed he's Billy...in apartment 4C."
6. "Rizzo’s pregnancy scare in Grease. I thought skipping a period meant she was skipping class and didn’t understand why it seemed like such a big deal!"
7. "I saw parts of Thelma & Louise way too young, and I assumed their car was flying off magically, like in Grease. I watched it once as an adult, and when they were nearing the end, I was like, 'Why are they so sad? The magic kicks in soon.' Took me a while to realize it was not a magical movie."
8. "In the Incredibles, it completely flew over my head as a kid that Mrs. Incredible thought Mr. Incredible was having an extramarital affair with Mirage, and that's what several scenes implied. I just assumed she was only upset about him lying about what job he had, not the fact that he was also possibly cheating on her, which turns out to be false. Violet's comment about their parents risking 'their marriage' especially escaped me at such a young age."
9. "When I saw The Empire Strikes Back on video, my dad covered my eyes when Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off. Months later, when I saw Return of the Jedi, the part where Luke cuts off Darth Vader's hand and then looks down at his own hand, I thought the force had transformed Luke’s hand when he cut off his dad's hand."
10. "Raiders of the Lost Ark. All the biblical references went over my head. I just nodded my head, yadda yadda, ancient chest that shoots lasers. Got it."
11. "I first saw Casablanca when I was 16. The historical backdrop, the dynamic between the Nazis and the refugees, and the plot with the letters of transit all flew over my head."
12. "I didn't really understand what the sperm opening scene was in Look Who's Talking. Like, I think I knew he was being created, but I don't think I understood it was sperm cells racing towards an egg...Just realized now there was an ovulation scene too lol."
13. "Last Action Hero. Thought it was just another Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie as a kid, and as an adult, I realize it’s a satire of action movies."
14. "Didn’t realize Forrest Gump had a mental disability. I just thought he overcame a childhood illness by running and went on to do a lot of things with a can-do attitude. When he asked Jenny if the kid was like him, I just thought he meant does the kid 'like' him, and she says no, and I’m like, 'Harsh, but yeah, they’ve never met…'"
15. "When I watched Austin Powers as a kid, I had no idea it was making fun of all those James Bond type movies."
16. "Pirates of the Caribbean. Could not follow the plot at all and was just going purely off vibes. Decades later, I catch it on TV and wow. The cursed gold, why Will matters, the entire ending, just question marks until recently."
17. "As a Spanish-speaking kid, I thought R2-D2 in Star Wars was called Arturito."
18. "I was well into the movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story before I realized the movie itself, like his songs, is a parody of biopics. No, I was not a kid."
19. "When I first saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I didn't know/understand who Hitler was. I mean, I knew the Nazis were the bad guys in the movie, obviously, but I didn't know anything about the historical backdrop. When Hitler autographs Henry Jones Sr's diary, I just thought it was some random guy giving him the OK to keep his book, like checking his passport. Really, I didn't know much about that stuff until high school, other than Nazis = bad, and I mostly knew that from Indiana Jones. So yeah, had no idea how truly villainous the Nazis were while enjoying Indiana Jones."
20. "In Raiders of the Lost Ark, I understood the bad guys were Nazis, but didn’t understand what nazis actually were until I was older and then realized, 'Holy shit! Those are Nazis!'"
21. "When I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley for the first time, I missed all of the gay stuff. Watched it again when I was a bit older, I was like, Oh."
22. "When I was a kid, I loved Monsters Inc., but for some reason, it never hit me that Mr. Waternoose was a villain until the second grade. I knew he got arrested at the end, but it didn't fully process that he was doing something evil."
23. "The Goonies, I missed so many jokes when I was a kid. One-eyed Willie’s treasure lol."
24. "Pretty Woman. I was young and didn't know about sex workers. 'Mom, why are they so mean to her?' 'They don't like poor people.'"
25. "I thought Ghost was a supernatural action film instead of a romantic film. I just ignored all the romantic parts because they didn't interest me at all, and I focused on Patrick Swayze learning how to move stuff with his mind so he can get revenge on the guys that killed him."
26. "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. When the feds all show up in white hazmat suits, I thought the main hazmat guy was Elliot's father coming back after he had been gone for a while."
27. "American Pie. I barely understood the pie scene, much less the 'alphabet with your tongue' scene."
28. "I think we all can agree that all of us misunderstood The Karate Kid until Barney Stinson explained what it really was about."
29. "Lilo & Stitch. You watch as a kid and think, 'funny little demon.' You watch as an adult, and your heart just sinks for the sister."
30. "I thought the reason why Jack was cuffed to the pipe in Titanic was that he was the poorest person on the ship."
31. "The first time I saw The Matrix as a young kid, I only caught bits and pieces of the beginning. I thought for some reason the whole thing took place in a toilet. Like anytime they were in their ship, they were miniaturized, going through the pipes from a toilet. Absolutely no clue why I specifically thought they were toilet pipes. I remember when I actually sat down to watch the whole thing at another time, I was very confused about what younger me thought I was witnessing, lol."
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